Do you make more breastmilk than your baby can handle? You might have an oversupply! I had an oversupply of breastmilk with two of my three babies, and as wonderful as some people might think that sounds – it’s not. Let’s go over what an oversupply actually is, some reasons you could have an oversupply, the negatives of having an oversupply, and what I personally did to get my oversupply under control.
Once I got my oversupply under control I finally didn’t have to pump at night anymore, my breasts stopped leaking, and I wasn’t drowning my baby with each letdown. Breastfeeding finally felt “normal” and natural once I fixed my oversupply.
What is an Oversupply?
An oversupply means that your body is producing more milk than your baby actually needs. This is especially true if you’ve made it past the first six weeks of breastfeeding and still make more milk than your baby needs. Six weeks is roughly how long it takes for a woman’s milk supply to regulate itself.
If you’re on social media at all you may have noticed a new trend of women documenting how much they pump during a pumping session or in one day. A lot of these videos show women pumping massive amounts of milk.
Let’s be clear – pumping ten ounces in one session is NOT normal, and most of these women are not disclosing that they HAVE an oversupply. I feel bad for the women in the comments that are jealous because they want to be able to nurse + pump so that they can build a freezer stash. You can still build a freezer stash with a normal milk supply! That’s another post for another day.
WHY Do I Have an Oversupply?
If you know you have an oversupply you might be wondering why!? There are actually many reasons you might have an oversupply.
I had an oversupply with my second and third babies. My second baby was born with HLHS and stayed in our children’s hospital for 103 days. With how often he was intubated I was forced to exclusively pump.
I was caught off guard when I developed an oversupply of milk – because of stress. I was so worried that the stress of our situation would cause my milk to not come in or for me to produce very little, but it was the exact opposite.
Other reasons that you might be overproducing breastmilk:
- Stimulating the breast too much
- A lot of women who have to go back to work understandably want a freezer stash, or some women just want a freezer stash as backup in case they go out without their baby. Any reason is a valid reason, but the act of pumping on top of nursing can be overstimulating and cause your body to produce too much milk.
- Overstimulating can also come from feeding on a set schedule rather than following your baby’s hunger cues.
- Genetics/structure of your nipples
- Hormones
- The hormone called prolactin is responsible for milk production. If your prolactin levels are high your body will produce more milk. Naturally, your prolactin levels are higher in the early morning and lower in the late afternoon/evening.
- Herbal supplements
- Some women worry about their milk production so much that they automatically start taking various different herbal supplements to boost their supply. A lot of times this just isn’t necessary and actually leads to an oversupply. It’s better to wait and see if your baby is actually getting enough before trying to force your body to produce more.
The Negatives of an Oversupply
I remember in the first few weeks of pumping for my second baby in the CVICU, I would have to stop and switch out my bottles because they would overflow. I would easily pump twelve ounces total in one pumping session and sometimes more. I could collect anywhere from 50 to 60 ounces in one day.
I collected so much milk that the hospital told me I couldn’t keep anymore on site because they were out of room, so we had to buy a deep freezer just for my breastmilk.
For the moms that want to build a freezer stash, I know some will read this and think, “Who cares? You have a huge freezer stash!”.
While this is true, it was a ridiculous amount. By ridiculous, I mean more than I could have ever dreamed of needing. Especially when I had a sick baby who was feeding through an NG tube. He was only getting MLs at a time, just a teeny tiny fraction of one pump session.
I didn’t keep track, but in the short three months he survived, I pumped thousands upon thousands of ounces.
The couple thousand that was left at the hospital when he passed I donated to the NICU and CVICU. The vast majority of the few thousand I had at home was donated to our local milk bank. I did keep a few hundred ounces back that I’m still using to this day.
On top of just downright too much milk to know what to do with, other negatives of having an oversupply are:
- Leaky breasts
- Overactive letdown
- If not emptying breasts frequently enough it could lead to clogs or mastitis
If I wasn’t pumping right at every three hours, my breasts would immediately become engorged and hard as rocks. It was a lot to deal with given the situation I was in.
What I Did to Overcome My Oversupply
Like I mentioned earlier, it takes about six weeks for your supply to regulate and establish itself. After six weeks, what you thought might have been an oversupply could level out and be okay. For some though, you keep producing more than your baby needs.
You might be okay with your oversupply! If it just means one or two extra pumping sessions a day for you and you’re able to stash that away that’s great.
Some women might want their supply to slow down though like I did. Even while slowing down my oversupply, I still had 400oz of breastmilk in my freezer for when I returned to work. So, you can still create a freezer stash without an oversupply!
The following are different tactics I used to manage my oversupply. I wouldn’t have been able to confidently implement these different strategies without the reassurance of a certified lactation consultant.
If you want confirmation that you are going about things the right way, schedule an appointment. I saw a lactation consultant with all three of my babies and they were lifesavers!!
BLOCK FEEDING
I had actually loosely implemented block feeding on my own before seeing a lactation consultant for the first time with my third baby, I just didn’t know that’s what it was called.
Block feeding means that you only feed on one side during each nursing session. You do not offer the other breast to your baby. You also typically wait every three hours to feed.
You might be thinking, “But if I have an oversupply and I don’t empty my other breast, won’t my other breast hurt and get clogs?”.
This is a very rational thought, and the answer to this is a hand pump. The point of the hand pump is to alleviate any discomfort by only pumping off enough on the other side to get rid of that discomfort. You will not empty the other breast with your hand pump. If you get too uncomfortable before it’s time to nurse on that side again, then simply use your hand pump again just to ease the discomfort.
Many women nurse on demand and let their babies comfort nurse, which is an amazing thing we get to do with breastfeeding! Unfortunately, with an oversupply, this could cause overstimulation, which is why you wait every three hours to feed.
A lot of times an oversupply can cause an overactive letdown or a very forceful letdown. That overactive letdown can cause lactose overload in your baby.
When nursing your baby you provide them two types of milk – foremilk and hindmilk. Foremilk is what your baby gets first and is more watery and has more lactose in it. Hindmilk is what your baby gets at the end or second half of a feed and is the fatty milk that has more lactase in it.
The lactase in the fatty milk helps break down the lactose from the foremilk. With an overactive letdown and an oversupply, your baby might get too full too fast and be done feeding before they can get enough fatty milk. They are then left with an overload of lactose and insufficient lactase to break it down. This leads to gas and discomfort.
Before I understood what lactose overload was, I was comfort nursing my baby. While I would still only offer one breast at a time (because I noticed every time I offered the second breast my baby would throw up), I was definitely feeding him more frequently than every three hours.
He would calm down enough while I nursed him that I thought I was doing the right thing, but then I was still left with a fussy, gassy, cranky baby. Once I understood what was happening because of lactose overload it made perfect sense.
The hard part of switching to nursing every three hours is the first few days when your baby will still continue to be fussy and cranky during those hours. If you used to comfort nurse you will wish you could just pop them on to soothe them but you can’t.
It DOES get better though. Once you quit drowning them in lactose their tummy aches should start to subside and you should notice an improvement in their temperament within a week.
If your baby wasn’t a paci baby in the beginning, you will want to find a paci that they like because it can save you during those three hours when you shouldn’t nurse them. My son really took to these pacifiers.
As always, if you want to make sure you are implementing things correctly set up an appointment with a lactation consultant! I had a lactation consultant come to my home with my third baby and I loved it.
PUMPED SPARINGLY
The second thing I implemented was pumping sparingly. When I first came home with my third baby I really wasn’t focused on getting a freezer stash started at all. I knew I wanted one, but I wasn’t pumping extra on top of nursing with the intention of creating a storage of milk. I wanted to make sure both baby and I had gotten the hang of nursing before trying to also worry about a freezer stash.
What I WAS doing though, was setting an alarm usually around 2 or 3 am to pump. My baby was usually sound asleep at that time, and with an oversupply, I would be very uncomfortable and thought I needed to “protect” my supply.
Remember what I said about prolactin earlier? It’s the hormone in charge of milk production. Guess when your prolactin levels are at their highest? Between 2 and 5 am. Since I was pumping during a timeframe when my prolactin levels were at their highest, I was teaching my body to keep producing even more milk.
So I dropped that pump session. If I woke up uncomfortable I would just use my hand pump to pump off just enough to ease my discomfort. Since I had met with a lactation consultant and done a couple of weighted feeds by that point, I knew my baby could go the six hours without nursing that he was in the groove of doing. My body adjusted and I eventually wasn’t over engorged or super uncomfortable if I naturally woke at that time.
I also never pumped right after a nursing session. A lot of women who are trying to build a freezer stash will pump right after a nursing session, but the way my lactation consultant described it was it’s almost like telling your body you have twins and you need more milk. You just nursed one baby, and then the pump was like popping a second baby on to feed.
The exception here would be if your baby was done nursing and you still felt full. Then you could take your regular pump or your hand pump and completely empty the side that the baby just ate on. You are still not pumping the other side! Only a few sprays with the hand pump if needed.
Essentially, pumping on top of nursing is an easy way to overstimulate the breast. When the breast is overstimulated the body creates an oversupply. Just be mindful of how much you are stimulating the breast and don’t overdo it.
How Long It Took My Body to Adjust
Everybody is different, but for me, my supply adjusted after about three months. A lot of moms I’ve talked to or moms I’ve seen post on different forums I’ve read say that’s about how long their supply took to regulate as well.
Remember, every woman’s body will take some time to adjust, but after about six weeks, if you are still producing more milk than your baby needs, you could probably be labeled an oversupplier.
After my supply adjusted I was able to stop block feeding. Since I also had an overactive letdown, I always had to use my hand pump before my baby would latch to pump off my initial letdown so my baby wouldn’t choke. Once that started taking longer and longer to actually happen with the hand pump and the force behind it lessened, I could latch my baby without having to use the hand pump first (which was such a relief).
It took a few weeks after that for me to notice that my baby just didn’t seem satisfied after a feed anymore. After a day or two of thinking he didn’t seem satisfied, I started trying to introduce the second breast when he was done on the first. When he went a couple of days without spitting up after eating off the second breast I knew my supply had finally regulated itself and I wasn’t in oversupply mode anymore. It was a very natural progression and easy for my instincts to kick in and adjust what I was doing if I needed to.
At the time of this post, we are almost 13 months into our breastfeeding journey and I am so proud of both my son and myself for sticking it out and making it through the difficult days!
What else have you heard of to fix an oversupply? Let me know in the comments!