pumping question-going too long in between

MrsCancel

I overslept throughout the night and will essentially end up missing one of my pumping sessions.  Is this going to effect my supply at all.  I will have gone 6 hours in between pumping and plan to BF DS in about 2 hours.  The lactation nurses at our hospital said never to go more than 4 hours without pumping, so I am afraid I messed up something.  Any advice?

2BWEDN2007

As long as your supply is established then you will be fine!

The nurses at our NICU told me not to go more than 3 hours without pumping so the entire 4 months DS was in the NICU I was up all night pumping. The reasoning is that if your baby comes home and is still in that newborn phase of waking every few hours to eat that you'll have the supply to keep up. Well, guess who was on a schedule from the NICU and started STTN a couple weeks after coming home? He went to bed between 10-11 and got up to eat around 6 and it took me forever to get my overabundant milk supply down. I had too much milk from pumping every 3 hours.

ESM354

I wouldn't think that missing one pumping session should make a big difference.  Just continue with the schedule you were on.  If it happens again and it is going to be a couple hours yet you could possibly pump a short pumping session just to take some milk out so you don't get painfully engorged and DS might have a hard time latching then.

susanc07

ditto, everyone else.  there are plenty of times that i missed a pumping session and i produced more than enough on a consistent basis.

the only downside to missing pumpings is that i eventually developed mastitis on the left side, which did cause a temporary drop in my supply, but i recovered.

lemen99

Once my supply was established, for me it would not have mattered as long as I just kept up with pumping after that missed session.  If I just missed one session I'd just get a TON of milk after the missed session.  At worse you may experience a small temporary dip in supply.