Anyone managed long term expressing feeding?

[Ozziegirly]

So, I gave birth 5 days ago and we have been unable to breastfeed, despite much much much trying and failing and tears (mine).

So, anyway, I am now expressing and bottle feeding and it's going fine - I am expressing an adequate amount (am about 3 feeds ahead in the fridge!) and he is sleeping, pooing and weeing fine. Don't know about weight gain yet, but fingers crossed.

Has anyone managed to keep up a longer term expressing schedule or am I deluding myself that this will be possible? I don't mind topping up with formula and have some ready, but so far it's all been going ok. He feeds every 4 hours through the day and then has a couple of extras in the eve.

Have you spoken to a BFC or someone from la leche league? 5 days is not too late to get latched on. Exclusive expressing is not unheard of but you may find your supply does not increase as his demands increase in the same way as BF.

I know someone who exclusively expressed for the first 6 months but they had an electric double pump and she expressed every 2 hrs at first. I don't think every four hours is enough tbh. And you have to express through the night to keep your supply up - I'm sure someone will come to tell you how many times.

To summarise it is possible but please try latching baby on again with some expert help - it is way way way easier in the long run!

A friend did it for 6 months with her first but found it tough as she was so often attached to a pump (and unable to look after baby or do anything whilst being so).

I'd get some specialist support from a BFC (NCT have them - check the NCT website for your local group). Expressing is a good way to keep up supply whilst you sort out issues.

Thanks - I'm in oz so don't have these resources. I was helped by lactation consultant and various midwives at the hospital and no one could help me. Basically DS will take nipple in mouth but then just does nothing. Nipples are a bit flat but clearly work as I can express like a demon at the mo.

Had planned to breastfeed for over a year so feel v let down by system here but trying to not dwell too much and make the best of it.

I don't exclusively express but did for the first few weeks as DS was prem, and still express a fair bit because my DS won't always BF. You can do it and a lot of people in the US do. It can be a pain and if your LO has a growth spurt you will need to express every 2 hours. You will also have to be lucky!

I was quite lucky and didn't always express overnight after the first couple of weeks, I found I got twice the milk first thing in the morning if I didn't and in the end it didn't make any difference to the overall yield. Now that DS is a mixture of BF and bottlefed EBM, I find I sometimes express about an hour after he's fed to get the "top up" milk for him. I do it when he's napping and for example while online.

In the meantime my prem DS didn't suck to start with, a lot of skin to skin, and patience meant he finally got the hang of it enough that he BF some of the time. Maybe worht a try?

a friend did it until her little girl was one, but it is HARD work. it;s difficult to mimic the more frequent feeding they do during growth spurts, and when you get to around 4 months your prolactin levels drop naturally and you can find it harder to express enough.
my friend used domperidone after 5 or 6 months to ensure her supply.
it's also hard being tied to your pump every 2-3 hours long-term which is realistically what you're looking at.

it CAN be done, but you need to be really determined :)

la leche league exist in australia i am sure, might be worth looking on their website?
most breastfeeding problems can be overcome, and it would be far easier for you than long-term expressing IMO

link to australian LLL

do you keep trying to latch him on? my first wouldn't feed for over a week and then suddenly "got" it when he realised milk came out!

I expressed for my son for 8 months, using a manual pump - it is totally possible!

You're doing fantastically well to be three feeds ahead already! You can freeze spare milk easily - I found it reassuring to have a few 'spare' feeds in the freezer.

In terms of scheduling, I expressed at least every 3 hours, and through the night (generally stayed up and expressed after feeding DS; he was a set-your-watch-by-him 3-hourly feeder for months). I tended to keep expressing until each side was down to drips, rather than timing, except at night when it was 10 mins each side).

Although it was hard work and a bit tedious, it really wasn't that bad - because I did it from about day 4 I didn't know any different IYSWIM, DS is my first baby so didn't have anything to compare it with! I only stopped because I found it harder to fit it in once my DS was older and more mobile - it's hard to chase a crawler round the house while pumping! But I'd amazed myself by going as long as I did, so I was ready to stop - we were weaning by then too so it felt like less of a big deal him having formula (I'd been so determined to BF and was so gutted not to be able to.)

My DS had a tongue tie - has your son been checked for this? DS's was snipped privately, really minor op. As we didn't get it done until he was 16wks (midwives etc didn't spot it at birth despite me repeatedly asking for it to be rechecked when he could not latch - I'm a Speech and Lang Therapist so knew what I had thought I'd spotted) we never established BF but this can make a massive difference.

I agree with what everyone else said about shouting for as much help as you can get to try and establish BF directly. I wish I'd tried to get DSs feeding sorted properly but just wanted to be left alone after awful hospital stay.

Please give me a shout if I can be of any more help, do keep us informed how you're getting on x

I did it for 6 months with DS exclusively and then partially until 7.5 months. DD actually latched on but had so many problems I mostly expressed for her until 6 months then by 7 months she was having formula, th.

It's hard work but I am glad I did it. I loved being able to give them my milk. It might take a while to express but there are ways to cut down on the time taken. iVillage have a forum group called "Exclusively pumping" which I found very supportive. Kellymom is also helpful and has a page of links.

HTH

PS. iVillage forum is on the US version of iVillage - as someone else said it's more common over there (probably because they all go back to work so quickly and those that do pump at work anyway and are often given breaks to express or express at their desk etc).

I loved my Ameda Lactaline Personal pump - you can get them from quite a few online sellers and IMO it's the best of the 'heavier use' pumps and is great value. You can also get it second hand as unlike many it's a 'closed system' so no chance of milk backing up into the machine as can happen with some Medela pumps (risk of infection if this happens, mainly from thrush which even with sterilising often won't go away).

Oh and one last thing - I learned too late with DS about 'the fridge trick', but it made life a lot easier with DD. Basically involves having a nice clean container or ziplock bag to fit your pump bits in between expresses to avoid having to wash and sterilise each time. The idea is that breastmilk can keep for days in a fridge so any milk residue left on the pump bits will keep until next time (some people rinse them before putting back in fridge). That way you could get away with sterilising only 1-2 times a day rather than 6-12!

Thank you all so much, I honestly can't say how grateful I am for your posts.

I'll try to answer each thing raised. Tongue tie - the paediatrician checked for this and said he didn't have it. It seems that all my equipment works ok as I can express about 120ml per feed in 20 minutes (10 on each boob) and at the moment DS is only on about 70ml per feed calculated by birth weight.

He vigerously sucks at a finger or the bottle, just not at my nipple, which he looks at like it's some bizarre foreign object

At the moment I am just using a borrowed Avent pump which is working ok, but I can imagine I would need more in the future. To be honest, if I could just get to a couple of months I would probably be happy. DS has already had formula anyway as he had really low blood sugar at birth due to my gestational diabetes, and needed to be fed asap.

Again, I don't have anything against formula per se, it's just that I have all this lovely milk and a hungry growing baby and I want the two to go together!

The lactation consultant in the hospital was useless, just kept repeating "make sure he takes a full mouthful of BREAST" even though it was obviously not working.

We've done loads of skin to skin, tried latching with a nipple shield, latching during pumping, everything basically. Even the lovely paediatrician that we had, who fully supported breastfeeding said it would be worth us looking into other options.

So, you have all reassured me though and I'll continue doing what I'm doing. Luckily DS seems to be into a vague routine of 4 hourly feeds during the day, increasing to 3 hourly from about 7pm until 4am and then back to 4 again, and at the moment I seem to be able to pump enough to stay ahead.

Oh and strikeup thank you so much for the "fridge trick" that makes perfect sense - it's actually the washing and sterilising that takes the time as I am so careful about it, so if I can cut that down a bit that would really help.

I'll have a look at that forum as well. It's hard to find info about this - even my books don't say how much you should be feeding a breastfed baby if you're expressing, which makes sense as "normal" breastfeeders I guess don't need to worry about amounts!

Thanks so much again.

Ozzie

I'm afraid that I can't help much but the resources are out there to help you, have a look at Tresillian their no is 18637357, who were really good with one of the girls at my mothers group, and the Australian Breastfeeding Association 18006862686, those are on the back of my blue book. There is also the Early Childhood Centre where I am in NSW.

Keep knocking on the doors until you get the appropriate help. You're doing really well.

And remember to keep putting him to the breast often - and always before offering him a bottle. 5 days is very early and he may just not have got the hang of it yet. It's quite common for the first week or so to be really difficult.

I have exclusively expressed since my DS was 1 week old, he is now 9 weeks old.

He had major latching on issues, :( the hospital was hopeless in its support (20 different health care professionals all with a different idea as to why it wasn't working ) and I was hand expressing every feed having tried every time to bf first.

When I finally took the decision off the MW and announced I was going to express every feed and leave bf to others, I felt both enourmously guilty (letting down the sisterhood, going against all the propaganda which says bf or die... etc) and hugely liberated! My DS started to regain his birth weight in front of my eyes, began to sleep for 3 hours between feeds, and looked contented. :)

When I came home - DS was one week old - DH bought me a breast pump and bottles. I have a Medela Swing (quiet and unobtrusive) and 6 150ml bottles. As I produce enough milk (and it increases using a pump) I express when I get up around 6.30am, then around 11am, 3pm, 7pm and 10.30pm. I put each bottle in the fridge (top shelf is coldest) and cos I was expressing more than he drank in the first weeks I built up a stock of milk. So my current practise is when we get up DH puts milk from the 'store' into a feedbottle and warms it up for the first feed, and also gets the next feed into a second feed bottle and leaves it on the kitchen worktop (it's good for 5-6hours). So after that, when we fetch the feed bottle that's been out ready, we also get the next feed out of the fridge to come to room temp. This system means if DS wants feeding earlier than I expected he always has a feed ready for him! It also means I can grab feed bottles from the fridge to go in his change bag when I go out and about, and they are good for up to 6 hours.

I hope this helps - having said all that, I am now taking the next hard decision which is to switch to formula (waits for gasps of horror from everyone... )

I didn't enjoy the failure of breastfeeding, and so for DS sake I exclusively expressed. Now after 9 weeks I am admitting that I loathe expressing. I have given DS the best start by giving him my milk, but there is no dignity in being attached to a machine 4-5 times a day, I resent the time it takes (40 minutes each time), and it limits life in that everything revolves around what time I need to go off and express. If someone calls round, or comes early, or comes late, it totally throws my expressing. If I've gone out somewhere there's one eye on the clock to get back in order to express. If people are staying with us, or we go overnight somewhere, there is always the problem of disappearing off in private for great chunks of time... well, the list goes on. And it's not always very comfortable, there's a risk of splitting nipples if you're hurrying it along. So I'm introducing a ff to replace an ebm feed each day from today, so that he's on formula by this time next week. Now all I have to do is reduce the expressing down without being in pain and risking mastitis (any tips people?)

There was a post recently where loads of link were put up. Try here

Can you get hold of a supplemental nursing system in Aus? If you can that might be worth a try.

You have probably already tried this but have you tried expressing directly into his mouth and seeing if he will latch on from there? Perhaps with your finger in his mouth then try and replace it with the nipple.

Also try biological nurturing, in the bath if poss, again if you have not already tried this.

Sorry for useless suggestions! I hope you find some way to carry on giving him breast milk :)

Ozzie I'm in Singapore and exclusive pumping is also quite common here as Mum's go back to work early. One of my colleagues managed for over a year and her dd was living in Malaysia with her Grandparents at the time and she had to deliver milk at the weekend! Others have managed for a similar length of time and longer in many cases.

I also really struggled in the early days but DS was the opposite wouldn't take a bottle. I got very sore nipples as mine were also quite flat (I bf to 17 months - DS is now 25 months) and now they are flat no longer . One trick that might work is that the lactation consultant in the hospital gave me a sort of plastic syringe that is wide at the bottom that I had to put over my nipple to 'draw it out' so that it wasn't so flat and was easier for DS to latch on in the early days. Once he got the hang of it we were fine.