Are your soft breasts not producing enough milk?

If a breastfeeding woman feels that her breasts are soft and not particularly swollen, it may be because she does not have enough milk and will be worried about feeding her child. In fact, this situation is not necessarily caused by soft breasts, but is mainly related to the child's sucking. If the child sucks properly, it can achieve a better stimulating effect. Breastfeeding women can also relieve the pain through moderate massage, and of course they should also eat more foods that promote milk secretion.

1. Why are my breasts soft?

After the physiological milk production period, if the breasts do not receive enough sucking stimulation, the swollen breast tissue will relax and become soft, but this does not mean that you have no milk.

2. Soft breasts are a signal - reminding you that you are not sucking enough.

The softer the breasts are, the more you need to suck. Through the baby's sucking stimulation, the breasts will be stimulated by milk and the milk will increase. Don't be impatient and stop your baby from sucking just because your breasts are soft. In short, just persist for a period of time.

It should be noted that some mothers are in the habit of letting their babies suck only when their breasts are engorged. This practice is completely wrong. We have repeatedly emphasized that you should not save milk, as the more you suck, the more milk you will have.

3. When does soft breasts mean there is no milk?

First, look at the intervals between the baby's breastfeeding. Some mothers' breastfeeding does not increase during the day but increases at night, which means that the baby breastfeeds relatively frequently during the day. Then look at what stage of breastfeeding you are in. Generally in the middle of breastfeeding, if the mother's milk supply and the baby's are balanced and the breasts swell less, the breasts will be soft.

Soft breasts do not necessarily mean there is no milk, because I have seen mothers with strong and swollen breasts but no milk. So, what kind of breasts have no milk? I think that generally there is no such thing (except for a very small number of mothers who are born without milk), and most mothers have milk. If you want your breasts to swell, you must speed up the milk production by doing more effective sucking instead of feeding for an hour without any movement.

4. Why does the baby suck for an hour at a time?

Some babies take a long time to suck milk, sometimes an hour. At this time, the mother will definitely think that they cannot be full after an hour and that she must not have enough milk. In fact, this is not the case. Some babies are not hungry when they are breastfeeding. They may just be holding the nipple, or their posture is wrong, and the baby's effective sucking time is too short. If your baby isn’t full, it doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t have enough milk. It depends on the length of the breastfeeding time. If the baby has not sucked for two or three hours, some milk will be stored in the breast. If the baby sucks for a short time, he can only eat the stored milk. Even if the milk comes "surprise", it will be very little. In this way, the amount the baby eats must be very small, and naturally he will not be full.

Suggestion: If you are still trying to increase your milk production, you must increase your breastfeeding time.

But it doesn't mean that the baby can suck milk for an hour at a time. The real effective milking time is only a few minutes. The rest of the time is basically half sleeping and half sucking. So the mother should also caress the baby from time to time and don't let him sleep all the time. Otherwise, the baby will wake up and sleep repeatedly, which is very tiring and the milk supply will not increase.