Want to stop pumping but feel guilt

[Katytwinkle]

Assuming and hoping I'm not the only mum to feel this.
My little girl is 10 weeks old and has been combination fed with pump and formula since birth as had latching issues. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to find time to pump. Seem to just get started and she starts to cry or my 4 year old wants me. Feel I'm neglecting them by sitting down for 40 mins with a pump.
So I know the logical thing would be to stop I just have this awful feeling of guilt that I should be providing her with the best milk I can.
Has anybody any advice as to how I could deal with this?

I only ever wanted to breastfeed for two weeks, but actually couldn't get her to latch and started to pump. I ended up doing it for months as I felt guilty about stopping.
I just kept thinking that i was unreasonable to give her formula when I had breast milk available and that I was also wasting money buying it when I could provide for free.
I really hated doing it by the end but alMost had to force myself to give it up. I think about it now and wonder why I didn't stop sooner!
Pumping takes up a huge amount of time and I can't imagine doing it when I have an older child to look after.
You have done so well to do it this far but there is really nothing wrong with stopping. It will give you so much more time and freedom for both your children x

You are absolutely not the first or only mum to feel like this. You've done really well to get that far, pumping is all the shit bits with none of the nice bits of breastfeeding. I pumped for 5 weeks and found it absolutely soul destroying, I would sit and cry whilst doing it and it became increasingly hard to fit multiple sessions around life. I felt horrifically guilty but what helped me stop was cutting it out session by session until my supply (which was never great) dried up naturally, then I stopped entirely. Once I had stopped I have rarely ever thought of it or felt guilt. I did the best I could but eventually it was at the detriment to bonding with and caring for DD, and it made me stressed and unhappy. Honestly hats off to you for doing it with an older child too, I can't imagine how much more difficult that would be.

You are definitely not alone! My baby was born 7 weeks early and I ended up exclusively expressing for 12 weeks as breastfeeding just didn’t work out. I got a tongue tie snipped, lactation consults etc but no joy so kept going with expressing. I felt tremendous guilt/sadness when I stopped but I was utterly exhausted. I was pumping 10-12 times a day to try to keep up with his demand and getting very little sleep. You are doing an amazing job and have done so brilliantly to get this far, especially with another little one to care for. No one knows just how difficult expressing is until they have to do it! I still feel a little guilty tbh that BF didn’t work out and that I stopped but my 21 week old baby is still thriving and happy on formula. I know I did the best I could and that keeps me going. Best of luck OP 💕

Please, just stop. I exclusively pumped for 3 weeks. The guilt surrounding stopping was immense. So many days of tears. But when I finally allowed myself to and I saw my baby thrive on formula I thought why the hek did I make myself do that!! You've given her loads of goodness x

I was you last year. It's so hard when you feel immense guilt. I felt like a cow with that pump attached. Waking up at 3am to keep my supply up when the baby slept through. 9 weeks of it and I finally made peace with myself and stopped. I hope you find the strength to stop if you want to

If your on Facebook there's a group that is dedicated to expressing. I think it's called exclusively pumping UK mums. It's pretty good, offers advice and others in the same situation as you offer their shared experience. I'm sure if you join the group and post your question you'll get a lot of feedback and support.

Completely understand I did it for 4 and a half months with my second as I think I hung on to the hope I might get him to latch and then was far to emotional about it to stop even though I was really struggling with the time to do it. Just slow do less and start introducing some formula and slowly build up the formula feeds. It's hard emotionally and something it's har soft others to understand unless you have been there. Look after yourself and give yourself time to be sad about it.

Just stop, it’s easy for me to say that now but just do it.
I mix fed with some pumping, hated it most the time but only let myself switch to formula at 4 months after months of guilting myself. After a few feeds I felt better about it and just accepted the new normal.
What I did do though was put a few packs in the freezer and then had a few weeks of feeding him one bottle a day of defrosted breast milk, to kind of wean myself off it too.

I stopped after about 12 weeks. The HV said “good, finally!” I’d been so determined to BF (twins, neither could latch) that I pumped for too long, even though I was squeezing hardly anything out and was just exhausting and upsetting myself. The combination of pumping and bottle feeding was really tiring.
I cried for a bit when I stopped but honestly, after I got over the guilt the relief was immense. The babies thrived on formula and are now healthy teenagers.

I just wanted to say that I've had my latch issues fixed recently after 2 months of exclusively pumping. We had tongue tie fixed (hadn't been picked up) and hired a lactation consultant and am now re-starting breastfeeding with formula top ups to help and will be able to stop pumping. You could look into this too?

If you look up relactation you'll find lots of people have gotten latch resolved as baby has grown and then started feeding directly from the breast. I'm not saying you should,but it is an option to try this so you can give your baby your milk for longer if this is important to you.

Also if you want a supportive keep going pep talk I have found the free NCT helpline amazing!

If you want to stop then go for it. Equally you could choose to do less pumping - what if you decided to pump just one bottle a day for eg so there's some benefit from bm still. There's no right way other than your baby gets fed. La leche league might be a good place to get support / talk through options. They're able to support any combination of ebf, mixed feeding etc and are super supportive in the stopping phase too.