Am I unusual to have bf 3 children for (nearly) 3 years without expressing?

[wolvesarejustoldendaydogs]

I bf DS1 and DS2 each for a year, and am still bf 9mo DD.

I don't express at all - tried a couple of times and it took ages to get a tiny bit of milk. I am fortunate in that my lifestyle enables me to manage without expressing - I work from home and have a part-time nanny, so I can break off and take the baby for a bf whenever required.

But I just wondered if it is unusual not to express. The thread about Amazon advertising a 'complete breastfeeding set' comprising pump & bottles etc. made me think of it. I have never bought/used a bottle. Is expressing part and parcel of bf for most mothers?

BF DD2 for years, but never managed to express more than a few mls. It's totally impossible.

Have you never ever left them for more than about two hours? I don't understand!

nope.

I couldnt and didnt.

dc 1 fed for 16m
dc 2 fed for ooh maybe 26 m
dc 3 fed till i think 35months

tandem fed the last two. now that was a bugger lol

My DS didn't take a bottle. But I expressed in case i died and I wanted to make sure he had my milk. How morbid.

But to be fair I siphoned half of each session and donated to scbu.

There seems to be some smugness from some,. I am happy that ds s able to get my milk whatever way . It's still the same milk that comes out of my boobies. I was expressing in front f my friend who bf her children. She look and said oh right its still milk from your breast that you giving him (I told that I was expressing beforehand. Errrr well what other milk would it be if I told you I am expressing. Yes it's from my boob but in a bottle it does offer us flexibility, yes it's a gaff but the benefits both health wise and others outweigh the disadvantages.

I expressed not to go out without baby but because I was desperate for longer sleeps by 3 weeks. I usually managed 1-2 feeds in fridge over next 6 months. Suspwct many people do the same. Was lucky expressing worked for me as it was vital for my sanity!

With dc2 now I'm not expressing much due to lack of time but as she feeds and sleeps better it's a luxury having someone else do a feed not a necessity. I still squirt shedloads of excess milk so it does seem a waste if I can't catch it. Which I usually can't!

So different circs to OP. I lent my pump to a friend a while back who expressed so her baby could have bm when she had to go back to work full time at 6 months. I was lucky and only had to work from 11 months and 3 days/week so just used a few formula cartons and then cow milk even though I bf'd for several more months.

I went back to work part time at 4 months part time so expressed twice a day for the three days I was at work. I have done the same with dc2. Its only with hindsight and being on mumsnet that I realised that I was very lucky that I am able to express as it allowed me to bf for a year first time and heading towards that with dc2. Interesting thing is that the amount I express follows the feeding pattern of the baby so varies significantly between dc1 and dc2.

OP, interesting question. Ignore the catty responses :)

I loathed expressing. Despite otherwise good supply i struggled to reach the let-down point with a pump. Were there to be a next time i probably wouldn't express. I was lucky and could take 12 months off and was rarely that far from ds for long anyway. Guess would have been different if i'd had to go back to work sooner though.

I got a breast pump but it was a bit of a waste of money tbh. I expressed a little in the early days when I had cracked nipples, and once or twice when I went out in the evening. However, I don't go out to work so things are easier for me in that respect.

OP, I can't believe the bitchy comments you're getting on this thread. It would appear some people are clearly very insecure about their own feeding experiences. Ignore them, you don't sound smug to me.

I was wondering the same thing today. I BF DCs 1 and 2 for a year without giving bottles of EBM. I can and did express and like an eejit filled my freezer with bags of milk I never got round to using until it cane in handy for making up porridge when they were starting solids. I think it is quite unusual, most though not all of my friends were organised enough to give bottles of EBM. I was just too lazy, it isn't something I'm proud of in the slightest. It meant that I had to go a year each time without a night out. Now on DC3 and am rather hoping to muster the motivation to get him to take a bottle or I won't be having a night out until next January.

thanks for nice comments :)

mcfluff - from around 7-8 months I find I can leave them for increasingly long periods of time and they're not bothered about milk - up to about 5 - 6 hours. Though I don't do it very often.

piglet - yes, method of delivery makes absolutely no difference in the milk content, don't think I suggested otherwise!

Perhaps ante-natal classes should talk about expressing more. It wasn't mentioned at all in my NCT classes (which were otherwise very good). I had no idea before I tried that it wasn't necessarily going to be straightforward.

I couldn't express and was forever being made to feel shitty for it, now it's a boast? I know a more people who couldn't express than could tbh although it's made out in mags etc that it's soooo easy.

Not been going as long as you, op, but feed DS1 to 12 months (when I went back to work, so he went onto cows milk), and DS2 is 10.5 months, and I'm due back at work in 5 weeks. I don't own a pump, and were not planning on more kids, so suspect I will be one of "those" who didn't express.

To the poster who asked about leaving baby: when he was a couple of months old, I'd stuff boob in, let DS2 feed, and then go out with DS1 for an hour, and come back for another feed. Now he's on solids and water, Idl leave him for half a day maybe, but the opportunity hasn't yet appeared. Going to have to do something before I go back to work tho, aren't I??

ABat I think the point that's being explored in this thread really is whether, even if you do have those enviable expressable breasts, you find that expressing is a "necessary" or "inevitable" part of bf. The reality for some people is that it's more hassle than it's worth. Certainly I find it interesting to know that not everyone finds an expressed bottle in the night to be the solution to all of their baby-rearing issues - there's a lot of pressure to believe that if you could only get your shit together and organise this you'd be as yummy a mummy as could be imagined. Actually, I came to the view that this wasn't for me. I couldn't be arsed organising it and I didn't let anyone tell me I'd look a bit fresher if I was getting more sleep. For me, the balance fell that way, because I was getting just enough.

abat - definitely not a boast! i don't think there's anything superior about expressing or not expressing.

surgeon -yes, exactly! you have put it much better than me - wish you had started this thread instead of me :O I'm interested in whether people found that expressing was essential/important. Like you, I find the whole concept of expressing too much to think about (not saying it is necessarily complicated for others) and easier to just bf in the night (I co-sleep anyway). If I'd found expressing easy, then maybe I'd think differently.

No sorry that wasn't aimed at you.

I was pretty much in the same position as you, i find it surprising that people on this thread thought you were boasting.

oh, thank you, bat - sorry I misunderstood you! Yes, it is odd that it should seem a boast, it didn't even occur to me when I wrote my original post (if it had, then I would have worded it better!)

Yes, sorry ABat, I made the same mistake as wolves, I thought you felt there was some boasting going on.

My fault for not being clear

Just another data point - I thought of this thread as I ended up expressing last night at 4am as my breasts were too painfully full to sleep, and dd is finally sleeping a few hours at a time. An ounce off each side and I could sleep.

So I'm a bit envious of the OP but on the plus side Im getting a stash of ebf so can have a guaranteed sleep this evening until MrNC runs out of milk.

notcitrus your post probably expresses describes the pros and cons perfectly - six of one and half a dozen of the other.

Even if I expressed, I wouldn't get a night's sleep as DS1 (4.5) and DS2 (2.7) are far more disruptive than the baby - at least she only wants to feed and roll back to sleep. They want to talk and argue and negotiate. Last night DS1 was insisting on going (at 3am) downstairs to search for the toy money his grandma gave him so that he could practice the magic trick he saw a taxi driver do with a coin. I refused, but had to argue it for ages which woke me up thoroughly so I couldn't sleep and had to watch the three of them snoring in my bed while I sat and MN'd