expressing small amounts

Ladies i need your help. DD is in daycare 2 days a week and i send ebm with her. I express once when she is there and when i go to work once at work. When i pump these times i get between 70-120 mls. I have tried expressing between feeds and after feeds and i am lucky if i get 10 mls. I need to build my stock in the freezer up more but i dont know what else i can do to do that. I am currently using the tommee tippee closer to nature manual pump and i am starting to think an electric would be better. Can you help me?

TIA

I have an electric one you can borrow to see if it helps or not, I don't know if it will. Just the more you do it th better. Take something of hers with you to sniff while expressing, will help the hormones etc =) hopefully other girls have more advice

I def get more from a double pump. They say that when you pump with a single you 'miss' the initial let down on the otherwise. So even when u pump the other side your second let down isn't as strong? So with a double pump your getting both initial let downs at the same time! But I agree with TT - nothin may make a difference that may be all you get when u pump.

(Just an example myself and another colleague are both pumping ATM at work for my 10mnth old and her 9 month old - we both use my avent double pump and if we both pump at 1030am I will get 280-300mls and she gets 150-180. Everyone is different ! )

I used an electric pump, and pumped more frequently than my DSs fed.

Generally, I would express and feed first thing in the morning (that feed was KEY for me, I could feed DS and pump anywhere from 240 to 540 ml) and then pump for any feeds he'd be missing (would get between 200-400, but that declined when he was getting closer to weaning age) and then I'd feed and sometimes pump for the evening feed (would depend on how full my boobs were) and then I'd generally pump again after he was asleep - and then sometimes again before bed.

Very occasionally, I'd wake overnight with full boobs, and if I wasn't too tired, I'd do another pump overnight, because otherwise I'd leak everywhere. Pumping was less hassle than washing and changing sheets ...

But yeah, I pumped a lot.

I found pumping after the shower was better, and when pumping at work, I'd look at pictures of DS because heard that helps too.

I'm not sure if I produced a lot because I pumped a lot, or whether I was just able to get a lot because I had that supply, but I did find that if I dropped a feed, my body just stopped producing it, if I didn't keep pumping it, ITMS.

Good luck!

I found pumping easy but I was helped heaps in the early days in hospital.
I found morning produced more than evening/afternoon and I sort of treated it as an "extra" feed.
The pump I used was a Unimom which we bought very cheaply online. I highly recommend these pumps and they work as a single or double.
One routine I get into was to feed my little bloke then play with him and put him down for a nap then about 1/2 hr later I'd pump.
I wasn't pumping for daycare or anything though. I pumped because I needed top up feeds for my fellow and needed to have extra milk after some feeds for him.
Using this sort of timing did mean I got in front anyway.
Good luck.
I think you have to just try and work out the best for you.
One thing that helped me was physically dropping my shoulders and breathing slowly.

Thanks ladies. I am going to put the medela swing on layby this week as i think an electric would be better especially since I am expressing almost every day due to work and daycare. I have found looking at photos of my dd whilst doing it helped too. I just thought of what i did when both my babies were in scn and i had to pump all the time. Going to bake some lactation cookies too. Thank you ��

Just saw this Teresa - I've got a Swing too. :)

I loved my Avent electric, but have heard plenty of positives about the Medela swing too. Good luck!!