Exclusive Pumping

[ANP88]

I wanted to open up the subject of exclusive pumping and hear from others on their experience. DS is now 5 months and after several difficult weeks at the start, I gave up breast feeding and now I am exclusively pumping. I've had to invest heavily in a variety of pumps, using the Elvie handsfree now as it gives me more freedom. Still, I feel like I'm done with it and want to stop, yet I feel selfish for not wanting to keep it up. I would love to hear thoughts, suggestions and experiences from other parents on this topic, as there appears to be very little literature about it.
Thanks

I pumped for my 12 week premature baby as he was in the nicu for 108days and was to ill and small to breastfeed, I pumped until he was about 5 months old party because I had just had enough and he had such bad silent reflux one day we tired him on special formula and Christ he was like a different baby so that was it the pump went out the window, now pregnant with my 2nd and plan on just pumping for him to, partly as I don't want to have a different bond and feel it's so important that husband builds the bond to

When I pumped with my first, I’d lost my supply due to mastitis and my pumping schedule was every 2-3 hours, day and night. Pump for at least 20 minutes then another 5 once milk stopped flowing (only I found that triggered another letdown and I was so petrified of mastitis I’d end up pumping for 45 minutes sometimes!)

However that’s the schedule for the first 12 weeks, then you can start merging pumps and dropping pumps (they say that schedule for 12 weeks is to establish supply). You can also power pump in the evening to mimic cluster feeding but again that was to boost supply when I had very little. (Pump 10 mins, off for 5, pump for 10, off for 5 for an hour or so between 7-10 at night)

This time that schedule is out the window - I really didn’t think it was sustainable and really was the worst of both worlds.

My schedule this time from my milk coming in will be:

Pump at 7am, 11am, 3pm, 7pm, 11pm and 3am (so 6 pumps a day, unfortunately the middle of the night pump is essential apparently, although I’ll be dropping it as soon as possible!)

I had an oversupply with my son so hoping to produce a lot this time too, so I’m hoping by using a double pump, I’ll pump enough to feed just my milk for quite a while - if not, I’ll give formula to top up 🙂

I’m also working on the basis that surely my boobs would just regulate to those times?! I’ve been trying to find if you can pump exclusively just 6 times a day rather than 10-12, but nobody can or will give me an answer. I’ve asked a private consultant (who spent the half hour telling me why I should be getting counselling to enable direct nursing, I’ve had extensive therapy, it’s the only reason I’m at a place to talk about our experience or even contemplate pumping!), our local team were baffled and didn’t know much, and la leche league seemed intent on making it sounds as inconvenient as possible 🤷‍♀️

I hate how they make you feel so bad when you’ve given a bottle - when we went the tongue tie clinic we were on bottles and the nurse said “well there’s not much point checking him now you’ve given up”. I wanted to punch her in her smarmy face! I fought for every drop of breast milk he had and tried harder at breastfeeding than anyone I know, thankfully I’m now really proud of myself!
(And I needed to know if he was TT as he was struggling with milk at the time, though that was allergy!)

You really have done amazing for 5 months, I like what another poster has said and you should buy yourself something lovely as a big pat on the back

I exclusively pumped until he was 4 months old, he was premature and very small and we never managed to get a latch.

It was exhausting and due to my own ill health I stopped pumping through the night which then stopped my milk supply so he's on formula now and I feel so much better!!

Definitely not enough support for exclusive pumpers.

People don't understand how tiring and time consuming the pumping, the feeding, and the sterilising is.

I have done exclusive pumping with my DTs, Medela Harmony double pump with the handsfree bra, it worked really well.

I would then feed the babies the milk from the previous session while pumping, worked quite well. I tried pumping when they were napping but I ended up having to stop/start too often as I had to go and settle them. Or pump when another adult can loo after the baby.

Could I ask how/what you did to feed while pumping? I could never get the hang of it with my first and would knock the pumps and loose suction etc, but would like to master it this time!

Also what did you guys do in the first few days before milk comes in? I have no clue what to do with a full term baby

I hand expressed colostrum into a syringe which we then fed baby as he wouldn’t latch. This time around I’ll pre express from 38 weeks ish I think and take the frozen syringes of colostrum to hospital with me x

In the first couple of days I hand expressed (sterilised plastic spoon to catch then suck up with a 1ml syringe). Then I moved to a manual pump for a couple of days, then the hospital double pump at NICU - I had an Ardo Calypso double at home which was really good.

I was BF my second and switched to pumping when I had to add thickener when we couldn’t get his reflux under control.

I found it exhausting. At the start it took me hours to get a few mls and I was constantly tied to the pump. I was in the US at the time so pumping was super common with the limited mat leave - I got advice from some really experienced pumpers around power pumping and best times to pump. I actually found hand pumping to work really well at the start of a pumping session - I could get half a bottle out in a few mins compared to 20 with the pump.

I stopped when he was 6 months, I felt so guilt but I couldn’t face it, work and looking after a baby after that. I also hated what it did to the shape of my boobs but they have since recovered!

Hi everyone. Thanks for sharing your experiences on here. It’s nice to know I’m not alone in this!

I had my first day back at work today and I had to express in an unlocked room with windows during my lunch hour. Pretty depressing stuff! I’m down to 3 pump sessions a day, and all going well otherwise. I’m so grateful for all the support on here. Ds turned 6 months today and I’m supplementing with formula. Still going strong, but I hope others have a better experience and begin to gain more help from health visitors and mid wives for this approach.

I feel lucky that I’ve had a good supply. For all new mums looking to do this, pump as often as possible in the first 6 weeks. This helped me keep going. Don’t be afraid to supplement with formula if you’re feeling like you are not producing enough. I’m going with the notion that any amount helps little ones build a good immune system. At the beginning, I pumped every 4 hours, each side for 20-30 mins, even through the night. This is really hard, but I would wake up in agony and need to pump. I would change, feed, then pump when ds went back to sleep. Get some sleep, then repeat.

As ds has gotten older, pumping hands free has helped massively. Or I would pump with one hand, feed ds with the other. I tried a hand pump, but that was too hard, so upgraded to an electric one. Then I found the Elvie, which worked for me, but still had issues like leaking etc. I think some of the others you can still go hands free with certain types of bras, but didn’t try them. I just found as ds got older (and more wiggly) that I couldn’t look after him as I wanted to. I was missing all the cuddles and play time as I sat plugged in to the wall all the time. At the beginning, it did feel like there was no time for anything else!

I agree SinkGirl - it’s the hardest thing, especially with pnd. One of the reasons I’m keeping up is to help manage it. I figure I need the happy hormones right now!! I’m going to try at get to 7 months. Can’t believe you managed that with twins! Hats off to you and all the mums for however many days, weeks or months we can manage. Well done ladies!

This may not help at all, but my mental health improved massively once I stopped pumping. Not sure if it was the hormonal change, the loss of that pressure and constant worry and alarms going off, but I felt much better within a couple of months of stopping. Well done to you, you’ve done brilliantly.

Thanks SinkGirl. I think you might be right. It’s such a hormonal rollercoaster!