Question re lact-aid supplementing

There are others that know more than me, but I'll tell you what I know from LOTS of research. From what I've read, an adoptive nursing mom uses the supplementer for as long as she is nursing her child, unless her milk supply comes in so much that she is able to produce enough milk on her own to not need the supplement. The thing is, most adoptive nursing moms are not able to produce enough milk on their own to satisfy the baby's needs. Most moms are able to produce some milk, but usually not all. I'm hopeful to produce at least some when my time comes! You use the supplementer to give the baby something for all the hard work of nursing, and nursing stimulates your milk supply, so its great for both! If you're nursing and the baby isn't getting any milk, he might stop trying so the supplementer is a good thing! Some moms bottle feed too. It just depends on your time (nursing with supplementing takes longer than bottle feeding), the baby's needs, etc. You can find nipples that mimic real nipples to cut down on confusion. Hope this helps! Usually some of the more experienced adoptive nursing moms on here will pipe in too. You're in the right place!

Unless you produce a full supply or close to a full supply, you will probably have to use the Lact-aid the whole time. I didnt produce much (6 oz total/day) so my son wouldnt nurse unless he actually got something (aka:milk from the lact-aid) He would only nurse without it when he was upset, screaming, or very tired. Then he would just comfort nurse and that was nice too. But he never actually got more than 1/2 an ounce and wasnt actually nursing for nutrition. We used the lact aid and bottles. I wished i had kept up with the lact-aid. i used it for the first 3 months, and slowly stopped using it and switched more to bottles. I got back into work fulltime so he was going to a babysitter for 7 hours/day so he was gettting bottles the whole time which are faster flow, so he wasnt all that excited to try and nurse from me using the lact aid that was much harder to get the milk out of. In retrospect i shouldve tried harder to keep him nursing but by like 4 months old i couldnt get him to nurse anymore even with the lactaid. So i pumped for another 2-3 months after that. I wouldnt worry at all about "weaning" from the lactaid. id worry about just getting the baby to nurse right now and get a good system going with the lactaid. It takes some practice, but my son did pretty good with it. I didnt have much luck with taping the tubing to my breast. The tape needed to be down far enough so the tube didnt move, but then his mouth would touch it and he didnt like that and i just ended up holding it there with my finger until he latched on and then i adjusted it a little and kinda went from there. It takes practice, but was a really nice "help" for inducing lactation. Congrats on your baby!!! Any more questions, please feel free to ask.... rach

Plan on using it full time through out your nursing relationship. I'd recommend using it with every feeding. The baby will become frustrated if she is sucking and doesn't get anything or if it doesn't come fast enough. So, I would allow her to become use to it full time at first. As your milk comes in and you can get sprays when you manually express then you can try starting each feeding with a couple minutes of feeding without the lact-aid for as long as she will feed without giving up or becoming frustrated then finish off the feeding with the lact-aid. The more you nurse the more milk you will make so if your serious about it then I would put the bottles away for now. The more milk you make the less she willl take from the supplementor. Also as she grows she will be eating cereals and solids and that will help some in making up for the lack of supply ou may have.

I also agree with what others have said. You can use the Lact-Aid to provide all of the supplement at the breast, whether they need a little supplement or a lot. The more milk the baby is getting from the breast, the less he/she will take from the Lact-Aid. If you use bottles to supplement, it can be confusing or frustrating for the baby, like you said. Also, the more time the baby spends at the breast, the more milk you will produce. Some babies won't suck as efficiently if there is not much of a flow, which also limits milk supply. Some kids will do fine without it, after they are taking other food and liquids, but quite a few are never willing to nurse without it. It isn't always related to the amount of milk coming from the breast, either. Of the four I nursed until they self-weaned, at an average of a little over two years, two were willing to nurse without it, one at 18 months and the other at 12 months. With the first of those, I had decided to try to nurse him without it and see what would happen. The first time I tried that, he didn't nurse, but the next day, he climbed in my lap and nursed himself to sleep without it. The other, who was an early talker, just moved the tube, one day, and said she didn't like it. The other two insisted on having it there all along, including Joseph, who was the one I produced the most milk for of all of them. I've even known a lady who had gotten pregnant a couple months after she adopted, and nursed with the Lact-Aid all the way through her pregnancy. When she had given birth and had tons of milk, her son still insisted on having the tube there. They can just get real attached to everything about their nursing time and not want anything to change. There are LCs who say that everyone should wean from the Lact-Aid as soon as possible, but that is really more for women who have given birth and need to supplement at the breast, for one reason or another. Except for cases where adoptive moms have had a chance to do medications and pumping, several months in advance, and/or responded exceptionally well to their overall efforts, it is usually counterproductive to try to limit the baby's supplement very much. It should be a positive, relaxing, experience, for both mom and baby and worrying constantly about whether the baby is getting enough to eat can turn into a stressful time for everyone. I knew someone who decided that she wasn't going to let her baby have more than two ounces from the Lact-Aid, thinking that would make her want to nurse more. After the two ounces were gone, she would just put water in the Lact-Aid. For one thing, giving more than a tiny bit of water to a young baby who is on only breast milk and/or formula is dangerous, because it can screw up the baby's electrolyte balance. In the case of my friend's baby, it just made her frustrated, that she would nurse and nurse and still be hungry. She would stiffen up when she nursed and refused to have any more to do with the breast at nine months old. You have the right idea and also positive motives! Have you ordered the Lact-Aid all ready? Oh and congratulations on the baby! Darillyn noelani54@hotmail.com