Most common breastfeeding problem #2: not offering the breast frequently and flexibly enough

We need to take milk from our breasts in order to make milk in our breasts

When milk is removed from your breast, your milk glands continue to produce plenty of milk. If milk builds up, your milk glands receive a message to stop making milk. You can find out about this here.

Breastfeeds that aren't frequent enough often result in

• Dialled up babies

• Low milk supply

• Inadequate baby weight gains.

Yet you might have been may be advised to space out breastfeeds, particularly if your baby is

• Crying and fussing a lot

• Wants unmanageably long or very frequent feeds.

What happens if milk isn't being removed often enough from your breasts?

If you have nipple inflammation or damage, you may have no choice but to space out breastfeeds, because of the pain. You can find out what to do if this is your situation here.

You might hear frequent, very long feeds referred to as 'marathon feeds', a useful term which explains exactly how they feel! There are things to do if you find yourself marathon feeding which make life and breastfeeding much more manageable. You can find out about these steps here. Spacing out feeds, however, is not a solution, and often makes things worse.

• A three-hour pumping regime is commonly recommended as part of 'triple feeding' or 'topping up' with expressed breast milk or formula if you're facing breastfeeding problems. But a three-hour triple feeding regime also results in spaced out offers of the breast, and paradoxically can make it hard to build your supply.

• Some breastfeeding support professionals still think of 'demand breastfeeding' as about every three or so hours, because they worry that anything else is too burdensome for women. However, offering each breast or pumping every three or so hours day and night will not be frequent enough to maintain supply or baby's satiety and ample weight gain for many women and their babies, which ends up creating even more worry for that exhausted woman, or a baby who cries and fusses a lot because of hunger.

When I say this, your heart might drop. You're already exhausted and having trouble getting anything else done other than breastfeeding! (This may be especially true if you have an older child or two or more.) But paradoxically, life becomes easier, not harder, if you offer frequent flexible breastfeeds - as long as any underlying breastfeeding problems have been sorted out. We definitely don't want you sitting in the breastfeeding chair feeding all day (or night)! We want your life with your baby to be as easy and as enjoyable as possible. Frequent flexible feeds helps a lot with this, despite what you might have heard.

There are quite a few myths around about what frequent flexible breastfeeding looks like, which we need to debunk!

You can find out about frequent flexible breastfeeds, starting here, and why it's different to what's often called 'demand breastfeeding', here.