DD is nearly 8 months and I've expressed for the last 2 months due to her feeding at least once an hour and me nearly loosing my mind! It works great for us this way as she drinks more and less frequently from a bottle.
At first, I expressed every 3 hours from when I woke until I went to bed, that seemed to produce pretty much what she drank. As she started solids, she drank less, so I started doing every 4 hours (4 pumps per day) then as she ate more and dropped to 3 big bottles I reduced pumping to 3 times per day.
I get about 260ml in the morning, 210 early afternoon and about 240 in the evening (give or take 10ml) That's about 700ml, but she only drinks 600ml per day, and I'm hoping to reduce the amount I pump, so I need to reduce my pumpings again.
How do I drop a pumping session from here? Do I just go for 5 minutes on the early afternoon session for a few days to get less out, then stop that session after them few days, or do I just stop the afternoon session cold turkey and just pump morning and evening?
That'd leave 12 hours between each pumping session. Is that ok? Or am I likely to get frequent blocked ducts and/or mastitis only pumping twice per day?
It's ok if I express a little less than what she drinks, I have a bit of a freezer supply to get through, but would like to still be able to get at least 500ml per day out.
Thanks for any advice, and sorry for the long post,. Which may seem obvious to some, but I'm a ftm