Keep expressing or not?

[dache]

In the past week I havant had a day when I expressed more then 3oz in the whole day.
Before I expressed 3 times, morning, noon, evening but stopped the noon one a month ago when I saw that there was almost nothing in the bottle. Same is now happening in the morning. And I express most in the evening 30-40ml.
Until now I collected what I had expressed in the day to give it at DF. Now I tried to collect enough but I wasnt able to do it in 3 days so I damped it.
I havant offered both EM and Formula in a bottle on a same feed. Im now thinking between stopping to express or express and then give the 30mls in a bottle then give another 4oz of formula?
Im thinking about the benefits of BM so Im not sure if I should stop expressing.
What to do?

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

Is it just the dreamfeed you are bottle feeding? If so and you decide to ff that feed she is still getting all of the goodness of your milk at all the other feeds. I was not able to express much either and my stash ran out at 5 months so I used formula when I chose to give a bottle.

[dache]

No, I ff on all the other feeds, and the df was the only one when I gave bm.
I didnt had enough milk so I started doing bf and ff, but she stopped bf at 3m. I didnt had enough milk, so I did 2-3 feed ebm and ff for the others until 4m.
Slowly it came to the point when I expressed enough milk only for the df. Now I dont even have for that one. Last night I expressed less then 30mls and Im expressing for 30 minutes.
I feel like I need to continue expressing, how little milk I might have because I know the benefits, but on the other hand it would be nice not to have to do it,it very annoying.
If I start expressing for longer periods,like an hour, do you think there is a possibility that the milk supply will increase?

[kayra]

hugs dache, expressing is no fun, especially when you get small amounts I was in a similar situation with DS where I couldn't bf him but expressed a small amount and topped up with formula. I'm no expert but from what i understand expressing doesn't stimulate quite the same way sucking does so at this stage i'm not sure you can increase your supply-unless you were expressing very frequently (again this is my understanding i may be wrong). I think you've done an amazing job to come this far this way, your baby is 6m now and you've given all the goodness of bm all this time (i was only able to express till 3-4m), if expressing is frustrating you and just not working for your family right now I'd say feel free to make whatever choice is going to be best for all of you...
xxx

[eva026]

I'm no expert but from what i understand expressing doesn't stimulate quite the same way sucking does

Yup, you'd have to express then try hand express to get out every last drop. You could also try taking a break and pumping again 10 min later till empty and then hand expressing the last drops out., waiting 10 min and doing it all again.
Your LO wont BF at all? It would also help you to stick her on the breast to suckle even if nothing is coming out to stimulate more production. This at every time she would need a feed. Pumping at night also helps stimulate production.
I guess the question is if you have the time to be doing all this?

Well done on pumping 5 months, I only had to do it during a few nursing strikes and that was enough for me.

[dache]

I decided that I am going to stop. And didnt for past week or so. Then I had a beer on the weekend. Now Im leaking 
I need to express because I feel this tingling pain sensation in the breast. (I was mostly expressing on the left breast because the right was empty form the start)