Colostrum harvesting- any experience welcome

[codenameduchess]

I've been advised to try to express colostrum from 36 weeks for baby, expecting to be induced at 38 weeks due to GD. I'm days away from the 36 week mark and realising I need to get myself organised!
I have syringes from my midwife, plenty of Tupperware so will sterilise one to store them in. Had a demonstration on the knitted boob too.

Anyone that has/is expressing colostrum, how did you find it? What method works for you? How long did it take you to fill a 1ml syringe?

Is a haakaa pump useful? It seems like quite a gentle way to stimulate it.

I did express colostrum but it was hard going to start with. Don't expect to get much the first few times - it took me 2/3 days to get one bead! However it did speed up after that and towards 40 weeks I was able to get 5ml in a session.

I found hand expressing worked best. You have to sort of experiment until you discover what works for you. Warming my boobs first also helped. Good luck!

Wouldn't suggest a haaka until baby comes, you just need to hand express rather than using any pumps as a lot of the colostrum will be wasted on the sides of the pump etc.

I built up a stash before dc 2, after considerable trouble breastfeeding the first time so I was quite used to hand expressing. Make sure you're nice and warm and relaxed, I did it in front of the tv of an evening. I found there were certain areas where more milk came from, just have to experiment and find your groove :)

You won't get a let down type amount of colostrum for the haakaa to be helpful. As I understand it you pretty much hand express drops and collect into the syringe

Watch YouTube videos, they're really helpful. Also try and think about your baby and feeding them while doing it, it sounds odd but it made a huge difference with the amount that I could get.

My biggest advice is be gentle with yourself and don't overdo it! The method they told me at the hospital when I did it was to use my knuckles against my breast but I found that really uncomfortable on my tender breasts so I used my fingers in the same pattern. It should feel like there's tiny peas under the surface of your skin that you need to move to the surface.