Sometimes you’ll have no trouble producing breast milk with one baby, but then the next one comes along and you’re incongruously “dry”. What gives? Well, there could be a few different things at play, and this writing isn’t quite expansive enough to cover them all. Instead, here we’ll briefly explore three specific ways to increase breastmilk supply if you’re having issues.

1. The Sort of Nutrition You’re Getting

If you’re not eating right, that will dry out your paps. The body produces breast milk based on the sort of diet defining your daily life. You should get cravings during pregnancy, and after the fact. These help you naturally produce breast milk in agreement with the sort of foods you’ve got a “jones” for, as the saying goes.

This won’t be the case for all mothers. Some mothers, for example, are trying to maintain a very specific diet which excludes foods necessary for healthy breast milk production. So one of the first things you’ll want to do if you’re having trouble expressing yourself is look at your diet. You might not be giving your body the tools it needs to make enough breast milk.

Some foods you might consider include salmon, seaweed, shellfish, and sardines. If you’re allergic to seafood, or can’t stomach it, then chicken, beef, lamb, pork, and varying organ meats like liver can help you express.

For vegetarian moms, there are berries, tomatoes, bell peppers, cabbage, kale, garlic, broccoli, almonds, walnuts, chia seeds, hemp seeds, and flax seeds. You can read more on the right sorts of foods for breastfeeding at this link.

2. The “Feed on Demand” Approach

Whenever your baby is hungry, breastfeed the child. If you’re empty, we’ll discuss pumping options in a moment. When milk supply is low, increased feeding tells your body that more is necessary. Accordingly, breastfeeding on-demand tends to expand how much breastmilk your body produces on a regular basis.

3. Pumping Can Increase Expression

Another solution you might try is to pump for low milk supply remediation. When your milk supply is low, but you still express at intervals, pumping until expression has finished can help your body “key in” to the fact that you need to produce more milk. So if you’re nursing, and the baby is done eating, keep pumping until your breasts are done.

If you start expressing away from the baby, be quick about pumping what you express. You can store it for about a week in the fridge, or about a year in the freezer—though the last couple days or months of either option can be a bit iffy. As a safety precaution, use up refrigerated breast milk in four or five days, and frozen breastmilk in eight or nine months.

Increasing How Much Milk Your Body Makes

Some mothers have little or no trouble with breastfeeding. Do you know any? You might! For some women, motherhood is as simple as breathing. Most women are going to have a little trouble getting into the swing of things no matter how well they’ve prepared mentally.

Motherhood is a stage in life akin to being born or going through adolescence. When you become a parent, you fundamentally transform, and are now much closer to what true adulthood is. Parenthood forces physical and mental maturity. The thing is, despite these things, it’s still going to be a challenge; sometimes even physically.

If you’re having trouble producing milk, change your diet, feed on-demand, and pump strategically. These things can do a lot to help you express as much as your baby needs.