Pumping help!

nlbruch254 · October 2014

My son was born last week (yay!) and we have had a miserable time nursing, so I switched to just pumping so he can still get breastmilk. Currently, I'm getting about 2 oz per breast per pumping session. Any advice on how to increase the volume I'm getting per session?

nlbruch254 · October 2014

So I should just keep doing what I'm doing? I'm also going back to work in a few weeks and looking to build my stash of milk

olookasquirrel · October 2014

Welcome to the EP club!! Ok, some things I picked up:

Power pumping is a good thing - in the evening, 10 min on and 10 min off for an hour. It simulates cluster feeding and ups your supply. And fenugreek is a great supplement.

If you have an iPhone, my best friend is an app called Pump Log. It's free to try, and it was so worth it to track output and see progress. I'm totally addicted.

Prevent clogged ducts by doing the pump shower pump - recommended by the surgeon who had to drain the abscess I got from one

1-pump til you're empty 2-take a hot shower. As hot as you can stand, for as long as your attention span lasts 3-pump again. It's also a great excuse to take forever in the shower ("It's for medical reasons!" hehe).

2oz per breast per good pump is about what I started out with towards the beginning, sometimes less. We had to supplement a couple times when we first got going - don't beat yourself up if you have to as well. LO is also a huge eater so that may have had something to do with it. When we first started I had bottles in the fridge between feedings, and then he growth spurted and suddenly I couldn't keep up... I'm now up to 3oz per side during the day, 6oz per side at the first pump or 2 of the day (total around 40oz per day). And I'm down to 6 pumps a day, hopefully going down to 5ppd in the next month or so (can you tell I'm excited??).

The other thing I learned was that pumping every 2 hours through the night is great in theory, but in practice I wasn't sleeping, even with help with LO. So my supply crashed. As a last resort I found a schedule online that gave me a solid 4 hours of sleep - and I've been stretching it longer and longer. Now LO is almost 3 months and a good sleeper, and I sleep when he sleeps, so I can manage 6-8 hour stretches. Which is amazing.

becomingmommyagain · October 2014

A few things:

- Pumpin' ain't easy, but its so worth it in the long run. The first weeks are stressful for you since you have to pump on a schedule to maintain supply. You should be pumping as frequently as LO needs to eat with a goal of 1oz/hour total production. Anything more than that is over supply and that has it's own challenges.

-for the MOTN feedings, try to get a head one bottle so that you can feed LO the bottle and then pump after his feeding. This way you're still pumping on his feeding schedule and your milk supply will regulate to his needs.

- dont worry about building a stash until 2 weeks before you return to work. You really only need to be ahead 20-25oz so that you can send a days supply of milk with LO to daycare. A freezer full of milk is great...but at a certain point the excess is wasteful if you never get to use it.

My LO is 4 months and I'm able to get away with pumping only 4-5 times a day and get 35-40oz a day.

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