Stopping exclusive pumping

[mondray]

I have a 3 week old boy who I have been feeding through exclusive pumping.
The pump isn't working for me. It's constantly cracking my nipples and making the bleed and I don't like how heavy and painful my breasts feel all the time.
I know it sounds really selfish, but I would feel much more comfortable just sticking to formula like I did with my first.

The issue is that I'm producing loads of milk and finding it really difficult to get my production to go down. It just seems to be resulting in engorgment and breasts that feel like bruises all the time.

Is there anyone that can help and give me advice on what to do? Firstly to stop this constant pain/discomfort while trying to stop and anything that could make it happen faster?

Thanks

The advice when stopping BFing is to drop one session every two weeks to give your breasts time to adjust and to reduce your risk of mastitis. I'm not sure if the advice is the same if you are exclusively pumping but if you give one of the BFing Helplines a call, a BFC will be able to help you come up with a plan to stop pumping

I exclusively pumped and it is quite hard to drop it down. I pumped for a year and it took an extra two months to drop it. There is a Facebook group called exclusively pumping UK mums, they’ll be able to help.

I pumped and BF and you need to drop one feed/pump per day (replace with formula) and gradually reduce it until you can stop. It does take a little while, what you don’t want to do is go cold turkey in case of mastitis etc.

And btw - well done for doing three weeks! Your baby has has the best bits of breastfeeding. If it’s not working for you then absolutely change over.

How many times a day are you pumping?

When I stopped pumping with my first I dropped 1 session every 5 days ish I think.

Stop your overnight one first so you can get more sleep.

Echoing advice to drop a feed at a time. Last thing you want is to end up with mastitis! Savoy cabbage leaves are meant to have a chemical in them which helps to reduce supply, keep it in the fridge and then it's nice and cold and soothing. Also alternating between hot and cold flannels can help soothe too.

Well done on managing three weeks. It’s the toughest way to feed your baby...the cracked nipples of breastfeeding and the washing and sterilising faff from bottle feeding.
Either drop a feed as suggested above and/or cut each pumping session by 5 minutes a day.

I am going through the same thing right now - I’ve been exclusively pumping for 6 months but I’m exhausted, we’re flying abroad soon so expressing would be very challenging on the day of travel, and simply I just need a break. I completely understand you, you need to do whatever works best for you and your family!!

I am dropping one pumping session at a time. I started with dropping the night session last week, and a couple of days ago I started dropping one of the afternoon sessions as well so now I’m at 3/day. It does get uncomfortable sometimes but it’s getting better day by day. When my breasts start getting a bit more painful I usually just wet a towel (don’t use hot water as that would increase your milk supply - at least it does so with mine), and just use it as a cold press. Just take every day as it comes and you will see what works best for you, but don’t try to to rush it