expressing breast milk - can you help?

[giantpurplepeopleeater]

Am just starting to express breast milk - little one is not very old but due to circumstances I am going to have to go back to work very shortly, but still want to breastfeed. So I have a few questions....

How much do you need to express to cover feeds? If FF advice would be 120ml per feed, Would the same amount of breast milk be enough?

If I express to the point where I don't seem to be getting much more milkk coming out, how long do I need to wait before I can express again?

I know I can store the milk in the fridge... but should I warm it up again before giving it him????

Any help/ advice will be gratefully recieved!

Thanks
A stressed out new mum!

I used to express till I had taken all that was in a bbo but not necessarily put it all in the bottle to feed DS, it freezes really well and you can just keep poring more onto a frozen pot till it's full. Breast milk is less filling than formula, I believe, so maybe a bit more for a breat feed than a formula feed. Warm it by either sticking the bottle in a jug of hot water or sticking it in your cleavage for a while! Or don't warm it, just use it at room temp if DC will drink it. Would express again when you need to feed again. You can always feel when you've filled up. Stop when there's no more coming out or you'll make yourself really sore. And explain to the uninitiated that you keep excess boobie milk as it is precious and you can't just mix some more or some well intentioned person will chuck it away. Had to explain carefully to my mother that it's not like formula, you can't just get another bottle out!

GPPE - There is a good resource here for expressing mums.

As a general guide babies have between 19-30oz of bm a day, with an average of 25oz.

If you are going to be apart from baby for 10 hours a day and would be giving baby 4 feeds - assuming you feed baby yourself at 7.30, bottle at 9.30, 12, 2.30, 5 and feed baby yourself when home at 6.30 (rough timings based on you being away 8-6pm all babies are different). You would give baby around 14oz (10hours away = 10oz of milk + 1oz extra per bottle).

Obviously some babies may want more and some want less so your caregiver may need to have some extra in fridge/freezer each day.

You can pump any time of day but early morning is best, especially if you can feed baby on one side and express on other at the same time.

You don't need to wait for breasts to 'fill up' as breast are never empty (think rivers not buckets). You can even do something called 'cluster pumping which is where you pump for 10 mins, rest/do something else for 10 mins, pump for 10, rest for 10 pump for 10.

This works really well if you have a double electric pump to express both sides at the same time though to be honest as the aim of this is to increase supply you may not see much milk when you do this but it can have a really positive effect on increasing how much milk you make later on.

Hi all,

I want to start expressing in order to give my baby one bottle of breast milk a day (which would allow me to have some time away/uninterrupted block of sleep for about 5 hours)

I am lost as to what make/model/electric/manual to buy...does anyone have some advice please?

Why not just express by hand with a clean muslin and a sterilied pot to catch? Takes the same amount of time but makes your hand a bit achey

The cheapest electric pump i found was a spectra one from anna whiz online. Was just as good as the all singing and dancing avent duo (borrowed from a friend) and the medela electric is also nice but dear.

The hand pumps from avent and medela are both nice too. ( i was lucky? enough to try them all out.)
by far the cheapest is to do it by hand and will easily do for a bottle a-day

I find the manual medela pump works fine for me - I can barely hand express at all (takes ages, squirts everywhere). I had the medela swing, which so many people swear by - barely got anything out. It's horses for courses with expressing, everyone here seems to have a different experience...

Thanks for that. How did you get to try them all? Is there somewhere I could go for trialing?

Mini medela electric worked for me. Makes interesting mooing type noise in use!