If your breasts become engorged as the baby sleeps, pump or hand express milk to get relief and take notice of the time. The next night, try to stretch the time 15 minutes longer and think of the night time milk as an added bonus.
Reclining. During early days of breastfeeding, engorgement can make your breasts feel sensitive and tender. Sleeping with elevated pillows on a slight recline can assist with this discomfort.
Pump for Comfort and Enjoy the Extra ZZZs!
By temporarily waking to pump, you can give yourself some relief from any fullness or engorgement you may experience overnight as your body adjusts to dropping a nighttime feeding. This can also help to minimize any leakage if your breasts become too full.
Wear a bra that fits well and provides good support. You may find that it helps to wear a bra even while you sleep. Apply a cold pack to your breasts for 15 minutes at a time every hour as needed. You can use a frozen wet towel, a cold pack, or a bag of frozen vegetables.
After that time of engorgement, or if you're more comfortable without a bra, there is no reason why you can't take it off whenever you want to for sleeping, or during the day. It's totally up to you and your comfort. If you usually go braless, you do not need to wear one during breastfeeding.
Pump At Night When Needed — But Do Not Drain
If you wake up in the middle of the night feeling engorged and are not planning to feed your baby within the next 2 hours, pump until you feel comfortable again.
As your milk supply increases, your breasts should feel heavier and full. This normal fullness should not prevent your baby from being able to latch on easily. Your breasts should also be pain-free. Engorged breasts are very hard, and the nipples can flatten due to swelling inside the breasts.
Letting your baby sleep for longer periods during the night won't hurt your breastfeeding efforts. Your growing baby can take in more milk during the day — and that, in turn, means longer stretches of sleep at night. Your milk supply will adjust to the new routine.
Discomfort due to engorgement may also be relieved by feeding your baby in more than one position. Try alternating sitting up, lying down, and using the football hold. Gently massage your breasts from under the arm and down toward the nipple to help reduce soreness and promote milk flow.
(Put a thin cloth between the ice pack and your skin.) Avoid tight bras that press on your breasts. A tight bra can cause blocked milk ducts.
Pressure from a badly fitting bra or tight clothing can make the discomfort worse, and may lead to blocked ducts and possibly mastitis. Breast engorgement can happen to women who don't or can't breastfeed, as well as those who do.
But even if you do everything perfectly, some women will still become engorged. It's not a guarantee. If you do and don't do anything, the engorgement will likely last for 7 to 10 days. But if you take steps to treat the engorgement, usually it will be gone within maybe 24 to 48 hours, at least the worst part of it.
You might have to do this for 2 to 4 days before your breasts feel better. If you use a breast pump when you are engorged, pump for short periods of time, 5 to 10 minutes at a time. If you pump for too long, you may make the engorgement worse or last longer than usual.
The Haakaa Pump helps with engorgement by removing milk from the overly full breast. This can help increase comfort by relieving the intense pressure in the breast associated with engorgement.
When milk isn't removed from your breasts, you will produce less milk. Treating engorgement gives your baby more milk now and helps protect milk production for when your baby is older. Engorgement can result in blocked ducts leading to mastitis.
If a woman can't pump, engorgement can lead to plugged ducts, mastitis and even abscesses, sometimes requiring hospitalization and intravenous antibiotics.
Nurse or express your milk at least every 2 hours, and at least twice during the night. The more milk that collects in your breasts, the stuffier they get and the harder it is for fluids to move. By taking milk out often, you make it easier for all the fluids in your breast – not just the milk – to move around.
Ultimately, if your baby has reached its birth weight and you're pumping enough milk during the day, it's okay to sleep eight hours without pumping at night. Keep in mind there is an adjustment period for your body as it begins to acclimate to the decrease in overnight milk removal.
In pregnancy, the breasts may start to produce milk weeks or months before you are due to have your baby. If your nipples are leaking, the substance is usually colostrum, which is the first milk your breasts make in preparation for feeding your baby. Leaking is normal and nothing to worry about.
Some might feed every 90 minutes, whereas others might go 2–3 hours between feedings. Newborns should not go more than about 4 hours without feeding, even overnight.
Gentle massage: It's easier for a baby to nurse on a softened breast as opposed to a tight, swollen breast. Gently massaging the breast before feeding and while baby is nursing helps improve the flow of breast milk.
Breast engorgement is caused by congestion of fluid and blood in the breast. Fullness in the breast from early milk production can prevent drainage of fluids and cause painful swelling.
On the whole, breast engorgement is a great reassurance for mothers and lovely feedback to tell her breasts are responding to their newborn's demands, but equally, engorgement is uncomfortable and, if not resolved or if in the presence of feeding issues, can lead to blocked milk ducts or mastitis.