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

[Mumblesmummy]

Thanks everyone, this thread has helped me to get my head around things a bit more.

I was talking to my hairdresser yesterday and she was on about her experiences with expressing. I think it's all just trial and error with first baby isn't it? I'm definately going to try and steer clear of formula for as long as I can tho.

[pinguino]

Thanks very much. Have emailed you.

[NineUnlovelyTinselDecorations]

I saw the woman this morning and she would be happy to speak to you. Can you CAT me or else email e1375 underscore a at hotmail dot com.

[pinguino]

I went to a baby cafe and have had several people check latch and all say it looked OK. Then it all got very painful and ds2 was very sleepy and jaundiced and very hard to feed.

I would be grateful if you could give me contact details as I haven't quite given up all hope!

[NineUnlovelyTinselDecorations]

Yes she is, a LLL Leader. Has someone been helping you up until now?

[pinguino]

Thanks Nine. I am trying to bf but ds2 does not open his mouth wide enough and when he does latch it still hurts as he slips up to the nipple. Part of me really wants to bf but another part of me is pleased that I can see what he is getting via a bottle and I am getting used to expressing, hard though it is. Is the woman you mention a bf counsellor?

[ocomeALLYebabies]

mumblesmummy - i definately use that time before you have to go back to work to bf exclusively and build up a really good supply to set you on the right course. Also if you bf at night it will help keep your supply going as you produce more concentrated milk and release more milk making hormones.

[Sidge]

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

[NineUnlovelyTinselDecorations]

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.

[mummyhill]

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

[pinguino]

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.

[pinguino]

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!

[Sanguine]

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.

[tiktok]

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.

[tiktok]

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

[mrsshackleton]

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

[NineUnlovelyTinselDecorations]

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

[camillathechicken]

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...

[Mumblesmummy]

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

[Mumblesmummy]

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.

[NineUnlovelyTinselDecorations]

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!

[dal21]

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]

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.

[mummyhill]

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.

[ocomeALLYebabies]

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.