Continuing on from here
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Continuing on from here
how's everyone going?
just to clarify - if your little one doesn't finish a bottle, you reoffer it at the next feed if total time out of fridge is less than 8 hours? That would make life a bit easier, i tend to discard leftovers - well, i sometimes keep them for an hour or so but otherwise just chuck it. so good to know ok to keep it for longer.:
I keep my milk at room temp too. The most DS drinks at a time is 150ml so I keep that much out of the fridge. What ever he doesn't drink he gets next feed, as long as it's not out of the fridge for more than 8 hours. Has been fine so far (my lactation consultant said this was ok too).
my little miss is a little piggy-wiggy. She seems to be taking at least 1000ml/day, up to around 1200ml. driving me crazy and making me spend more time with my pump than i really want to lol. new found respect for those of you who have pumped feed by feed all along. till now, i always made heaps more than she made. now i struggle to get ahead. but at least she is feeding well :)
my dd has a huge sleep association with the bottle. thinking life would be easier if she develped a sleep assoc. with something else as well. but it is SO nice to have a baby that goes to sleep easily (ds, fully breastfeed, was not a great sleeper!). but she is due to have surgery for her cleft lip in a couple of months and i worry that she will be too sore to comfort feed.... guess i should ask others who have had kids go thru the surgery.
Hey there,
I did write a long post but then I lost it.
Wow your DD is drinking a lot. Maybe she is going through a growth spurt. My DS only drank that much a handful of times. Mostly he drank about 800mls. I hope the surgery goes well and that you can get BF established.
I'm down to 5 pumps from 8 (or 10 when I had low supply pre-motilium) so it feels a breeze now in comparsion. The drop in pumps hasn't meant too much of a drop in supply which I have been surprised about. I've probably lost about 100mls all up. I've decided to keep my middle of the night pump (4am) for now anyway. I'm enjoying the freedom during my waking hours, at the expense of a good night sleep.
I've always found occuping DS a challenge when expressing as he is so active and now with crawling is into mischief. I've taken to expressing during the day when he is either asleep or eating. I just leave him in his chair for an extra 10 minutes whilst I finish the pump.
DS is on 3 meals a day now and taking between 450-550mls plus I put a generous amount of BM on his cereal in the morning. I'm still making too much milk, perhaps because I"m on motilium. I make about 300mls more than I need. I will see if it settles down as I have only been down to 5 pumps for the last 5 days. If not I'm not sure what to do. I might have to reduce the 20mins to 15min for each session. Surely 4 pumps a day would have too much affect on my supply?? I don't want to stop the motilium because I know my supply is barely adequate without it.
I've almost reached my goal of 9 months. We are at 7.5 months right now. I can't believe I have gotten this far. I can reiterate what others have told me, it does get easier the other side of 6 months. The freedom of 5 pumps (4 during waking hours) is amazing. I can actually go places without too much clock watching
Lisa - can you just drop the motilium a bit - from memory they make both 10mg and 20 mg tablets, so you could take it down very slowly until you got to that happy place where supply is a bit more than demand.
You can also reinstate a pump if you find your supply has dropped too far after dropping one - it will take a day or two to work, but it will work.
Kmn - is motilium dose related? I've been worried about dropping motilium because I know my supply would be barely there on 5 pumps. I barely had enough on 10 pumps
You can have variable motilium doses - usually people "drop" motilium very slowly (10 mg per day per week or two), and see what happens - if it drops too far then you can go back to the higher dose.
How much are you actually taking?
Hi Kmn, I'm taking 8 tablets a day. I was initially on 3 but that didn't work so the GP bumped me up
That is at the higher end of what others around here have reported taking, so you have some wriggle room. Maybe talk to your GP about slowly reducing it - you have the "advantage" that you know how much milk you are making, so you can always bump the dose back up if your supply drops too much.
You also need to remember that over the next few months your DSs demand may also decrease quite a bit as he eats more too.
Hi everyone,
Just thought I'd pop in and ask how you were all doing.
We are hitting the 8th month. My supply has ended up see-sawing on 5 pumps. It must be about 3 or so weeks now on 5 pumps. I'm ranging from high 700mls thru to about 950mls. I think I'm averaging at about low-mid 800mls. It's a bit unsettling on the low volume days. I'm really, really enjoying the freedom of 5 pumps so I'm hoping my volume doesn't drop below about 700mls. I feel like it's very manageable with my lifestyle and I no longer feel chained to the pump. I can go out and almost forget about my pumping schedule. I'm not sure that I want to go back to 6 pumps, but I'm also not sure I want to stop EE yet. Hopefully I won't have to face this dilemma.
Hope everyone is doing well.
hey lisa, thanks for the update. sounds like even on your low volume days you are making more than enough to meet his needs? it is off-putting though when your supply fluctuates. glad to hear you are enjoying the freedom of five pumps. i agree it is worth doing the overnight pump in lieu of one during the day. hard to wake up but easier than doing it when bub is awake.
my supply is up and down a bit too. some days i've had to do 7 pumps to get enough. not sure why. i'm thinking it could be a result of not drinking enough/too much stress etc the day before. do you think that could be affecting you too Lisa? I'm still aiming for around 1200ml a day for my little miss gobble guts. i need to weigh her i think she would've gone up the percentiles a bit :) I'm happy for her to take in lots, better for her to be a bit chubby - her surgery is 5 weeks away now - so fat reserves are good! that will be my next challenge - keeping my supply up, fitting in the pumps, while she is in hospital. expected to be in for 2 nights, though it could be longer if she doesn't recover quickly. I think I will take in a litre or so of frozen ebm so the pressure isn't there to get the volumes. altho of course she may not take much either. hard to know what to do!
alright, better get on wtih my day :)
Lisa - you should be in really good shape, because milk needs actually decrease over the next few months as more food gets eaten.
Teesmum - all the best for the surgery.
Teesmum - sounds like you little one is in great shape for the surgery. The hospital might have it's own breast pumps and areas for lactation so you might be able to do what you need to do at the hospital. great work building up a little stash to take the pressure off. Wow, I never got 1200mls and I'm on motilium!! You must have a great stash in your freezer. Not drinking enough could be a factor for me, it was quite warm here yesterday and perhaps I didn't drink enough. I try and take heart that I have some good days and some bad but make enough to cover the feeds and a little extra, or a lot extra depending on the day.
Kmn - yes, I try not to worry too much about the low days because I know things will taper off even further as food takes over. I know that even though my supply can be up and down there really isn't too much point increasing pumps if I can help it as I don't want to trigger a supply increase at this point.
how is everyone going??
i just reread this thread, and i have to say, found relief in reading Lisa that your little one is down to taking around 500ml at 7 months. I am struggling a lot at the moment. Makes me realise how easy i had it in the beginning, making soo much more than she needed. Now I am constantly pumping for the next feed, an have been dipping into the freezer stash a lot. My supply hasn't really dropped, altho I guess there is huge variation as to how much I get out of the first two or three pumps in the day (i pump whenever overnight - b/w say 1am an 4am, first thing in the morning - say 6 or 7 am and then again a couple of hours later). One day ihad 570 ml from two pumps, other ays it takes me four pumps to get that much. If i don't get a lot at the start fo the day the rest of the day i am just playing catch ups :(
monday i got 1265ml over five pumps. the next day i needed 7 to get that much. sigh. the unpredictability scares me. Especially on the days i go out. i'm not confident i will get enough when i pump out anymore.
ho hum. sorry. just musing over it all really. my little guzzle guts still seems to be going thru over a litre a day. i'm certainly not putting any into the freezer...
on a brighter note... nearly at our first major milestone - we are 2.5 weeks from her first surgery. Nearly there...
what has everyone else's experience been with milk intake once on solids? i'm of the belief "food is for fun until they are one" so i'm not really expecting milk intake to drop off. but... it would be nice if it did.
lisa - are you still going ok with the five pumps?
Hey Teesmum,
Great news that the surgery is almost upon you guys. I can't believe you much you little bub is drinking, very impressive!! My DS on average before solids had about 800mls. I would have liked him to take more because his weight gain has never been fantastic.
On 5 pumps my supply has dropped a tiny bit more recently so I'm averaging at about 800mls and that's on motilium. On a big day my DS takes about 600mls including what I put on his breakfast cereal and we have many days now where he only takes about 400-450mls. Again I wish he would take more due to low weight gain. My DS is now on the 10 percentile for weight gain only which worries me constantly.
The dietician I saw for my DS told me that milk intake drops to about 700mls for one solid meal, 600mls for two, and 500mls for three. I am giving him as big a solid meal as he will take on the advice from the professionals...unfortunately food isn't fun here, I thought it was supposed to be but people are worried about his weight gain and intake.
I know what you mean about the unpredictability been scary. I've always been really nervous about dropping pumps and other times just seeing less milk in the bottles. I can't remember how long you have been EE for. I had a big supply dip at about 9 weeks and there was nothing I could do to increase it and eventually went onto motilium. Once on motilium I kept up about 8 pumps a day to try and keep my supply up until about 6 months I think (my memory is a bit hazy now). Each pump I 've dropped has led to a small decrease. If increasing your pumps doesn't help with your supply remember there is always motilium and you would probably be a good candidate for it as it works best when you have already had an adequate supply but it has dropped. I had a prescription for motilium a few weeks before I had it filled and used it as a bit of a security blanket. Anyhow, I know i tend to sway towards medical intervention quicker than some people.
I'm almost at 9 months. I can't believe that I've come this far. It does get easier this side of 6 months. I need to make some decisions soon if I will continue past 9 months and then reduce my pumps to 4 (come what may with my supply) to begin to wind back a bit more or make a decision to stop. I have quite a bit of travelling to do on my own with DS through December and it will mean pumping whilst driving a manual car. It will be simpler to do it this way then having to explain to people why I need to disappear for 20 minutes when I get to my destination. I have expressed whilst driving an auto a few times when caught in a tough spot at work but not the manual.
Anyhow must go back to bed for a little more sleep before my early bird wakes up.
Hey Lisa, sorry you are worried about your DS's intake an weight gain :( in T's early days she was being weighed weekly, struggling to gain. it was so stressful and i am very thankful that she is putting on weight so well now - even if it oes mean i spend more time with the pump than i would like. I can't imagine still having that stress. So, my thoughts are with you. Is there any known issue or is he just not taking enough?
well done on approaching 9 months. it is a strange thing this pumping. means the whole weanign thing is up to us. have you made any decisions on what to do? As for pumping while driving - I cannot imagine doing that! i struggle to reach the steering wheel as is without having to work aroun the bottles. Can you not stop somewhere on the way?
QUESTION:
those of you who have the medela freestyle - do you notice a loss of suction if you go from single to ouble pumping? i normally single pump but am trying to start ouble pumping more.... but the suction really decreased...
and... now i need to go pump lol. just for something ifferent.
Teesmum - my DS poor weight gain might be genetic, it could be coeliacs as he holds the gene and I'm waiting on some test results, or I'm not sure really. We see a paediatrician and I'm going to push for some more answers on Tuesday as at this rate he will probably be off the chart by 12 months. I'm a bit lazy really and don't really want to stop if I can help it when i have to do country driving, and also my DS may get a bit cranky pants. I will have to pull over definitely to set up and pack up of course. It's actually not to bad pumping and driving in an automatic as long as the seat is pulled right in and the back of the seat is very forward. I got the idea from some US websites and one day when I was at work I had the confidence to give it a go and I was stuck out on the road with a choice of either pulling over and running late for a meeting or giving driving and expressing a go.
In terms of single and double on the Freestyle, I reckon I notice a bit of a difference in the suction. The freestyle suction worried me when i moved from the Symphony to the Freestyle but I found I still got the same amount of milk. Are you finding you get the same amount of milk even the suction is different? You must be very patient to go so long with single pumping.
okay ladies, a lighter moment of EE...
I had a dream last night that I turned up to a work meeting. I was about to sit down and someone said 'oh my god Lisa, cover up'. I looked down and there I was double pumping with all my flesh exposed. i quickly grabbed at my jacket and pulled it across.
I guess pumping has well and truly become apart of my lifestyle!
I'm hitting the 10 month mark now. I am definitely finishing up at the end of the month as I have enough freezer supplies to get me through to 12 months.
It's very quiet in here. Hope everyone is doing okay.
hi lisa! way to go on making the 10 month mark! and having enough freezer stash to get you through another 2 months - that is huge.
it is very quiet in here....
me...... well, T is now 6.5 months old. so i've kinda made it to my first goal, altho her surgery was postponed, it's in another two weeks. But i am still going strong. i've been in a bit more of a routine with it all lately. still on five pumps - once overnight (tends to be closer to five am than the 1 or 2 i am aiming for), around 7am, 11am, 4pm, 10pm. altho some days, like yesterday my supply is lower than normal so i have to add in a couple of extra pumps to keep up with dd. she is drinking over a liter/day still.
i am tired. right this moment, i feel like death lol. she feeds two or three times overnight. and she was awake from 3 to about 6 this morning (happy but not sleepy) and then i pumped. so 6.30 before i got back to sleep. then dh woke my at 8. sigh i wish he'd just let me sleep, T was still sound asleep too. but i am coping ok.
my freezer stash has taken a beating - i donated... well, i can't remember, but over 6 L to a friend whose DD was losing weight and ended up in hospital. so poor friend has now switched to pumping and bottle feeding so they can monitor intake but her supply is so low that she is desperate for donated EBM. so now my milk has helped fatten up two babies :) mixed emotions giving the milk away.... in reality i was probably never going to use it as t was the older stuff. so happy to give it away to a very very good cause rather than risk throwing it away. but in handing it over i felt like i was handing over hours and hours of my life! 6 L = 12 hours of pumping time!
so my next goal is 12 months. and i hold a tiny glimmer of hope of being able to breastfeed after her 12 month surgery. not a huge hope as i can't risk disapointting myself hugely. but gosh... i would love to. DS was breastfed till nearly 3 and i just don' know if i can or would even want to, pump that long. such a different journey!
how is everyone else going?
Hi Teesmum,
Sorry to hear the surgery was postponed. I know how much you want to BF.
You are doing great to only have to do 5 pumps. I think I went to 5 at about 8 months. It didn't really affect my supply too much, although I am on motilium so it is hard to know what affect the medication has. 5am pump isn't too bad either. I do a 6am pump. I cut the o/n one out at 9 months. That was fantastic as I get 7 hours sleep now. I feel like a new woman. Sorry to hear that you still need to feed o/n. I hope one of the feeds coincides with your pump.
Fantastic that you were able to donate some BM. You friend is very lucky. I know what you mean about each bag representing a lot of hard work. I feel the same as well.
12 months is totally achievable. The first 6 months really is the hardest. I found the DS milk intake went down each solid meal I introduced so by 9 months I dropped to 4 pumps. I have about 6 hour gaps through the day which is amazing.
Anyone else still pumping?
Congrats to you both on getting this far! Tees mum fingers crossed you can drop the overnight pump soon. I really did find things got easier after 6 mths.
How awesome that you were able to donate some to your friend, that's wonderful :)
Made me :lol::
I'm beginning the stepping down process from expressing (I'm currently at 10.5 months of expressing). I'm not really sure how you go about stopping particularly when you make way more than your bub drinks. My usual pumps are 20 mins long and I do 4 times a day. I can't really drop the midday one as I'm at work when I do that and I do it at lunch time, so I can't move it to later in the day. I decided that I will cut down on how long I express for so I've shaved off 2 mins as of yesterday so I'm going for 18 minutes now, so far so good. In a day or two I will shave off another 2 mins. I know that I have to go slow because I'm extremely prone to blocked ducts. I"m also on motilium so will stop that at the end of next week. I want to have enough milk to get through next week. I was aiming to have finished by the start of February and just use my freezer supplies but I think I might find I"m still winding back at the beginning of February.
If any past expressers drop into the thread, let me know your experience of stopping and how you went about it.
hey lisa - how do you feel about finishing up?? such a strange concept for me, being totally in control of the process, as my eldest self-weaned from the breast. from what i remember of the earlier posts in this thread, you are going about it the right way, shortening each session rather than dropping them. i guess you keep doing that for a while and then switch to pumping for comfort..
we are now home after dd's op. such a little trooper. has been drinking well which is fabulous as some bubs take a while (days) to get back to their bottles. anterior palate repaired as well as her lip. so now i'm quietly wondering just how much of the palate is needed to breastfeed... Barb...? not getting hopes up, but am a little bit excited that maybe just maybe it might be possible.
Hi Lisa, Congratulations on getting to 10.5 months. I guess my weaning is a little different and I had no troubles with blocked ducts so I guess I didn't have to be as careful as it sounds you do. ATM I can't remember how I went from 4 to 3 (I think I just stretched the lunch time one out to mid afternoon) but when I was pumping three times a day (one before work, as soon as I got home, then before bed) I stopped the one when I got home to cut down to 2. That really was the beginning of the end for me as my supply dropped off so much.
Teesmum, Glad to her DD's op went well and she sounds like she's on a quick recovery schedule. Hope Barb can help you and it's good news. :crossfingers:.
Hey ladies,
Teesmum - great news on the operation. Wow now maybe you can begin the journey of getting onto the breast. Very exciting.
Cece - thanks for sharing your experience. I wish I didn't have the whole duct issue to consider.
Part of me is looking forward to the complete freedom from the pump and I see what I have done as an achievement. I wasn't even intending on BF for 12 months and here I am at the point of EBM feeding for 12 months. It's been a hard journey but I think a worthwhile one and I'm glad I have done it. The last 6 months has been a cinch. It's been an emotional journey from the grief of not being able to BF, there not being a simple answer as to why we couldn't do it, learning how to fit pumping into my life as a mother and hitting my stride in the last 6 months. I guess I do feel emotional about stopping as it is a connection with my bub that is ending and sad as I reflect on what never was for us (a few tears now as I write this statement). I also feel emotional about the concept that EBM feeding is the next best thing to BF. I know why it is so, but I feel like I have worked harder than if I had have BF and no matter how hard I worked it could never replace the real thing. aaahhh...anyway...we all stop at some point BF or expressing and I'm sure it's often with mixed emotions no matter what our experience has been.
I'm down to 16 minutes 4xday. I felt like I was going to burst when I got up for my 6am pump. I thought I was going to be in trouble duct-wise. I think I will stick at the 16 minute mark for a few days before taking the next step. My fridge is still overflowing with milk. My DS is only taking about 300-400mls now and that's with me being assertive in how I offer the bottle.
hey lisa how are you going? are you at peace with your decision? you must be loving having the freedom of no pumping!
dd is now 3 weeks post op. she is doing brilliantly and i have it in the back of my mind that i want to introduce the boob. no idea how to go about it. almost easier not to try than be disappointed. but if it works, wow, that would be so good! she is nearly 8 months. my supply has dropped from 1200ish to 1000ish lately (probably due to the surgery, the stress and lack of sleep involved). dd is still consuming everything i make each day. she's like a bottomless pit. but she isn't really on solids much, restricted to soft food because of palate repair for a couple more weeks.
hope everyone else is doing well!
Hi Teesmum,
Glad to hear that DD is doing really well. Can you see a LC to get help with getting her onto the boob? I know what you mean about being almost easier to not try then be disappointed. After I stopped trying to attach DS I sometimes thought maybe I should give it a go again, but for me the relieving the pain of it not working was too much. Your issues are different though. Your DD is such an amazing drinker!! In my world 1000mls was a good day. It's stressful isn't it when you are just getting enough to get by. It sounds like things will start to settle down with your supply with some of the stress easing up and things will balance out a bit more when she starts on a bit more solids. How many times a day are you pumping now?
I pumped for the last time mid last week. I am at peace with my decision. The winding back was hard emotionally but I decided that it was the right time...well no time really seemed like the right time. We are still working our way through the freezer supply and DS should be at least one when we run out. I had always seen supplying DS with breast milk was a special connection i had with him and I was worried what would happen with that connection once I finished, but it all seems to be fine now I'm on the other side. I still often think about the journey, what was and what wasn't and I'm so glad I did what I did for almost 12 months. Now I've finished I look back and think how quick the time went and what a short time it really was in the scheme of things...hind sight is a great thing!
You're doing really well. 8 months is a huge achievement. The last 6 months flew by for me.
I never did do one of these, so I thought I would now that I'm finishing as a way to reflect and put my story together
How long have you been expressing? 11 months and I have a further month of milk in the freezer
How long do you plan to do it for/ or have done it for? Ideally I was hoping to make 6 months, but in the first 3 months it was really a day by day, week by week thing. Then I set my goals to make a month at a time and finally revised my goal to 11 months with a further month supply in the freezer.
How many times a day do you express? For the first 5 months i expressed 8 times a day, my supply took a big dive around 9 weeks and I ended up on motilium. I tried to get my supply up by expressing 10 times a day for a few days but no luck. Motilium really worked for me and my supply was better than ever. I started to cut back the number of times a day from about month 5 and the last few months I was expressing 4 times a day. I always wanted to get rid of the overnight pumps. I was doing 2 overnight pumps for many months. I don't think I dropped off my last overnight pump until about month 8. In hindsight I could have moved to 4 pumps a day much sooner as my supply was great on Motilium.
Do you enjoy it? I can't say I really enjoyed the experience of pumping, but I did enjoy the special connection of feeding my baby and I'm very glad I did it. I had problems with blocked ducts several times a week, had burst veins about 3 times and it was difficult at times to look after my very active bub whilst I was expressing. The positives however did outweigh the negatives and I learned how to manage the negatives.
Do you have other kids? No...not sure I could do it with a second child (ditto everyone else)
If you feel comfortable sharing- Why you are expressing? I don't have a simple explanation. I had vasospasm when DS was born, and thereafter so we used the bottle and I went on the breast pump. I worked with LCs to try and get BF going. I saw LCs for 9 weeks to try and get BF going. I was able to grin and bear the pain but by then DS might have had nipple confusion as he would cry each time I tried to attach him and he never ever finished a feed on the breast. He was also diagnosed with reflux by one paediatrician and was put on medication but by then his volume of milk was a concern as was his weight as he became fussy on the bottle as well. I decided we needed to concentrate on one method of feeding and the bottle was really his preference. I also couldn't bear to see him cry each time we tried to feed DS. 9 weeks was also a long time to go on the cycle of attempting to BF, then pumping and feeding DS a bottle. That cycle took close to 1.5 hours and was done 8 times a day. We saw another paediatrician and it was discovered that he didn't have reflux but rather a milk protein allergy. In summary I think all of these things led to being unsuccessful with breast feeding, but I will never really understand why we couldn't get it to work.
What type of expressing method do you use? I started with a hired symphony medela then bought my own Medela freestyle. The freestyle was fantastic as it was so portable and I could take it with me and work pumping into my lifestyle. The little ice pack was great and the battery life was fantastic. I accidentally forgot to take the electrical cord when i went away one weekend and the battery last all weekend (4 pumps daily of 20 mins each).
How much milk in a day? Prior to Motilium it was 700-800mls and then dropped lower just prior to taking motilium. Once on Motilium I would get 900-1100mls which was more than enough for my DS.
Best expressing tip? Learning to become efficient by double pumping, handsfree, a small pump which can be transported so you can get on with your life, activities to take your mind off the clock like the internet and tv. Having activities set up for your bub to keep them occupied. Being confident to pump in places outside of the home like the car or parents room at a shopping centre - very handy when you are on 8 x day.
Do you think your baby feeds more or less often than a BF baby would? I think my DS might have fed less than a BF baby. I only have the mother's in my mother's group to compare my DS to. Their babies fed more frequently, sometimes fed to sleep in the night. DS didn't feed to sleep and might have snacked less in the day. It's hard to say as I don't have a great comparison point.
Lisa - just came in here to stalk the current EE'ers and CONGRATULATIONS! That is so fabulous that you know you'll make 12 months! I'm just sorry that no-one was here to see it at the time! What an absolutely fantastic effort! I'm guessing you've stopped now, but would love to hear the update. I also had a giggle at your dream - LOL!
teesmum - how are you going?
Belfie - yes I've all finished now. Thanks for you support, you were certainly one of the inspirational people I met in here. You will probably never know how much some of the things you said meant to me. xoxox
Teesmum - yes how are things going for you hunnie?
Hi - there hasn't been much talk in here lately but I was hoping someone can give me some advice. I am heading back to work in two months and will be feeding my little man from the boob on days off but from the bottle (ebm) on work days. I give him an occasional bottle here and there and so does hubby and we have no issue with that. My question is that I am still using teat 1 on the bottles. Should I go up to the two holes or more? I just don't know whether we need to or not? He doesn't seem frustrated with the speed of the feed from bottles so not sure if it's necessary?
I hope this made sense? I have the avent bottles if that makes a difference?
stay on either the newborn or 3 month teats for the next year or so! There's much less chance of breast refusal. Don't go up to the 3 month one if he is ok with the newborn one - but at some stage you may need to.
Hi Minivini2b - I was always told to stay with the slow flow teat when still attaching to the breast. Good on you for having a go at expressing whilst at work. Give yourself a little bit of time to get comfy with the whole process at work.
Thanks Lisa - I am really hoping to stick with it till little mans 1st bday. I am hoping work is supportive as I work for a Paediatrician so they should know how important it is. I'm just wondering how I will know how much to put in the bottles each day for childcare? For a few days before should I def give him a bottle every day and take note on how much he drinks and use that amount? I am going to give the day care some freezer bagged milk as well for hungry times and I guess if they are noticing all the time he is needing more than in the bottle I can increase the amount.
I'm a little worried that pumping three days a week will lead to a decrease in supply as I have read pumping isn't as effective as feeding - is there anyway to prevent this? Or just feed as often as little man needs on the other days during the week?
Any advice would be great!
And thanks for the advice on the teats - I got more bottles the other day and bought newborn teats for them to use till I need to change (if I need to).
I'm sure I'll have lots more questions as the return to work gets closer!
I would personally pack EBM in small lots (say 50 ml), but give them many of them. If he's hungry after the first then they can go onto the second, but if he's not hungry then less EBM is wasted. Have a look into something like the Avent cups - they very rarely leak, can be frozen if needed, and the teat screws into the cup via an adaptor. I'm sure there are similar setups for other types of bottles too.
One thing you have on your side with pumping is that you will know what you get out - and if it drops seriously then you can take some action. The simplest action is to pump more often or add in an extra suck-feed or two. If more drastic action is needed then motilium is a medicine that increases milk production. And demand feeding on the days when you and bub are together is important.
Be prepared for night feeds to increase when you return to work as well - which if it happens will certainly deal with any supply issues, although it brings a whole new pile of fun!
Do you have a double pump? If you do it can cut the expressing time substantially, and leave you with a bit more time for other things. Also, during the day at work, just put the milky pump bits (and the milk) in the fridge between uses - then give them all a good wash when you get home. If you can collect extra sets of pump attachments (friends, ebay) it makes things a lot easier to manage as well, because then you can have scrubbing session every couple of days.
Thanks for the tips - I hope feeding overnight doesn't increase lol! I don't have a double pump but it takes me less than 10mins to get 100mls from one side so I'm hoping it won't take me to long to pump at work but if it does I might invest in a double pump - can u use a double pump as a single if only need to pump one side?
I have the avent bottle cups as well and they are great. I will use them as well as the bottles I have. And I will start freezing my stash in smaller quantities - I agree it is Definatley sad to throw EBM down the sink when he doesn't use it all!
the double pumps can be single as well.
Hi there,
I second the tips from Kmn of how to do things efficiently.
Hopefully your supply will be fine because you aren't exclusively expressing. Yes, you can monitor the situation as you will see how much you are making and note if there is a significant drop. A lot of people have no problems EE in terms of supply, but others like me had some issues. My issues were resolved by motilium...the best thing I did was to take it.
It is hard to know how much to pack for childcare. I was lucky because I had too much milk in the freezer so I could send more than was required. Maybe look at how much your bub drinks at that time of time and pack a little extra just in case. My bub would often drink more when away from my care, perhaps it was a security thing.
Ask any questions you need. I'm glad I can use some of the things I learned along the way to help others so more than happy to help in any way I can.
I don't know if this would help you re: storing in small quantities. The ABA website sells this thing called milk trays. Basically like long ice-cubes tray to
Store milk in 30ml lot I think. Good
Luck!
Sent from my smart phone using Tapatalk.(Occasional fat fingers syndrome might occur)
Hi
I'm hoping someone has some advice for me. I'm due to return to work in a month and I will be breastfeeding on my days off and giving the little guy EBM during day care hours. What I want to know is when to express etc on my three work days. I will be working tue-wed-thur 730am till 5pm. At the moment out schedule is
630-7am = wake up for morning feed
10-1030 = feed
130pm = feed
4pm = feed
6pm = dinner feed and bed
What I want to know is if I'm going to be doing it right if I express at 1030am, 130pm and 4pm? The 4pm feed is usually a snack/stocking up for overnight and sometimes he doesn't feed a heap but other times he has quite a bit. I intend to pump a full feed at 1030 and 130 but would u pump till empty at 4pm or would it be better to get hubby to tell me how much he has and pump that amount if possible? (hubby will have him at home by then.) I'm worried I'll pump too much at 4pm and won't have enough for his dinner feed?
Any advic would be great - also any tips on making pumping at work easier and more efficient wild be great.
TIA