Producing too much milk

Hey ladies, I’m currently going through the painful engorgement stage and my boobs are constantly leaking and so painful! I’m currently pumping about every 3 hours for about 20 minutes as my baby is struggling to latch and has a tongue tie, is this too much? Midwife didn’t really give me much advice and recommended pumping after a warm shower which I do but after 3 hours they are so hard and painful. The last pump I did I produced 260ml. I’m now 16 days pp and I thought it would have eased by now so please give me any tips if you’ve been through similar. Thank you 🤍
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Have u tried lansinoh hot/cold relief? I used one of them on my breast whilst baby fed to relive engorgement

No I’ve never heard of them, thank you ordered some!

I had an oversupply and the lactation team suggested timing it exactly as you are but alternating breasts with each pumping session to reduce over supply gradually. If you’re regularly getting around 260ml, this should in theory give you 130ml each session which is about right for babies needs at 16 days pp. They also suggested hand expression for engorgement instead of pumping to prevent encouraging even more milk production, so you could add in hand expression to the other breast each pumping session, but they said only just enough to release the pressure. Paracetamol also helped me, and they said it’s safe to use while I reduced the engorgement. Hope you feel better soon

That’s really helpful, thank you @Alex 🤍

If you are only pumping and not feeding from the breast it's recommended to pump at least 8 times in a 24 hr period at this stage so every 3 hours would sound right and not too often. Your baby would be feeding at least this much from the breast. Some people do produce more milk, but also at this early stage your supply is still regulating, your supply will adjust to the demand and this will mean less engorgement and leaking but it can take up to around 6 weeks for your supply to regulate.

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