Exclusively pumping

[KayTee87]

Posting here for traffic sorry!

Are there any threads or groups for those that are feeding their baby expressed bm only?

My baby's latch was always terrible due to a traumatic birth, he's 5 weeks old tomorrow and every time we tried he hurt me and got hardly any milk so would scream shortly afterwards. As he's got used to a bottle his latch got worse so I decided to feed him expressed milk and save both of us the stress while still trying to do what I hope is best for him.

There's lots of people that bf or ff but I don't know anyone that has exclusively pumped so have no one to talk to about it or answer any questions I might have. Hoping there's a thread on here or something.

Haven't rtwt but I pumped exclusively for nearly six months and it was extremely hard work. Very premature baby. She did get the hang of bf at nearly six months and we carried on for nearly three years.

Looking back I would tell myself that it didn't matter if I couldn't manage to give her 100% bm but she was tiny, poorly, neutropenic and as it turned out had very severe allergies to a lot of things.

I think it gave me something to cling to after my hideous pregnancy experience and her being in the NICU for more than three months/ill for the first year of her life.

I always had more than she needed because I pumped religiously every 3 hours during the day, four at night. In fact I had a freezer full of the stuff.

So, from someone who has done it - well done for persevering but remember that you can take a step back at any point and do whatever you think you need to.

I suppose we are hope for late established bf , it was so easy in the end but very hard at the beginning.

Must add that I bought a hospital grade pump and sold it later on. I remember having a car charging cable and if we were out for the day I would hook myself up in the passenger seat and pump while DH drove .

I managed to do it for 3 months when I had twins.
I second the advice to get a hospital grade double pump (I had the Medela swing, it worked very well). Get a bra thing that allows you to pump hands-free.
I would pump while bottle feeding with what I expressed the previous time. So basically the pumping schedule was the same as the baby's feeding schedule.
One tip I got that was really good is don't stop pumping when the milk stops coming out, if you continue it starts again. From what I remember I would do it for 30-40min. I managed to get enough milk to feed two babies + freeze some.
I hope you are successful!