Hi there,

I'm new to all of this myself, hopefully some of the more experienced ladies will see your post soon. My LO is only 18 days old and only just trying to get BF established. I've been expressing since his birth. I also have the same experience of unsettled behaviour after BFs and settled after EBM by bottle. I"m not sure why this is so.

I pump about every 3 hours, overnight I do one which is 4 hours. This is what the hospital told me to do before I was discharged. Apparently they recommend you do about 8 bouts of expressing in 24 hours. With the 3 hour expressing I find that I'm ahead of feeds as sometimes DS goes longer than 3 hours before requiring a feed. I get enough each time for a feed (80-100mls at this point). Due to some large expresses I now have a stockpile in the freezer.

I don't have any other children so can't offer any advice on this one.

I always take a bottle when I go out. It just sits in the nappy bag hot/cold compartment. I sometimes feed at room temperature which can be done with EBM or if I'm somewhere where I can get some hot water I heat it up. DS take room temperature if he is really hungry.

Good luck! It's a big commitment to sustain expressing.