Please could someone share their knowledge on expressing?

[Mumblesmummy]

Hi I'm sure this will have been asked a hundred times before but I'm a little confused. I want to bf my baby for the first couple of days in hospital (which is a trial in itself for me but I feel very strongly that i want to give baby the colostrum). Then when I get home, I want to express and only actually bf once a day (morning).

I'm at a loss as to how this works. When do I express? How often? How much? Will I be able to establish my milk flow by expressing? I'd been naive enough to think i could express it all in a short space of time, say twice a day, but obviously it's occured to me that that's not the case... so could someone please explain every last bit of the expressing process to me in total layman's terms?

Thank you

i'm not sure how this would work cos imo you need to get your supply/demand thing balanced first. otherwise you have no way of knowing how much a newborn will need. my experience is also that newborns need to be fed every two or three hours, and i would never have had the time to express at all.
i know that this has been done by mums wha have babies in special care units, but i have never heard of anyone doing it through choice! Why do you think that you want to express rather than breastfeed?

I have expressed for my son since birth but not through choice. It is a very, very difficult thing to do (and I'm not blowing my own trumpet here, but it is a fact). You would need to express a mimimum of 8 times a day, including once in the middle of the night, for around 20 minutes a go (both sides). Gradually, after a few months, you can start to cut down on the number of expresses. At 15 months I have to express 3 times a day to get what DS needs.

It can be done but it is incredibly hard to fit in expressing round all the other stuff that has to be done with a baby, for example feeding, changing, settling to sleep etc etc. It has to be done whether you want to or not, and in my experience you mostly don't want to! A double electric pump makes the job a bit quicker but pumping so many times is very hard on your nipples and you will probably get quite sore. Your entire day - no, make that life will evolve around expresssing. Loss of supply is common even when you do all this.

There is a book called Exclusive Expressing which has the practical details (available on www.expressyourselfmums.co.uk which also sells pumps and accessories).

But I would think very carefully about your reasons for not BF direct before making this decision because it is a difficult thing to do and also, not everyone's breasts respond to the pump so it may not be possible for you anyway. But if it's really what you want to do then good luck and good for you for wanting to give your baby the colostrum/breast milk.

right, why on earth would you want to do this? your baby would get nipple confusion from the onset and your supply would not be maintained very easily without a lot of hardwork.

you would need to express every hour in order to establish supply, for at least 30mins on each breast. twice aday would be enough if the baby was 6months old and had established breastfeeding. i'm sorry to put a downer on things but it wont work, if you cant be bothered to breastfeed then you wont be bothered about expressing as it;s much harder.

just breastfeed normally.

is there a reason you do not want to or cannot feed the baby from the breast?

expressing will be time consuming and a newborn is more efficient at extracting milk from the breast than a pump

try www.kellymom.com site

I had to do this when ds3 was born as he was in SCBU. I had to express every 3 hours and clean and sterilise the pump in between. It was very hard to maintain a supply after I left hospital. I know that some people on MN have exclusively expressed, some for up to a year but it is usually because of latch problems. It is really NOT an easy option and it can be very disheartening to express 30ml when you used to express 90ml. I found it much easier when I took ds3 home and could feed him straight from the breast. The best stimulation for milk production is a suckling baby!

ocomeallyebabies I think your post was unnecessarily harsh. Mumblesmummy hasn't said that she 'can't be bothered to breastfeed' and she has already explained that BF for a few days would be a trial to her.

i expressed from the start because of callum being in SCBU. i am lucky because i have a good supply and have done since he was born, but expressing is hard work. You will have to express every 2-3 hours to get enough milk, and its hard on the nipples too. You need a very good pump if you plan to express longterm too.

it wasn't meant to be harsh, am just flabberghasted that someone would choose to express.

the cant be bothered bit, was meant as a generalisation, it is true that if you cant be bothered to breastfeed then EBM wont work for you - as BF is so easy once you get accustomed to it.

Mumblesmummy i am sorry if you thought i was out of line, but it would just be interesting to hear why you feel you might have to EBM....99.8% of babies are able to breastfeed naturally.

Mumblesmummy, if you can breast feed it would be much better but I can understand that it isn't always possible.

I expressed for first 4 months with ds. I have inverted nipples and he could not get a latch no matter how hard we tried so I decided next best thing would be to express. I used a double electric pump and it was hard work especially with an older child wanting my attention. Supply was effected and I had to resort to mixed feeding when he was three months old. I would of prefered to feed directly but unfortunately it did not work out for us.

Good luck whichever way you decide to feed your baby.

NineUnlovelyTinselDecorations well said. I didn't know there was anyone else on here who has exclusively expressed. I did it for a year and know how difficult it is.

Mumblesmummy please try to breastfeed if you can, it really is much much harder to express.

without knowing the details behind your question - i can tell you that i only express once a day so that dh can give dreamfeed via bottle and that one expressing takes time and organisation. i couldnt imagine the time and energy involved in exclusive expressing. i also have no idea how you would establish a supply that meets your DC's requirements.

Tinselhockey there are quite a few of us here who have been/are exclusively expressing and I know a few people in RL. It makes me sad because no one I know chose to do it but due to poor support at the start of BF it just happened.

Allcomeallyebabies I was flabbergasted when a friend of mine in RL said she would rather express than BF next time, despite having seen what I had to do in the early days to manage it. I guess for some people Bf is very hard in ways that we might not understand. Personally I would have given anything to BF direct. Much easier as you say, only DS wasn't having any of it!

Hi everyone,
sorry I've not been back sooner. thanks for all your help.
I'm starting back at two jobs and night school very soon after the baby is born, with no choice really, so DP will be looking after baby more than me.

I understand the benefits of breast feeding, though it's not something I want to do at all, and I also have some problems with my breats . I will do it for the baby, but mostly I'd like to express, which i realise is going to be a real long, hard process. I'll be off work for a few weeks at first and so will DP so I'll get a lot of time to work on the expressing whilst he helps out with the baby.

DP is absolutely wonderfully supportive, and wonderful with babies so I'd like him to be as involved as possible and feed the baby a lot. If I bf every time it's my turn to feed, the baby will probably get confused between boob and bottle and reject one or the other, which is why I want to do stick to expressing.

I've bought what I hope is a good pump, and prepared myself for it being incredibly hard work. I can easily express milk and store it in the fridge whilst I'm working, and I'm entitled to breaks for this, and there's a little room I can go to where no one will see.

Nineunlovelytinseldecs- Although from your post, I can see it is very difficult, and i may not be able to keep up with it as I plan, and so I will have to prepare an alternative, you also gave me really good info on timings. 8 times a day at 40 minutes each time for a newborn, is pretty much what I was estimating when I first posted here.

I realise if the baby was breast feeding it would cut the time by half. My friend's baby wouldn't latch on and so she had to express for him all the time and she seemed to cope really well with it.

Could anyone recommend another balance so that some feeds are expressed and others bf? Or will I just have to stick to one thing or the other to prevent confusing the baby?

In the end, I may have to give in and just bf or bottle feed, but I really want to try to do the expressing thing and see if I can make it work. I'm a very determined character so hopefully there's a chance it will.

Thanks to everyone for kind words and wishing me luck.

Oh and my 'problem' is that I was VERY large with very large breasts and I lost a collosal amount of weight, most of which came off my boobs and left them in a bit of a state- I'm sure you can imagine

you could breastfeed at night. and first thing in the morning and have your DP give EBM in a bottle when you go back to work...

Oh bless you, your baby will love your boobs even if they are blue and graze your ankles Do check out that website as it has loads of useful information/personal experiences.

BTW what pump do you have? Mine is an Ameda Lactaline and I can't recommend it highly enough. Don't even think of expressing full time without a double electric pump, it's just not possible.

You might find you feel differently when the baby arrives but like I said, good luck whatever

I bf both my dds exclusively - first until 13 months and second still going at seven months by doing a lot of expressing, as had to go back to work early in both cases. BUT I work from home, doing it in an office would be an added faff and I did it so when I was with my dds I could breastfeed, and the milk didn't dry up rather than to give dds benefit of breast milk (though of course that was part of it). As the others say, you must get an ameda lactaline, any other kind of pump just won't be up to snuff. Honestly, though, I think what you want to do is great but in the early days you'd be better off mainly bfing and letting your dh give maybe a bottle of expressed milk a day, then gradually building it up. So long as you introduce a bottle early (by the second week) your baby won't get confused, whereas if you NEVER bf at all it will NEVER learn to latch on and there are times when it's so much easier to shove the baby on a boob than go through all the fandango involved in expressing, cleaning, sterilising etc. Also, bear in mind that storing loads of ebm in the early days isn't necessarily a great idea, milk changes as a baby grows and milk you express for a newborn may not suit its needs at three months. That's what the paeds told a friend of mine anyway, who was attempting to do what you did. Good luck anyway, whatever you choose x

Mumblesmummy, best site to go to for info on this is

www.expressyourselfmums.co.uk which has a lot of stuff about the practicalities and the products. For the emotional side, read www.mobimotherhood.org/MOBI

Women who have real issues - physical or emotional or both - about breastfeeding and yet want to give breastmilk deserve support and encouragement!

OTOH, you need to know it is not the same. It avoids many of the risks of formula milk, but not all of them. For instance a baby who breastfeeds direct can 'order up' his own specific antibodies through his close contact with his mum - so your baby will need lots of cuddles and closeness! In addition, the jaw development is not the same, and the physical connection which involves hormones and neurological exchanges is not the same. The supply and demand mechanism is not the same.

This is not to put a downer on what you want to do. but to inform you. You may find when the baby is here you can overcome some of the challenges you feel at the moment, anyway!

To build up and maintain a breastmilk supply, as has been said here, needs a lot of expressing - at least 8 x in 24 hours inc at least 1 x at night.

But best thing is to go to those sites and explore the different experiences

Oh and Nine is right - your baby will think your breasts are just lovely

Might even be worth starting a thread to get some discussion of how 'body issues' actually improved with breastfeeding, and how mothers gained confidence and pride as a result.

Hello mumblesmummy, I'm no expert on expressing except I have to express all the time as well as BF to boost my supply of milk. I hate having to express, especially in the middle of the night - cold clammy plastic sucky things on the breast when you are just desperate for sleep is really not nice. And expressing when your breasts are empty is painful too. I applaud your desire to provide breast milk for your little 'un in adverse circumstances! It isn't necessarily the case that your baby will get nipple confusion, mine seems to handle the switch between nipples and teats with aplomb.

Tips on expressing I have found helpful:
*Warm the adapters up first!
*Have the baby in the room if possible, if not, stick a picture of him/her on the pump

• try to think warm, fluffy, loving thoughts instead of "I'm knackered, I hate this" This is rather difficult, I have found.
• stay well hydrated
• persevere. It takes a hell of a lot of staying power, again, this is very easy to say at 6pm when all is well with the world, but flipping hard at 4 am!

Good luck with your baby, and I hope you find a solution which works for you.

I am exclusively expressing and a hands free bra has made it possible for me to pump frequently. I have a halterneck one called Easy Expression from ebay which was £11 with postage (US company called supermomz). Much cheaper than UK prices with good exchange rate.

Good luck!

NineUnlovely and Tinselhockey just wanted to say how much I admire you for expressing so long. I have been doing this for seven weeks for ds2 and it is the hardest thing I have ever done. I am hoping that in 2 weeks time (when ds2 is 12 weeks old)I can drop a pump or two. I really want to make it to six months and need this to be more manageable.

rather than bottle feeding how about cup feeding with a doidy cup to prevent nipple confusion.

Pinguino it does get easier starting from now. I am full of admiration for you too - looking back I have no idea how I got through those early weeks. I don't know how you stand on this but it might still be possible for your DS to learn to BF direct, if you had the right support. I can put you in touch with a wonderful woman if you are interested.

I exclusively expressed for 9 months for DD2 (she was tube fed and couldn't take anything orally).

It was bloody hard work.

I can see your reasons for wanting to do it the way you plan, but I would recommend breastfeeding your baby at every available opportunity, and expressing as much as you can in between. Depending how you give the milk may reduce any nipple confusion - some teats and bottles seem better than others. And some babies can switch quite easily between boob and bottle (my DD1 did).

Be prepared for a huge commitment - I expressed every 2-3 hours at first, day and night, and then "dropped" (ha!) to 4 hourly. My whole day revolved around expressing, cleaning, sterilising, feeding. You need to enjoy your baby as well