Hellobee Boards

For me it's partially about protein and mostly about water. I need close to a gallon and a half a day with DD. With DS my supply would take a hit every day early afternoon unless I drank a glass of water ate some protein, and took my baby to bed for a nap. My supply is really impacted by sleep.

@MrsSRS: I agree with you! Protein and water!!! I chug water constantly while BF as well.

I'm Chinese and my mom did make me some traditional pork and boiled peanut soup that's supposed to help increase milk production....I don't feel like it worked though. But it was tasty!

Oatmeal every day for breakfast and drinking TONS of water. Also just eating frequently (think 6 times per day) helped. Healthy food though, not potato chips 6 times a day

I can't say what did or didn't help because I did ALL of it at once and was on like a million supplements, but I did notice a little more once I added sunflower lecithin - it's supposed to help with clogs but perhaps it helped more pass through the ducts?

Calories and especially fat. Lots and lots of good healthy plant fats. I'm breastfeeding while doing weight watchers right now, and I make sure to prioritize getting as much fat as I need, otherwise my supply suffers.

I ate oatmeal and tried mothers milk tea (and a dark beer @littlejoy: ) and I don't know if any of them made a difference one way or another. I was lucky and never had real supply issues though, and nursed but rarely pumped, so hard to know what my output really was aside from "enough". I really think for me the biggest things were enough water and enough food. I'd sit down to nurse with a big full bottle of water and always finish it.

Good fatty calories, protein and water. I did think adding an extra lactation cookie (Brewers yeast oatmeal and peanut butter) helped too.

In general though just focusing on pumping (hand massages) fitting in an extra sessions and low stress helped more noticeably.

Avocado helped my supply a lot. I ate so many of them. I can barely look at them a year later.

Fenugreek was the only thing I tried where I actually saw a difference - but when I took it at doses that actually helped with milk, it sadly gave me bad intolerable GI side effects.

Lots of fat and lots of fluids seems to be the key for me

For me the only thing that really made a difference was increasing my water intake.

I just had a mini production crisis. I went from having an over supply to trying to feed the baby Saturday night and literally no milk would come out. She kept latching, pulling off, and screaming because she was hungry. I tried hand expressing, and nothing would come out. DH gave her a bottle, and I went to researching. Here's what I did starting Saturday night.

One glass of mother's milk tea, two fenugreek pills three times a day, one red Gatorade, and then a bowl of oatmeal this morning. I also increased my water intake, and got a second breakfast of scrambled eggs and one pancake when I got into the office today. I normally only pump 9 ounces for the whole day on Mondays. I just pumped 8 ounces for my first session of the day! Oh, and last night M slept from 7-7 and only woke up 2x to nurse. That's a far cry from waking up every 1.5-2hrs.

With my big girl I needed lots of calories so I ate porridge for breakfast and lactation cookies for snacks and drank Complan (a dietary supplement in milkshake form) and lactation tea. My supply doesn't seem to be as sensitive with my second child so I just try to drink more water and eat porridge breakfast.

I made some tasty lactation cookies with oats & brewers yeast (& chocolate chips ) & within a day or so of eating several I feel my supply increased.