Pumping Breast Milk - How much should I expect?

[Juicylucytoo]

A question to all breast feeders / pumpers...How long does it take you and how much do you get. Also, how much represents a feed?

I just did about 30 minutes and only got 60ml. How does it stack up?

Have been BF for 4 weeks - will my production / pumping get better?

BTW I have an Avent ISIS IQ electric pump

I used to be pleased with about 3 oz in one sitting - can't remember for the life of me how much that is in mls.

hi juicy, how is it going? LO doing well i hope

i managed to get 3ozs in 20 mins using avent hand pump, but that was from both boobs....the one she hadn't fed on gave me 2.5 ozs then topped up with the other boob to 3 ozs (about 90ml)

dh fed her and she took 2ozs very quickly then the other oz about half an hour later. i bf her again about an hour after that so it obviously wasn't enough to keep her going!

not tried again tho...was hoping to do some today so i could get a full nights sleep but she has been feeding every hour to hour and a half......six week growth spurt i think [knackered emoticon]

Thanks Daisy, everything fine here - although I can relate to the lack of sleep. Sounds like things are going well with you too.

The 2oz were from one breast. I will give it another go later tonight or tomorrow and see if I can make it up to 120ml in total.

That way I'll should get my shopping trip Monday (feed before going - DH feed while I'm out - feed when I get home). Should give me 3hrs out of the house - What do you think??

that sounds like a plan juicy...i hope you're shopping for nice things and not just groceries. i used my time out for a trip to the hairdresser followed by a coffee and it was fab.

i keep meaning to pump and start stockpiling it so i can get a break at weekends (dh away mon-thu usually).

from what i've read it is usually more productive if you pump first thing in the morning.

I hope you are enjoying motherhood after your journey to get there. we're having a few latching issues due to torrential let down but things are generally ok apart from the constant feeding at the mo. but that's ok too as i quite like it here on the sofa anyway

Here's a link from the fantastic Kellymom site about approximate quantities for a breastfed baby.

fab link thanks.....i pumped and got 3 oz last week but had no idea whether it was enough or not. From the calculator, it looks about the right amount!

sorry for hi-jacking your thread juicy

No probs Daisy. It was a fab link

I found I got the best 'yield' if I pumped from one side whilst feeding from the other first thing in the morning. Now dd is 8 months I struggle to get about 2oz! Wish I'd known it would get more difficult and I would have stockpiled!

I can speak from experience here. I've been expressing for the last few weeks due to a return to work. while I was at home and still feeding DD I got only small amounts out, but when I missed feeds and expressed at work I got much bigger amounts. I had about 7 lots of 5omls in the freezer which loked piffly, but it was something.
This was my thread a couple of weeks ago
www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=1364&threadid=348203&stamp=070706164539