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Poll: Moms who Pump

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in Success after IF

I am back to work.  Almost every week I travel two days during the week.  I am wondering what will happen if exclusively pump and bottle feed.  I am currently pumping 4 or 5 times a day.  I am finding it difficult to pump 4 or 5 times when I am in all day meetings at customer sites, on a plane and rushing through the airport.  I kind of feel like a freak spending my layovers pumping in the airport bathroom stall.

1. If you bottle feed exclusively, how many times a day do you pump?

2. When you started exclusively bottle feeding, did your supply tank? 

3. Did you have to supplement with formula?

4. How old is your LO?  How many months were you successfully able to pump and bottle feed?

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Re: Poll: Moms who Pump

  • beebe929beebe929 member

    She never latched. I exclusively pumped for 8 months.  I was blessed with a huge supply and she is still getting only breastmilk in her bottles.

    It is really hard to keep a schedule.  But I was able to drop to 5 pumps pretty quickly and maintain that for a couple months.  Also get extra shields and pumping parts, that made a huge difference for me.

    Good luck.

     

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  • sweetpea18sweetpea18 member

    I ep because of several issues with nursing.  I pumped every 3 hrs around the clock until dd was 4 months old.  Then, I dropped to 6 pumps a day.  My supply dropped a little when I went back to work, but I was able to get it back up.  (I'm having supply issues right now for no good reason, though.) 

    DD isn't a very big eater, so I've been able to freeze a decent amount each week.  My goal is to have a big enough stash by the end of the year to make it to her first birthday.  I will have pumped for 9 1/2 months at that point. 

    And definately get more parts and bottles.  I take more than one set to work, so I don't have to worry about washing them until I get home.  I just put them in a ziploc bag when I'm finished.    

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  • PsychedForBabyPsychedForBaby
    1. If you bottle feed exclusively, how many times a day do you pump?   On average, 6.  Sometimes I sneak in a 7th.  I'm also getting up in the middle of the night to pump which seems just crazy because LO is sleeping anywhere from 8-11 hours consecutively.  There's just no way I could go that long between pumpings.  I'm slowly stretching the time between the last night time pump and the first early morning pump to see how long I can go.  By 6 hours I'm leaking and getting pretty uncomfortable.   2. When you started exclusively bottle feeding, did your supply tank?   Around 3 weeks?  Not at all.  It quickly got better and better.  Around the 12 week mark, it started to level off.  3. Did you have to supplement with formula?  Never have.  She is taking 21-25 oz a day.  (Usually eight 3oz bottles.)  And I'm producing between 36-40oz daily so the freezer stash is building every day.  4. How old is your LO?  How many months were you successfully able to pump and bottle feed?  She's 3 months old this week.  So far it's been about 2.5 months of exclusive pumping.  I've pumped in the car a few times.  Never while driving!  lol  I'll say being an exclusive pumper is a lot of work.  You have to take the time to pump, bottle it, bag and freeze if you're lucky to have extra and then you still need to make sure that your little one is getting fed when they need to.  Just this week DH finally acknowledged just how much work it is to exclusively pump. Good luck to you! 
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  • manda429manda429

    i was block feeding before i went back to work (fed from one side only every 3 hours).   So, I started pumping 3 times a day (when I woke up and 2 times during the work day).  He stopped nursing before bed, so now I just pump 4 times a day.  I pump 25 oz a day and supplement with another 12-15 oz. 

    it's soooo hard to fit my two pumps in during the day with lots of meetings and not a great place to pump (it's a 15 minute round trip from my desk to where I pump).  At some point when he is on more solids, I'll drop one pump during the day and supplement more. 

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  • AvaLikeLavaAvaLikeLava member

    1. I don't bottle feed exclusively, but as DS was in day care 3/5 of his feedings were from a bottle. The other two were nursing

    2. It was hard to tell if I my supply decreased as I went from BF to mostly pumping once I got to work. At work I pumped 5 times between the hours of 8 and 5, and I also woke up every morning at 2:30am to pump as well. DS slept through the night and I didn't want to loose my mid-night feed. It was also my most productive pump session, so I couldn't let that one go. However, I never did have great supply. I had to constantly take supplements, or prescription meds to maintain my supply.

    3. No. DS wouldn't take formula. We tried giving it to him and he would spit it out. I tried different formula kinds, mixing it w/ BM at different ratios, but the moment he tasted formula he spit it out. I was mad for wasting all the BM.

    4. DS is now a little over 1. We started weaning onto cow's milk a week and a half before his b-day and now the 3 daytime bottles that used to be BM are now dairy. I still nurse mornings and evenings. All in all, I pumped for 8 months. It was hard, I won't lie to you, but it was important to me to do it.

    BTW -- I have had to pump on a plane/airport before and I really admire you for wanting to do this. It is not fun! I did prefer the airport stall though over the plane. That way there wasn't a limited # of stalls that people were waiting on.

    Good luck!

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