Pls, help needed with expressing and feeding in general

[wtfih]

Hi all wise parents, I really need help with this:

I have a 8w old dd. I have breastfed her from day 1. She was low weight at birth, under the 9th centile and also lost 10% during first week.
Weeks 4 & 5 she put on 330gr each week or thereabouts and week 6 380 gr so going up in Centiles. I'm extremely happy about this as her weight was such a worry. I breastfeed on demand, which at the moment is every 1.5 hrs or so during the day and at night she only wakes me up once (last feed at 12, then at 4AM and then at 7 and 8.30 or so)
Issues I have:

• I would like dh to get more involved so I can take a break from time to time. For the last couple of days she even cries when he tries to pick her up. She then gets passed on to me because I'm the feeding machine
• I am planning to return to work jan or the latest February and I will have to start expressing anyway

I bought a pump which does nothing for me. I've tried it like 5 times so far and it just frustrates me nothing else. The most I got was 20ml in 40 min I think.
I've been told to hire a medela hospital grade one.

My questions:
If I did not manage to express with kinyo will it make a difference if I get a medela hospital grade pump?

Is there a huge difference between the medela symphony hosp grade and medela swing that can be bought from high street retailers or online? Hiring is £45 a month vs buying £100

If I manage to express will it affect output in a negative way? I plan to continue breastfeeding on demand and bottle feed once or twice in the evening when dh is home.

If I still can't express what on earth do I do?! Especially when I'll be back at work.

Do apologise for the long post, I'm constantly tired and can't put it into words clearer than that.

P.S. So far every time the baby would cry I would just put her on the breast. Obviously not force feed her! But from day one I thought that if she cried she was hungry. I think it worked so far, but is it a bad habit? I'm having doubts about everything

Hmm. I've never heard of that brand of breast pump. I had a Medela swing at home after using the hospital grade Medela in hospital. I found it a bit less effective than the hospital one, but still perfectly ok and effective. Is there any chance you could borrow the Swing from someone and try it out?

Regularly expressing shouldn't have a negative effect on your supply, especially if you do it at a consistent time.

If you find you can't express much, then you can make up the difference with formula when you go back to work.

Also please don't worry about feeding at every squeak with a tiny baby! You can't make them feed, and breastfeeding is about more than just food, it's comfort and calming as well. You could start to see if other things will settle her first, but there's absolutely no thing as bad habits when it comes to feeding.

If you can't express you either continue to feed yourself, or give formula. No big deal.

Firstly, NO! You are NOT causing bad habits and you're definitely doing the right thing there :)

Eight weeks is really early days. I think far too soon to be worrying about pumping output. You still have three months until you go back to work - it might be worth trying to relax and leaving it for a while.

The Kinyo seems to get good reviews, but pumping is tricky at the best of times. I don't think that the pump is likely to make that much difference, but I could be wrong.

This is a good article about what is normal.

It can help to pump when your baby is due a feed and your breasts feel very "full", and it also helps to try and trigger the letdown by thinking about your baby, looking at a photo of them, listening to a recording of a baby crying, smelling an item of their clothing.

Expressing doesn't reduce supply, because the more you remove milk from the breast, the more your body makes. Babies are also much more efficient than a pump at getting milk out, so it's fine to pump while you are "full" and then feed the baby immediately afterwards. That full feeling is just the extra-enthusiastic supply of the first few weeks. Even when your breasts feel sloppy and soft, you are producing milk.

This is crazy, but I honestly completely forgot about formula I was worrying so much but there's formula, of course!

I have tried pumping when my breasts were full (that's when I managed to get anything) but then the baby got hungry right after pumping and she got really frustrated at the breasts for hours that evening. Which led ne believe that I messed something up with the timing of expressing. It might just be a coincidence but that was a tough evening
I was thinking to try expressing at night, in between her 12 and 4am feeds?

Thank you for reassuring me re comfort feeding, I had doubts because none of my NCT friends does it and I'm the odd one out.