Preemies
pumping for my preemie
I have a 2 week old son who was 10 weeks early. I have been pumping every 3 hrs as recommended. I am using a hospital grade pump when i am at the hospital but not am home....i am getting a hospital grade pump today so hopefully that helps. I have noticed that within the last 4 days that my milk supply have gone down, I'm getting half of what i had been getting at each pump time, my son's feedings have increased soon he will be eating from a bottle, i am worried that i'm not producing enough milk for him. Anyone have advice on how to increase my milk supply?
This discussion has been closed.
Re: pumping for my preemie
Biggest things that helped me:
Eat enough and drink a lot of water
Take hot showers every evening and pump right after (hot tub worked even better, but you're too early for that!)
Power pump when possible (I did 20 min on, 10 min off, 10 min on, 10 min off, 10 min on)
Do LOTS and LOTS of kangaroo care and pump right after
Good luck!
things that helped me... pump at the baby's bedside, coconut water (very hydrating), make sure you are eating and drinking enough all day, massaging my breasts while pumping, hands free pumping bra (I think it let me relax more) and maybe you should start pumping every two hours. I think I did every two hours for a few weeks until my supply was established a bit... I ended up with an insane oversupply but I'm not going to complain about that now!
and great job. You are doing an awesome job sticking with it!!!
Ditto the pumping every two hours part -- for me, it was all about supply and demand. No amount of food, water, fenugreek, etc did a thing for me -- just pumping ALL. THE. TIME. I pumped every two hours during the day, and every three at night for the 3 months my girls were in the NICU. I power pumped twice a day. I spent most of my NICU bedside time attached to that machine.
My supply increased at a snail's pace over that timeframe, but in the end, I was pumping 50oz a day for my crazy girls. 
They're eating more than that these days, but I still have a sizeable freezer stash such that we should still be a few months away from supplementing (we'll be starting solids at roughly that time, too, so we'll have to see how things net out).