How-To BOOST Your Milk Supply! Breastfeeding Education | Sarah Lavonne

Hey everyone, I'm Sarah LaVaughn and welcome back to my YouTube channel. I am back to continue our breastfeeding journey together and talk tips to increasing your milk supply. Milk supply is a constant concern I hear from you guys because of course you want to make enough milk for your baby and then also at the same time you probably want to have the freedom to give a few bottles here and there. So let's make sure that you've set yourself up to maximize your milk production. Make sure you hit the subscribe button and that bell so that you never miss a future video. Give it a like or share this video in your breastfeeding groups or with a friend and then let's get started. Concerns about milk supply is actually the number one reason why women stop breastfeeding. That's also why my very first video dedicated to breastfeeding is how to know if your baby's getting enough. So if you haven't seen that video already guys, this is going to build off of that and I remind you all the breastfeeding videos that are coming very soon will build together but please watch that one first because you've got to just relax. That's a piece related to your milk supply anyway. Concerns about milk supply is super common and there are women that do have issues with their milk supply and so I'm going to give you some things to consider. I'm going to tell you some ways and kind of talk through how the body creates milk and how to set yourself up to make the most amount of milk possible, hopefully not having an oversupply from it, but I want you to feel comfortable with how much milk you're creating so that you're not stressed about it and you can just breastfeed your little hearts out and feed your little perfect little bundle birth baby and make sure that they have enough milk. Okay, so let's go back to how your body creates milk. The body creates milk through supply and demand. Hear me again, supply and demand. What that means is you have to tell the body to create the milk in order for your body to know to create it. So really the number one way to increase your milk supply is increase the frequency of your feeds. You should be pumping or feeding at least 8 to 12 times a day. If you aren't doing that, you probably don't have enough milk because you're just not telling the body to do it. So if you increase the number of feeds, let's say you're doing 10 feeds, make it 11. Just shorten the interval between or throw in a pump session. Whether it's pumping or the baby actually on the breast, it doesn't really make a difference but we have to tell the body to make more milk. There's also, I have an Instagram post that talks about increasing your milk supply and it's called power pumping, that there is a way that you can increase the number of feeds by doing what's called a power pumping session where you actually dedicate, I think it ends up being like two hours of a day, to really stimulating your milk supply and telling your body like, hey, you've got to feed more than one baby here, we've got to work on our milk supply. And if you do that consistently for a couple of days, you are going to see an increase in your milk supply. And so moral of the story, foundation is you've got to be feeding regularly. Now this tags on to supplementation. So if you're supplementing formula, that probably is your issue. Okay? That I know that you want to have that extra milk in store so that you can go out for date night or you can go to the gym or something. But really that milk supply issue comes from supplementing a lot of times because what's happening is your body or your baby takes this much milk and if you're only breastfeeding this much and supplementing with a little bit here, your body's only going to make this much milk. So you really have to tell the body, this is how much milk my baby needs and is eating. So supplementation might be partially an issue. Now if you need to supplement, there's nothing wrong with supplementing, but are you supplementing because you're just stressed even though you have all the signs that the baby's getting enough or is that like absolutely necessary? Now if it's absolutely necessary, then I would throw in and make sure you're doing an extra pump session, maybe even two a day. So the other kind of tip to increasing your milk supply and stimulating the breast is if you also don't want to throw in a pump session or an extra feed, feed your baby both sides, burp, burp, give your body like a second to breathe, put the baby down to sleep and then come back and do five minutes on the pump, okay? Five minutes, you're relaxed, you're letting it go, you can do some massage on the breast to help get that hind milk out because the breast milk, like there's foremilk and there's hind milk and you want to really get through the foremilk to the hind milk. They have different nutrition densities, different situations going on and so we want to help to get that extra milk out. There's always, well I say always, but like there's usually extra milk left in there and so even if you're pumping but you're not getting anything, you're stimulating the breast to say make more next time, okay? So that could be adding an extra feed, that could be doing five minutes of pumping after you fed after each meal for your baby or that could be adding a pumping session one a day, you could do a power pumping thing. I will link my Instagram down below so you can go over there and find that little graphic thing. Whatever that is, you're stimulating the breast. Understand that is foundation. Now along with stimulating the breast, you do want to make sure that you don't have a latch issue. By latch, I mean that's how the baby attaches to the breast. If the baby isn't attaching or latching to the breast, well, because maybe they were premature or maybe they have like an oral motor issue, like if your baby was born with a cleft lip, cleft palate, you know, or especially when they're born premature or even around the 37-week mark, their like oral motor skills, like their sucking ability isn't quite as strong as it will be when they become more mature or they get older, okay? The other thing that comes up all the time is a tongue tie or a lip tie and a tongue tie, I can do a dedicated video to that so if you want that, just throw it in the comment box down below. If you look at this little thing under my tongue, it's called the lingual frenulum. And so it's right in there and what would happen is if that connected towards the top of the tongue or the front of the tongue, it is going to, I don't have to talk like that, it is going to prevent the baby from really getting up under, I wish I could suck on this but I am definitely not going to suck on this breast for you. But what they need to do is on the breast, they need to like, they need to scoop and spread their lips wide so they're flared like a fish rather than like a fish like this. That's a poor latch, okay? You want to, taking in all of the breast, all of the areola, all of the nipple for sure so that they're actually stimulating to push out where the milk exists. The milk doesn't sit in the nipple area, okay? It sits actually behind that and so the nipple and the areola is like the gateway to get it out and so you want baby taking in as much of the breast as possible. You want to look for their lips to literally be out like this, okay? Especially that bottom lip, if that bottom lip isn't out, you can reach in and just pull it down because then they're going to get that deeper latch and that actually removes the milk. Because if you have a milk supply issue and maybe it's because you aren't stimulating the breast enough or maybe it's because baby's on the breast but their latch isn't good enough to really be able to remove the milk well enough. Now, this gets into like the fact that you're probably going to need some help but I want you to have the foundational knowledge and understanding of why there might be something going on. You're not diagnosing this yourself. You're talking to your pediatrician although your pediatricians are not breastfeeding experts. Your breastfeeding experts are going to be an expert like a lactation consultant and so they're going to be the ones that can really help you with this. But just know that you want those lips flared. You don't want sucking noises, okay? You want them actually squeezing the breast and smooshing it out and you want to feel your breast empty and that goes back to that first video, okay? So it's either you're not doing it enough or it could be the actual issue with the baby latching on the breast therefore not removing enough milk. Another question I would have for you is are you taking any medications? Are you smoking? Both of those can influence your milk supply. Smoking especially. If you're smoking, you need to stop smoking just for your own health but also for your milk supply. That could be contributing to your milk supply. But certain medications can actually affect your milk supply. The other thing is essential oils. I think we forget that essential oils do have therapeutic benefit but they also have potentially therapeutic non-benefit or whatever you call that like peppermint in particular is one that comes to mind that can decrease your milk supply, okay? So think about are you on any kind of medications that you would want to talk to your doctor before you go off. Any medications you want to make sure you're checking in with your doctor. Sudafed actually like your decongestants a lot of times can decrease your milk supply so if you're on a cold you're like what happened to my milk supply? It could be a medication issue, okay? So just something to pay attention to. Nutrition is one of the biggest things that you can control, okay? So now that we've talked about like the reason why milk happens and that you need to be doing those things. If you're doing those things, then you need to think about the fact that your body is creating the milk. Are you fueling the body to have the building blocks to create the milk? If you are extreme dieting, I know all of you guys are worried about your baby weight that you've put on. Breastfeeding does burn up to 500 calories a day, okay? I go to the gym, I'm on that treadmill for a million years and I don't burn 500 calories maybe in a spin class. So enjoy the fact that your body is working really hard to make that milk but you need the calories because unlike pregnancy, when you're pregnant your body is actually going to prefer giving nutrition to your baby so it will actually deplete you before it will deplete the baby. Whereas once you're breastfeeding and the baby's out, it does the opposite. That it's going to fuel your body first to make you function and then the residue, whatever's left over is what goes towards making breast milk. So you've got to be taking an adequate nutrition. So that just means enough calories but at the same time you want to think about what calories you're taking in. Now along the same lines with your food, people are always asking what foods help increase your milk supply. There are a few foods and then herbs that can help. Now mind you, these are called galactoglogs. I'll put it down here. It's like a really long word. Galactogogs. Galactologogs? You get the idea. If you want to Google these, I will tell you you can go Google them. The galactoglogs, whatever, I'll put the thingy on the screen. You can Google that and then that tells you those are milk-inducing foods. The first big one is called fenugreek and people typically like when I talk about fenugreek like on Instagram or something, they're like, oh my gosh, it doesn't always work and that is very true. That fenugreek or whatever, whatever type of food to help increase your milk supply is not a one-size-fits-all answer but in general, fenugreek should, in theory, help you to increase your milk supply. There are supplements. It's in teas but you want to pay attention that maybe if you try the teas, which I'll talk about in a second, that if you notice that it didn't help your milk supply or even that your milk supply went down, then stop doing it, right? That like maybe that doesn't work for you or maybe you are one of those people that's sensitive to fenugreek but in general, I always say start there. Start with a fenugreek tea. Blessed thistle is another type of herb that's good that you can find in teas. One of my favorite teas is called Mother's Milk Tea and you can find this like in any grocery store in the States and there's other types of like milk-related teas. There's milk-related supplements. There's milk-related foods. If you want to know more about that, I can do videos on that as well but this one is an easy go-to. This is on my postpartum list on Amazon so I'll link my Amazon list down below because I have lots of recommendations over there. But in this, you're going to find fennel fruit, anise, coriander, fenugreek, blessed thistle, little bit of spearmint, lemon, marshmallow root. I didn't even know that one. But all of the herbs in a mother's milk or a milk-inducing tea, I also say start there. Now mind you, that goes along with your water intake. We want you hydrated. That goes with the nutrition. We got to give your body the fluid to produce the milk. And so my recommendation is drink to thirst. So if you're thirsty, have that water bottle around partners. When she's breastfeeding, bring her a water bottle or a glass of water. Take your sips of water while you're feeding and be sure that you're actually hydrated because if you're not, you are going to have issues creating milk. And so drink to thirst, increase your water intake, make sure that your pee is almost clear. That's an easy one. I'll get a water myself. And then one of the ways to increase your water intake is by adding a tea with some of those herbs in it that are milk-producing herbs. Now some other foods that are really helpful, I typically recommend oatmeal or oats. That's where you're like lactation cookies. You can go. Actually, I can link a couple of recipes down below of lactation cookies. They're a great postpartum gift. If you have friends that are giving birth because that oatmeal and then you add the brewer's yeast to it, that those two combined are going to help to increase your milk supply as well. Alfalfa, whether it be fresh or a supplement can also be really helpful. You know, they say garlic or ginger, like those things can also help to increase your milk supply. So just pay attention. Now this is not something to stress about, but if you're getting enough, if you're getting enough nutrients, you're getting enough water, you're not smoking, you're not taking any medications, you're removing the milk regularly, you could add a mother's milk tea or change your diet a little bit to add more protein and see how that affects your milk supply. A lot of this is just also trial and error where you get to figure that out. The other big one, guys, is your stress and your rest. Now when you have a newborn, of course, like they keep you awake off and on all day and rest is like almost a joke that people make, right? That you're like, yeah, right. Like I'm not going to rest. But newborns sleep constantly. They like lay there and they're awake and they're cute and then they eat and they poop and they snuggle and then they go back to bed. So really being intentional with your rest, even if it's not let me sleep, let me lay down, let me like pause what I'm doing in my life and really work to allow my body to building blocks, which is that decreased stress, I'll say, which is the next one, but also increasing your rest to be able to make the milk. So along those lines is your stress. So think about what are the, what are the sources of stress in your life? What are you doing to decrease your stress? What are you doing for self care? That's the other big one that when you have a new baby, of course, like your whole life has changed and there's this whole new world that you're trying to figure out and it can be stressful. And so partners, family members, friends, ask your mamas slash come over and do some things to help them out. Throw in a load of laundry, tell them I got the baby, feed the baby, you go lay down for an hour. Okay. That we're really being intentional to decrease your stress, to make sure that everything's taken care of. And then if you're pumping rather than being distracted, this is where like the whole mental piece comes in, that you're focusing on your baby, that you're connecting with your baby because there is this like hormonal component, like meaning there is a hormonal component that happens when you breastfeed and when they latch and they're removing the milk and you're looking into their eyes. Some of you might feel like you're like, Ooh, I get these little butterflies. That's oxytocin speaking, right? And that oxytocin and prolactin are the hormones that are really going to help with your milk supply. And so if you can pause and rather than be distracted on your phone or rather than like, you know, not really be focusing on the moment, slow everything down, which is great for your stress and your rest. Lay down. You do like a side lying position where you're laying on your side and latching the baby that way and then look into their eyes and like admire the amazing child that you just created and bond and connect with them. That will help your milk flow to really begin. Now, if you're pumping and you're not actually breastfeeding on the breast, the same thing applies. You need to be stimulating the breast regularly. You need to pay attention to your stress, your nutrition, your water, what you're putting into your body. And then you need to also keep that mental thing intact that when you put the pump on, you're not totally just doing other things that like stop and think and say, okay, first of all, you can heat the breast. That will help. A little bit of heating pad, massage where you're massaging towards the nipple. That will help to remove the milk as well. But then put on a video of your baby crying or cooing and like laughing or something and connect and all of a sudden when you're pumping, you'll see that milk flow. Try it out. Let me know how it goes. I see this constantly where they're like, I don't know, nothing's coming out. And then you pull up that video and it's the mental piece that there's so much that like it's in your brain with your hormones that you have to be able to connect. And then that will help that milk to flow. With that milk flowing, you're removing more milk and then that tells your body to make more. And then next thing you know, you have milk pouring out of you all the time and it's no longer an issue. Thanks everyone for being with me here today. If you want more from me, go over to my website. Everything will be linked in the description box down below, including my Amazon list. You can get a hold of the Mother's Milk Tea. I will have some other lactation stimulating supplements and foods that you can get on Amazon over there as well. I will link the other video down below. And then if you want more from me, I would love to connect with you one-on-one. I have one-on-ones available on my website. There's more over on Instagram. Lots more information, lots more confidence building stuff going on from me and Bundle Birth. So make sure you stay in touch. Let me know if you have another idea for a future breastfeeding video or just video in general. Make sure you subscribe. And then until next time, don't forget to flex and flow and I will see you soon. Bye. Hey everyone. I'm Sarah LaVon and welcome back. Back? Too excited. Welcome back. I am back. Hey everyone. I'm Sarah LaVon and welcome to my YouTube channel. You've probably been here before. It's alive. You okay, babe? It's okay. Don't try to get away. First of all, I have a massive boob. Oh, God. Okay. Reasons are, one, things that you can do by... So one of the number one reasons... Oh, my God. So... Oh, my gosh. What's happening? Need to be taking an adequate calorie... Adequate. That is a word. For some reason, I thought that wasn't a word. I'm like, that's not... That sounds funny. Did I do a lot of this? A lot of... Uh... I don't know. I only noticed at the end, but... Whatever. Who cares?