When do you pump?!

[LookingFour]

Hi everyone,

My baby is 4 weeks old and I’m exclusively bottle-feeding her expressed breast milk. Lately, I’ve been finding it really difficult to find time to pump. Does anyone else struggle with this?

By the time I’ve fed her, burped her, changed her nappy, and settled her to sleep, I feel like I only have about an hour before it all starts again.

People keep telling me to “sleep when the baby sleeps”, but between pumping, cleaning bottles, and trying to keep on top of housework, I don’t really get the chance to rest. It’s starting to feel quite overwhelming.

I’d really appreciate any tips or advice on how to better manage this stage — how do you all balance pumping, sleep, and everything else?

I have also been exclusively pumping, baby is 19 weeks old now and it’s really hard, here’s how I’ve survived…

Use the fridge in between sessions to store the pump and wash and sterilise parts once every 24 hours only - choose the time for this wisely too, I’ve recently started doing this at the same time as cooking dinner so I’m already in the kitchen…can’t believe I hadn’t done this earlier.

I was pumping 6 times per day but swapped her 8pm bottle for a breastfeed, that means I don’t pump between 4pm and my bedtime, it feels like a holiday!

Bought a second hand Elvie stride from Vinted, hands free has been a game changer and now pump while hoovering, playing, driving, making lunch etc.

I usually pump for 20-30 mins, including 20 mins at 4am - it’s worth the wake up as the volume of milk is always most then.

It also helped when baby started taking larger feeds every 4 hours, when it was 3 hourly feeds it was overwhelming until I started the above.

It sounds like you’re doing amazingly. Do what’s right for you and baby, and enjoy your little one. Xx

@Springwalksandsunshine i did it for a year. I’m absolutely mystified why you would if you and baby can breastfeed……?

I’ve pumped since 2 weeks as we strugglwd with her latch (my baby is now 5 months). I second the advice about just sterilising once a day. And to pump while the baby feeds / while you’re doing other things. I’d recommend continuing to work on the latch though, just because being able to whip a boob out to comfort an upset baby is a really useful thing to be able to do. Pumping is really hard going, so give yourself grace x

@ItTook9Years We had to start pumping and bottle feeding during a re-admission to hospital at a week old, it wasn’t by choice. At the time, I was just glad she was feeding again and i didn’t want to rock the boat - nor did I have the confidence to try to go fully back to breastfeeding as my health visitor and infant feeding team were both quite unsupportive unfortunately. My Dad was dying at the time and I just didn’t have the energy to fight my corner. It’s working for us, and will make the transition easier when I go back to work. I have the best (and worst) of both worlds.

Pump while feeding her … the closeness of the baby helps the milk flow.

I would recommend a hand free pump like Elvie. Finding the time to sit down and pump as a new mum is HARD! I used a similar one which I popped on and tucked into my bra, it made things a lot easier

hey Op I was exclusively pumping for the first 9 days as little one had tongue tie and it was agony! Nipple Shields didn’t work either, I feel your pain pumping and cleaning etc was a nightmare.

Even after her tongue tie was cut she had poor oral function and at 5 months has just got to the point where I can successfully exclusively breast feed, recommend the ardo calypso breast pump, it’s medical grade and if you get a double you can pump out both boobs in 20 mins. The pump parts you can keep in the fridge inbetween uses and wash and steralise every few days as don’t forget breast milk is good in the fridge for 5 days so as long as you have plenty of bottles you shouldn’t need to keep washing and steralising after each feed just do it in bulk. I just kept the pump parts in sterilised bag or Tupperware.

you can get the ardo calypso quite cheap off Vinted, I paid £50 for a massive set with lots of storage bottles, total game changer.
I tried wearable ones but they never fit properly, leaked and I swear gave me mastitis.

i would definitely reach out to a private lactation specialist if you can afford it, if not local breast feeding support and the infant feeding team at your hospital should be supporting, if you are NHS there should be details of this support at the back of the red book.

Wishing you the best xx