Breastfeeding and expressing question

[Bex101990]

Hi everyone!

Currently 35 weeks and planning to breastfeed when little one is born but I’ve also got a double breast pump so that I am able to express and my husband can do some night feeds as he’s taking time off with me at the beginning.

The questions I have were - did anyone else do this and if so how soon did you start expressing after birth? Also how was baby taking both bottle and breast?

Thank you!

You need to establish bottle use as a regular feeding method pretty early on or you may get a ‘bottle refuser’ on your hands (you absolutely don’t want that).

Thanks for your reply! That’s the plan definitely - I’m more asking at what point did others who do this start expressing (I have a friend who expressed very early and then was very sore!) so not sure if I need to wait a couple of weeks for example or can straight away. Just keen to find out others experiences.

I can’t imagine it’s pleasant but sadly what you have to do or the baby gets too used to boob (and mum often throws in the towel and just uses boob for an easy life and before you know it she is doing all the feeding)

Im currently feeding my second , I started pumping in the second week so my partner could do a feed and I could get some sleep in the evening. Make sure you are doing a feed in the night/early hours every night to help keep your milk supply. Also pumping in the morning is usually better as you have more milk than in the evening!

ah thank you! Will definitely do this. Thanks :)

I started pumping straight away on the hospital's recommendation to bring my milk in although I've read that's not recommended. In my case, my son struggled to latch in the beginning so it was really helpful to express and bottle feed, especially because husband could share the load. However, as son started to latch and feed efficiently and husband went back to work, he began to prefer the boob and, to be honest, it was far easier to breastfeed than to pump and make bottles and clean them so ended up EBF after a while.

I exclusively breastfed 2 children and never used a bottle but despite all this I could never get any milk out from expressing / pumping! Only the tiniest bit!

Some women - like me - just can't do it no matter what do just mentally prepare yourself for that possibility. No one warned me and it was a shock, didn't know it was a thing. I mean I'm sure you'll be fine but it's just useful to know there is a tiny chance pumping might not be for you and that thats ok.

So not do

Thank you, yes definitely prepared it may not work for me. This is baby number 3 for me, I BF my first but only for 1 month and didn’t with my second so its still relatively new to me but I’m fully prepared it may not go “to plan” 😊

For both DCs I started expressing at 2 weeks and introduced a bottle at 8 weeks. Double breast pump is great, just make sure you get one of those bras that it fits into aswell. Didn't have one with my first and it was a godsend!

The 'official' line is not to pump until your supply starts to regulated at 6 weeks post partum however , the reasoning behind this is to avoid creating an oversupply which in turn can potentially lead to mastitis in the worst case or just a fast letdown that baby struggles with. Removing milk signals that more is required, so if you are pumping in addition to feeds, your body will make additional milk. I pumped the missed feed as it were from day 2, my husband would give a bottle and I would pump at the same time and go to sleep whilst he stayed downstairs with baby. But that was the only time I would pump until later on, the pump merely replaced the feed. Eventually as babies bedtime became earlier I would just feed and I dropped the pumping around 4 months, now I don't respond to a pump and he refuses a bottle 🤪

My one bit of advice would be to find out where your support resources are now, when it's going well it's wonderful, when it's not going so well, it's emotionally challenging! Find out where your local support groups are now so you know, write the number for the national breastfeeding support line on your bedside table so you have it when you need some advice at 2am!

Congratulations and enjoy the precious moments with your newborn, time has never moved as fast as those first few months PP ❤️

It’s not easy. You need a good book and a very good lactation consultant.
A thread or three isn’t going to cut it!

Having had two, I would just put this out there … are you sure you want to spend the magic (if hard) postpartum weeks fussing with breast pumps and freezer bags and quantities and botttle latches etc etc etc, just to get a bit more sleep?
In my experience, getting sleep wasn’t a problem because baby just fed and went back to sleep. It becomes a problem when they’re older (8 months ish) and start refusing to go back to sleep.
My advice would be to just roll with everything at the beginning and if breastfeeding goes well, just make the most of that.

Get a hakaa to collect your let down on one side when you are feeding from the other. You can do this straight away from when your milk comes in. Low effort way of getting a bit of a stash

100%

Thank you! This is a very interesting point. Will definitely take this into account. :)

I want to do the same and met with a breastfeeding specialist and was advised to wait at least a month to establish breast feeding before trying to pump and offer a bottle. Remember baby is learning too.
Like PP says, Hakaa for collecting let down from other boob when feeding and get a little store that way, rather than try and pump.
Also - breast milk at night is different to milk in the day, so when you do collect milk make sure you label it. Night time milk has more melatonin and fat in, helping baby to establish a better sleep pattern.

I don't understand how bottle helps you sleep because you'd just need to wake up anyway to pump to keep up your milk supply? I know someone who tried bottle for night but her milk disappeared. I was so paranoid my boobs would burst at night so it was just easier to feed.

It is true that more milk is produced during the night, to keep baby sleeping. You're actually encouraged to express at night if baby isn't feeding then.

I did a bit of expressing from early on just to have the flexibility and never found it affected my supply or baby's willingness to feed. Definitely recommend expressing in the morning, I got way way more milk then than I did in the evening

I was the same - tried to express when I went back to work after about 8 or 9 months and really struggled to get any out.

I would bet a lot of money that you will wake up during night feeds anyway.

IMO breastfeeding is so much easier than bottle feeding, none of the faff of sterilising and warming the milk up while the baby is getting more hungry and distressed, but, it seems to be popular these days so that dads can be involved and bond with the baby. Back in my day, dads that wanted to feed expressed milk were encouraged rather to bond during nappy changes and taking the baby for a walk and doing some bloody housework while you had a nap!

This

I know a few people who planned to do this out of a sort of utopian ‘this is how things should work if we lived in a society where men and women were equal.’ The result: the breastfeeding didn’t last very long because the pumping and everything just messed up the supply, and all the bottle sterilising is too exhausting, and the dad doing the feeding in the first weeks just does’t make sense for this baby who has been in your belly for nine months. Then formula gets introduced because baby is happy with bottle and bam that’s it for the breastfeeding.
I dont know if it’s your first child but focus on equity, not equality. Make the most of what you can each do the best in the situation, what your bodies are best at to respond to your little new one.

Yes totally this.
Don't get down about pumping output being low at first. It takes a while to establish a pumping supply and you have to practice.
Now that my baby is 10 months old I cannot imagine how hard it would be if she wouldn't take a bottle.
Breast only is fine while they are little and basically atrached to you but as they get older the flexibility that bottles gives us invaluable.