Feeding pumped milk in the hospital

[missmc12xo]

24 and pregnant with my first baby, not wanting to breastfeed but wanting to pump and feed from a bottle but don't know if it's possible? Has anyone done this before???

Sorry if this is a stupid question feeling overwhelmed.

Thanks x

I had to do this with my second child for the first 10 days as she was in the NICU.

What I would say is that pumping is twice as much work at least. It takes much longer to pump milk that to feed from the breast. Baby is far more efficient at getting the milk out. I had a double electric pump in hospital and it would still take a really long time. You have to pump as often as you would breastfeed including during the night. And then you then still have to make up bottles and feed baby.

I did it for medical reasons and it was really, really hard. As soon as baby was able to breastfeed we switched to that. What a relief that was. I did continue to pump enough for my DH to be able to do one of the night feeds.

With two children I always found breastfeeding the easiest option and bottle feeding a complete faff.

Please reach out to a IBCLC they are the experts.

I would say take it day by day and don’t set yourself up with definite ideas before baby comes. Try to be open if you think you would like to try breastfeeding but don’t be heartbroken if it doesn’t work out. If you would like to pump then try it. There is a lot going on when you have a baby and it’s easy to put yourself under pressure. I bf my first almost exclusively for 6 months (formula top ups by syringe for the first 3 days) and then to 22 months. I combi fed my second for 6 months and bf until 16 months. Personally combi feeding for us worked so well. I introduced a bottle of expressed milk at 3 weeks as I waited until 6 weeks with my first and he never took to the bottle. My youngest had one bottle every day, usually of expressed milk but occasionally formula. I went back to work at 7 months and DH had shared parental leave. I had the Elvie hands free pump so I pumped in the day and bf at night and DS has bottles, again usually expressed milk but the pre made formula is easier sometimes if they were out and about. I found this much more relaxing, knowing that someone else could feed DS but also knowing he was getting breast milk. He was 9lbs at birth and on the 90th percentile and was quite happy with this routine.

If you’ve only heard horror stories about breastfeeding, then you should know that sometimes it’s really pretty easy. Baby latches fine, it hurts a bit a first and then doesn’t, and you don’t have to get out of bed to do the night feeds. Breastmilk releases hormones that make both you and your baby feel sleepy and happy. Don’t underestimate the power of that.
If your biggest worry is struggling with the work of feeding a baby, I’d try out breastfeeding and add, pretty early on, a bottle of formula given by dad at a time that’s convenient for you to have a nap. Then swap more feeds for formula if you like later on.
If you hate it, formula is always there as an option.
I found pumping helpful as a stop gap to keep my supply and keep baby fed when we were apart for a while. It’s not as pleasant an experience as feeding directly and involves more work. That can be worth it for mums who really want to give breastmilk but can’t or don’t want to feed directly. As a method of reducing your work load it’s crap.

It's definitely possible. I intended to BF (and did) but basically pumped for the 1st week as baby had various issues.By the end of the week I produced loads of breast milk and once supply is established its easy to keep it going. Baby will need to be fed by syringe at 1st, then probably cup fed then move onto bottles when there is enough. You will hardly produce any milk at first. I think it will be challenging getting any let down and establishing supply without putting baby to the breast but tips to get going are

1. Hold baby close whilst pumping. If this isn't possible hold a blanket or something that smells of them or look at a picture of them (trust me this works!)
2. Use a shit hot medical grade pump! Hospital will have them but you can also rent one. This was a complete game changer.
3. Be patient. Supply can take about 4 days to come in before it will resemble milk..before that it's still very dense in calories and nutrients, so don't panic about quantity.
4. You don't have to sterilise everything if feeding exclusive breast milk. Pop everything in a tub of Milton if you wish but a wash with hot soapy water will suffice.
5. You will need to pump very regularly at least every 3 hours to get supply established.. remember you need to essentially mimic a baby suckling.

My first was prem so had no other option than to pump, hospital supplied pump, bottles, steriliser and fridge!

I don't think pumping is going to give you much equality in the night waking. Your partner may wake to feed the baby but if you want to get your supply going you will need to be waking to pump every 2-3 hours anyway.

It is possible though. But you should know a baby suckling is the best thing to get the milk producing really.

Provided everything is healthy with the pregnancy (as expressing when pregnant can bring in labour) I would say start hand expressing and harvest colostrum at 37 weeks. I recently did this with my baby and had loads of milk to take into the hospital.

As others have said take your own pump and sterilisation stuff. My hospital kept saying they would get me a pump and never did. Luckily for me I can breastfeed I was just trying to feed without the pain after a c section. Also starting to express at 37 weeks gives your nipples a slower start than diving in full tilt when baby comes and my experience was I didn't get sore like I did with my first

I chose to do this second time round and I am still exclusively pumping 8 months in. Absolutely hated breastfeeding "normally"the first time and couldn't face it again, but I still wanted my baby to have the benefits of breastmilk.

I went in a bit blind, didnt stress about it too much its worked out really well and I've loved having more freedom.

I started hand expressing for a day then moved to a pump. I pumped every 3-4 hours from the start and established a really good supply.

Maximum i pumped was 7 times a day, dropped to 5 pumps around 9 weeks then dropped to 4 pumps and got rid of my night pump around 4 months.

You will need a good wall pump for the majority of your pumps (I really recommend the spectra S1) and if you want a bit more freedom get a wearable aswell.

I do the pitcher method and I don't sterilise any bottles or pump parts, just hot soapy water.

Ive also donated 20 litres of breastmilk to another baby.

To be honest its been fine, Ive quite enjoyed it, takes a month or so to get in the swing of it and organise your milk but no different to the amount of time it takes to get in a routine with breastfeeding normally.

Just as a sidenote my hospital wouldnt let me leave without her feeding and obviously milk takes days to come in so I did use formula alongside colostrom for about 3 days before switching to only breastmilk when my milk fully came in.

Good luck :)

There is so much 'advice' around what you can and can't do with feeding its a minefield. I wanted to breastfeed but was open minded. Baby was fine when born (EMCS) but I developed a form of pre Eclampsia and was v sick, midwives were pushing me to BF which I did but I just didn't have the supply (turns out blood pressure meds can delay milk) For the first 3 nights I got next to zero sleep as poor DD was feeding every 20 mins or so. Her weight dropped by nearly 14% in 3 days and only then did a saint of a midwife suggest formula top ups. They didn't want us giving her a bottle tho as apparently can cause nipple confusion so I had to use a tiny cup, tbh it was a massive faff and had I been of sound mind I would have refused and just switched to FF however I was sleep deprived and on all sorts of meds so just blindly did as I was told.
Fast forward and DD is 5 weeks now and almost exclusively breastfed with the odd formula or expressed top up she has no issue with taking a bottle and has jumped from 9th to 25th centile.
I was also worried about being the only one that can feed/comfort her but I have honestly loved being able to just feed whenever and wherever especially now we are out and about more. Nights are honestly not that bad not for us anyway the 1st couple of weeks were tough but now she feeds every 3 hours ish and goes back to sleep but I just roll over grab her from her crib, feed and pop her back in no getting up to sterilise bottles.
All babies and situations are different the biggest thing I've learnt is you have to do what works for you at the time, it is not set in stone and you can switch things up. I plan on shifting to either FF or combined in a month or 2 as I will want more freedom to spend time away from DD and there is nothing wrong with that at all.

Hats off to you to still be going 8 months in! I think mentally 6 months was my cut off but I really didn’t hate it at all and I expected I would.

To add as well about the sterilising thing.. I was paranoid and the guidance is so unclear and there is next to no guidance (or help) for people wanting to express but a few months in I started storing the elvie pump parts in the fridge after using them in a little zip lock bag. It was so much easier than washing them in the middle of the night etc and I had no idea you could do that at first but I think if it’s within 24 hours you can!

I swear we should all make a leaflet with real-life experience for mums in the hospital 😂

It's so much easier to breastfeed directly because when the baby breastfeeds, that stimulates your body's milk producing hormones. Most women cannot produce enough milk solely pumping. I personally could barely pump a drop despite exclusively breastfeeding my baby. Pumped breastmilk is still good but it's also not as good for immunity as directly given breastmilk, due to an interesting process known as retroactive milk flow.

It's better than going straight to formula, but you will be unlikely to be able to do it for very long. Some people do manage though. It always looked way harder to me than breastfeeding!

Actually maybe I've got the name of the milk flow thing wrong. But basically, some relatively new research suggests that your breasts absorb some of the baby's saliva/milk back into the breast during the feed and recognise potential bacteria and viruses and then produce antibodies. So it's really like this amazing immunity giving process. So that's just an additional benefit alongside the milk supply.

The other thing is breastfeeding is so easy once past the first few weeks. First 6 weeks, not gonna lie, it's quite full on. But then you're out the other side and it's so amazing being your baby's source of comfort and food. Plus night feeds are easier as you don't have to get out of bed if you have a side sleeper cot or co-sleep.

A colleague of mine exclusively pumped and had no problems. She started collecting milk in final weeks of pregnancy. I couldn't be arsed with the hassle of it all. Breastfeeding has just been so so much easier for me. Do whatever works for u x