I had read online that colostrum may kick in the last weeks of the third trimester, but it didn't happen for me. Well, guess it'll start coming right after I deliver, right? Wrong. After I was induced at 40 weeks and delivered, I had no breastmilk for the baby. No amount of nipple or boob massaging while I was still in the hospital stimulated any milk production. The nurses could only shrug and reassure me it'll come soon. They taught me how to massage my boob and get into the right position for a good latch. I'd dutifully let my newborn latch me for 15 mins per boob in the hospital, but it did feel quite silly letting her suck when no milk was coming out. I felt bad that she was doing all that work for nothing! After 30 mins of trying, I'd buzz the nurse and request for formula to feed the baby. (We did cup feeding in the first two weeks, that deserves another post of its own haha).
After we got home from the hospital, we continued cup feeding the baby formula because I still had no milk. I was stressed out and upset by it, which only served to exacerbate my baby blues. (Read my post about baby blues here). In those days, I still continued massaging and letting my baby do some non-nutritive latching. And finally on day 5, a trickle of colostrum came! I collected those precious drops with a syringe and fed them to the baby whenever I collected a syringeful.
Some things you can try out (which I did) to help establish your milk supply in those early days:
1. Keep massaging those boobies and nipples at regular intervals throughout the day.
2. Let the baby do non-nutritive sucking.
3. Include galactogogues in your diet. I took fenugreek supplements and had overnight oats with flaxseed mill soaked in almond milk (with banana and peanut butter mixed in for flavour lol) for breakfast. My helper made me snakehead fish with green papaya soup (it's a traditional Chinese thing). I have my doubts about the effectiveness of lactation bakes, but a colleague sent some to me and I enjoyed eating them!
4. Drink lots of water and get enough rest.
In total, it took me a total of 2 weeks to produce sufficient quantity of milk for the baby. Up until then, we had been getting by on a mixed regimen of breastmilk and formula, with more of the latter. If you are one of those mummies who had breastmilk since day 1, good on you! But if your milk hasn't come yet, don't be disheartened! It took me 5 days to even start producing colostrum.
It took me 2 weeks to produce this much milk from one boob!
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