Expressing and bottle feeding regularly

[Trousersareoverrated]

Due baby no 2 next year. With DD I started expressing milk around 7 weeks to occasionally give her a bottle if I wanted to go out. The problem was that I only managed to squeeze out a little at a time so I had to ‘save up’ to be able to leave enough to leave her for a few hours. I tried a few kinds of electric and manual pumps.

Has anyone successfully managed to get to a point where they could express a decent amount to be able to regularly leave their baby for a few hours (even if it’s just to snatch a longer night’s sleep once a week from 2 months old or so)

Anyone?

Some people can pump, others can't - I can pump. I exclusively fed my child and also pumped enough milk to feed my friends child almost exclusively as well. It didn't matter which pump I used, I got almost the same out of them all. Neither of my kids would take a bottle, so they never had my pumped milk (despite trying daily from 2 weeks with both).

They key was routine - pumping at the same time each day. I used to feed off one breast and pump off the other and then at the later pump session, feed off the other breast and pump from the alternative one, so each breast got one pump per day. Always at the same time (9am and 4pm).

My friend (who I pumped for) tried pumping herself and did get up to 300ml per day at one point, but it took her lots and lots of effort - like you she tried loads of pumps.

Oh thank you that is great advice. I will try pumping from very early and even if only a little comes out I will at least have a supply of frozen milk on hand if the baby will take a bottle.