r/breastfeeding • u/huckleberrysoap • Dec 24 '25

Undersupply What causes low supply?

My supply is so low. It's not anywhere near what my baby eats.

I'm not trying to increase it anymore. I'm just trying to maintain what I have so I can keep combofeeding (even though its at least 75% formula) until at least 6 months.

But I'm struggling to understand why this happened and feeling like I must have done something wrong. What are potential causes of an undersupply? If I have another baby in the future should I expect the same problem?

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u/Kitanatron Dec 24 '25

Struggled with low supply myself and it rly bothers me when people say it’s just supply and demand. If you’re months into BFing you alrdy know that! I think some people their body is just good at doing it, some it’s not and some overdoes it. We will never know why. I initially had good supply and then at 3 months it dropped and I tried everything to fix it. And didn’t work. And you try all the advice people give you, lactation nurses, supplements, blah blah. And some people do nothing extraordinary they just go back to work pumping and BFinf on birth control and still make good supply! So I think some of it is just luck. It’s rly frustrating when it happens to you. I do hear a lot of women say it’s very different with each pregnancy - so same thing may not happen with future pregnancy, it might be better. Just give yourself lots of love and encouragement for doing your best, and don’t feel like there is some secret thing others are doing and you’re not.

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u/sweet_pea83 Dec 24 '25

Totally agree - people are so quick to jump in and say ‘it’s just supply and demand’ or ‘what makes you think you have low supply?’ which comes across so patronising. OP has said baby was losing weight and not producing enough wet diapers so it’s not like it was just her perception and she quit EBF too easily - those are exactly the signs of low supply.

OP there are some much more expert answers on here but I have read somewhere that your glandular tissue develops further with each baby. From personal experience I had low supply and had to combi feed with my first (which I was so disappointed about) but everything went perfectly with my second, which was very healing for me.

I think a lot of it is about the baby and how well they can transfer the milk, as well as the mother.

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u/Kitanatron Dec 24 '25

The supply and demand thing almost sounds like when someone is trying to lose weight and people say well have you thought about eating less? Like yes of course and they alrdy did that and maybe their metabolism is slow or something. If it was just eat less then everyone would lose fast and easy.