Nearly at due date and confused.... do I need a pump if planning to BF?

[legallyblond]

I feel completely clueless about the whole BF lark... and I only have 5 weeks to get clued up!

My mother BF all four of her children - I am the eldest and the youngest was born when I was 14, so I remember a lot of it.

I remember, and she has confirmed, that my Mum exclusively BF - no bottles, no pumps, no nothing except breast pads and a bit of Lasinoh! She just shoved us on and we fed (until we were completely weaned). As for going out etc, she says she left us with a baby sitter from pretty early on (6 weeks with my littlest brother), but only went out for a max of 3 hours at a time between feeds, for a meal etc.

But it seems that either my Mum was unbeleivably lucky or else a lot has changed since she had us!

I am most confused about whether I need to go out and buy a pump, bottles and a steriliser, despite planning to BF. Should I be aiming to express and use a bottle (with breastmilk) as well as BF? Should I do that as soon as the baby is born?

It seems as if a lot of people, if not everyone(!) has trouble BF - should I be anticipating this? Is this what the pump is for (i.e. so that I keep up the supply if the baby is not feeding)?

I feel totally lost - I had anticipated not needing any "equipment"!

I would be SUPER grateful for any advice about which pumps etc to buy as my Mum (my only main source of baby advice) has no clue!

Legally, I was just about to come on this forum and ask the same question! Very reassuring to see that I don't have to buy everything before the baby arrives...and a handy reminder that there are lots of mums and babies out there who take to bf easily. Fingers crossed!

You don't need a pump to start off with and as previously stated you can always get one within 24 hours if you find you really need one.

I started expressing one bottle of milk a day when my DD was 2 weeks.
I know this is against advice but at the time she was refusing to sleep for longer than 30 mins or so between feeds and it allowed me to grab an hour or so sleep in the afternoon while my DH fed her.

I found a pump v useful for giving me the odd break in the early days when I desperately needed it and for stimulating supply

But like everyone says,see how it's going, you wouldn't need to pump until after two weeks. Advice says longer but if you're struggling it could make the difference between ending up ff and exclusively bf. At least ime.

Neither of my dcs either had a drop of formula and I went back to work at 3 months so both had plenty of bottle feeds. All thanks to the pump. Recommend a dual electric Medela if you take it seriously. Good luck with it all.

Just to say I found all the advice about BF-ing not hurting a bit confusing at first because it did hurt to begin with and I thought I was doing it all wrong. But we had the latch checked and it was fine, it just took a while (4 weeks in my case) for the pain on latching to pass. It did stop completely at 4 weeks, so much so that at night when co-sleeping DD can latch on without my noticing!

I do have a pump and DH gives DD the occasional bottle, but our big problem is finding a time to pump. I have DD on me in a sling for much of the day because she hates being put down and certainly won't be put down to sleep! So it doesn't see much use. Maybe it will once I go back to work when she is 8 months old.