Currently Breastfeeding and Would like to Start Pumping and Offering a Bottle

I just had a baby in December, so congratulations. I know just what you are going through. I would start pumping as soon as possible, when the baby takes a long nap, in the morning when you are really full, whenever you can. It can take a while to get some reserves. I think it is great for the Dad's to be able to feed the little ones too, with a bottle it makes them feel helpful. I didn't seem to make more milk when pumping I stayed about the same. Breast milk is the best so do what you have to do. Good Luck!

I'm a new mom as well. My son was born in December. I started pumping about a month ago and have a nice stash of milk in the freezer. The lactation consultant I worked with advised pumping after breastfeeding (you won't get much...this is just to stimulate your brain to produce more) for about 7-10 days. After about 4-5 days of this I was considerably fuller and could pump enough to freeze in addition to regular meals for my little one. Like the other moms, I've found the best times to pump are at night after my son goes to bed for his longest stretch of time, and first thing in the morning before he wakes up. If you are up to it, the lactation consultant recommended setting an alarm for 3am and pumping then as well, but I was always too tired to do that (my son stays asleep from 12-6am).

When I pumped with my son, I would try to pump on one side while he was nursing on the other, since I was having a "let-down" anyway. Or I would pump right before I went to bed, if he hadn't eaten for a while and wasn't going to eat for a while. It's pretty tricky until you get the hang of it, and you might need some help at first getting everything/everyone hooked up. As far as milk flow, I think if you're only pumping at the most once a day, and over time slowly adding in more pumpings if needed, you supply will adjust accordingly. I don't think you even have to pump everyday, but maybe once every two days at least to get your supply built up.

The BEST breastfeeding book I have found is called The Breastfeeding Book written by Sears and Sears. I would recommend ANY breastfeeding mother to add it to their collection. I am not sure how many night feedings you have, but one thing I did to increase my frozen supply is to nurse on the SAME side for all night feedings and then pump the full breast in the morning. This is not something you will have to continue doing once you are comfortable with the amount of milk you have on hand and as long as your baby feeds at night, it is something you can do again if your supply is running low. As far as keeping your milk supply from slowing, you want to pump at least once for every four hours you will not be nursing. Just remember that your milk is produced on supply and demand and if you are skipping feedings and not pumping you are telling your body to slow down on production. And again, I REALLY recommend the book. You can find it online at Barnes & Noble and I believe on Amazon.com as well. Hope this helps!! For tips on breastmilk storage go to justmommies.com and search for breastmilk storage guidelines. The basic info includes frig 3-8 days, freezer 3-4 months, and deep freezer 6-12 months.

It's all about supply and demand! If you pump at the same time every day, your body will start making more milk at that same time every day. It usually takes your body 2-3 days to respond to an increase in demand. Just remember that this also works in reverse, if you give him a bottle once without pumping, it shouldn't make much of a difference in your milk production, but if you do it a few days in a row, your body will recognize a decrease in need at that time each day and stop producing as much milk at that time. It seems pretty basic, but I am surprised at how many moms start losing their milk supply but can't figure out why, as they start enjoying the independence of giving a bottle. I personally just always make sure to pump whenever by baby is eating. I am a nurse and work 1 night a week, so I pump at the same times my baby eats at home and I am never worried that my milk supply will dwindle. Also, you were given some mis-information from Tami on milk storage. It can be stored in the refrigerator for a week, the freezer for 3 months, or a deep freeze for 6 months. I didn't want you wasting any of your "white gold"!

N.,

The more your baby takes including the more you express your milk, the more milk you will produce. This is a time for you to relax and enjoy your baby, your husband and don't worry. Relaxing will also help you to produce more milk.

As you put milk in the freezer, please remember it is only good for 2 weeks and only 24 hours in the fridge. You do not need to store a lot of milk - just enough to tide your baby over for 1 or 2 feedings for when you are out. Then it will be time for you to store more milk.

Good luck and enjoy the journey....

I noticed that my milk supply was directly related to how much water I drank. Keeping hydrated is key, and the more fluid intake the more the body will be able to produce. To get a good supply you may have to pump closer to his actual feeding times. I used to pump only one breast if it was close to a feeding. I would still nurse on the pumped breast, after my baby had finished the first. I would store it in the freezer immediatly. You can always add more milk to the frozen bottle when you pump later. I would also pump when baby was sleeping. That would give me a little more 'recovery time' before the next feeding. Just drink plenty of water after pumping so you can make more milk. I hope this works out for you and good luck!

Hi there-
I have a 3 month old. I have been pumping in the evening and it works great. My son is on a pretty consistent sleep shedule of going to bed at 7 pm and not waking for 8-10 hours. I find that if I pump at 10 pm before I sleep I can have a bottle for him and it saves me from getting to full in the evenings...

If your little one doesn't sleep so regularly I have been told by other Moms that the thing to do is to pump every day at the same time- like if your child always naps at a certain time, maybe do it at the beginning so you have to resupply while he sleeps. After a few days your body will start to produce more mild for the "pump feed". Your baby might nurse a little more those first couple of days to make up for it, but all the better, that just increases your flow.

Once you get a stockpile of bottles, just quit pumping. When you are ready to restock, your production may have gone down and it might take a few pumps to fill up just one bottle.

Hope this helps! It seem so me that are bodies are pretty amazing at producing the right amount of milk quickly. I think the key is just to find a time to pump that works best for you and everything else will fall into place.

One of the best things I did to learn how to pump is attend a FREE class at Alliance Breastfeeding Center on Power Pumping. You can also get great ideas from La Leche League. Remember that breastfeeding is about demand and supply, so the more you nurse the more you produce. You can always have him nurse on one side while pumping the other. To avoid any nipple confusion make sure that as long as you are nursing and bottle feeding to use the lowest flow nipple on the bottle. This helps baby to have to work a harder, not as hard as at the breast, but it usually keeps them from giving up on the breast because the bottle is easier. Also when he takes the bottle make sure he sits semi upright so he has to work to get milk out. Second nature bottles simulate breastfeeding by making baby "nurse" the bottle which has multiples holes like breast. Try to offer bottle at least once a day. Best of luck!!

The easiest for me: I'd pump on one side as my baby nursed on the other side. Baby nursing caused letdown making it easier to pump. Then when I switched sides, baby would get the hind milk on the second breast. Baby sucked harder than pump so was able to get more out....and my breasts started making more milk.

Has your son started sleeping through the night yet? If so, I found the best time for me to add a pumping was right before I went to bed. That way, my daughter had already been asleep a few hours so I had built up some more milk, and in the morning I wasn't super full before feeding her. I did this every night until I had a good supply in the freezer. If he's still waking in the night to feed, pay attention to his natural feeding schedule and choose the time when he goes the longest without nursing...then pump during that break. Newborns will tend to cluster feed at certain times and then have longer breaks at times, so bank on those. Hope this helps!

Hey N. - congratulations! You've got a bunch of great advice here, and everyone's right: the thing to remember is be consistent (I have an 8 month old I'm still nursing AND pumping and learned a lot of this the hard way.) Whatever time you choose to pump, just try to do it at the same time daily, and your body will take care of building up the volume. I actually started by pumping 2 or 3 times in one day to get enough for one bottle. The next night I let my husband feed him his before bed bottle and that was when I pumped. It became a great time for bonding for my husband and an easy time to pump for me. I eventually had enough volume from that one time to pump that I could store some and use some for the next night!

I started pumping about the same time you want to. I found that as my son slept longer, I would wake up early because I was engorged and leaking. So I'd get up and pump (and change my shirt, lol), let my son sleep in as long as he wanted, and I'd often go back to bed myself. By the time my son woke up, I'd have enough milk to keep him happy for quite a while. It seems like he'd need an extra feeding mid-morning because he hadn't had a huge breakfast, but that was okay. I ended up with quite a large stash of milk in the freezer. It was really nice to know that if he got hungry while I was out for 2 hours, my husband could give him a bottle and I wouldn't come home to a screaming baby and a frazzled husband.
I thought I was really on a roll, and even considered donating to a milk bank, but my son blew that out of the water when he hit 3 1/2 months old and his appetite soared. Nursing him every hour and giving him at least one bottle a day wiped out my stash in two weeks. But after that, we started on solids, so it wasn't quite so imperitive to have a large stash of milk in the freezer.

I also have a little one about that age. I have been pumping since his first week. It seems to me that the more I pump, the more I produce. I've been told different things from different people about the best time to pump. One lactation nurse told me to pump right after I feed and another one told me to pump one hour after the first feeding of the morning. Try it out and see what works best for you.

For me, it was very simple...I'd pump while watching a movie, for example, until I got sick of it or nothing else would come out! The body regulates itself when nursing, so I just let my body worry about it instead of my mind wasting the energy. It's really not a big deal...just do it, see what happens and you'll learn how you and your body works with the pumping/nursing combo. By the way, I was never out of milk for any of my babies...even if I'd pumped already, the milk would rush in after one of my girls had sucked for a bit...the body is a wonderous sort of thing!

My daughter didn't really eat that much when I was nursing. I fed her when she was hungry but then she seemed to lose interest or she just wasn't as hungry as I thought, plus, she had a hard time latching on. I did alot of pumping because she wasn't "helping" enough. I ended up pumping and giving it to her in a bottle due to the latching on problem. Pumping, in my case, actually encouraged more milk production so before too long, I had a nice supply stored in the freezer. I remember a trip I took when she was only a couple weeks old to Las Vegas. I had pumped before I got on the plane, and its not a very long trip by plane, when I got off the plane, I quickly had to find a bathroom or other private place that I could pump again. If your baby is sleeping and you feel "full" I would recommend pumping and storing it, especially if he has just gone down or you know that he is not hungy.

Try pumping after you feed your son. You will be able to get some milk built up in the freezer this way and it won't effect what you need to give your son. If anything it will only affect your milk supply in a good way. You also can feel free to pump when you feel like it. Once a day or every other day until you have a good supply and then cut back to just pumping when you miss a feeding. I have breastfed four children and had to go back to work with all of them. This was the easiest way for me to build up a supply before going back to work.

I mostly went right to pumping after my two boys were born. I needed to get back to work and wanted a good routine established before I added the normal stress to it all. I would pump about an hour after I nursed, soon, I stopped nursing and went to pumping full time. Since I "suffer" from Hyposupply, (25 plus ounces in one sitting) it was easy for me to stock up, but I also got mastitis three times and took over a month to dry up! But what I did learn from all of this is to call your local hospitals and OB's and USE their lactation consultants! Call every day if you need to, they have a ton of information. Also, The Denver Milk Bank, where I donated some of my breast milk to has Lactation Consultants and they KNOW what they are talking about, so don't be afraid to call, that is what they are there for! Best of Luck!

A little about me:
Working mom of two happy boys, 4 years and 7 months.

I pumped pretty much exclusively until my son was a year old. He didn't nurse, so all he took was the bottle. I usually pumped right before he had a bottle and then if I was away, I'd try to do it every 3 hours. When I did try to nurse him when he was younger, I'd pump afterwards. One thing I do want to say is that you need to be consistent, because one long stretch of not pumping or nursing will be a big blow to your supply. I wish someone had told me that before, because I went without pumping for longer than I ever had and my supply never recovered from that. Also, make sure you have plenty of freezer space for extra milk. It's always a good idea to have it on hand, just in case. I would definitely recommend building up that freezer supply even if you don't necessarily need it right now. Anyway, I hope this helped. Good luck!

I understand! This is a balancing act in the beginning. It will get easier, hang in there. Since your baby is so young, he probably eats often so you might be wondering if you will have enough to do both. It is important that you know how ever much you need your body will produce. The good news, at that age, they tend to hit growing sperts where they eat a lot followed by a few days of sleep. This is a perfect time to start pumping. Make sure you have a good pump. At two months, he might get picky so you will not have much time to keep him interested in a bottle before he refuses. You will have to give him a bottle from time to time. If he won't take it from you already, have someone else do it. Go ahead and pump. I did. I was a little dry the first day, but the next day my body kicked in. There was plenty of milk. I had to taper off pumping at the end. Good job at breast feeding. You will never regret it. My boys are very healthy.

When my daughter was an infant, I started pumping once a day in addition to exclusive breastfeeding. My daughter is 3 1/2 now, so my memory of details is a little sketchy. But I think I pumped after feeding her... just 2-3 extra ounces, and I believe I did it in the morning, it was every day. It was great if we went out for a date. It came in handy when I started a part-time job when she was 8 1/2 months. I had enough frozen breast milk to supply her for 3 days+ while I was out of town for training. It worked out great. I had to go out of town for a week when she was a year old. She used the rest of the breast milk while I was gone, and I weaned her when I got back.

A funny aside... my son who was 20 months old at the time, was so used to seeing me pump breat milk. One day I got out of the shower, and he had the electric double pum turned on and both pumping apparatuses attached to his bare chest. I wish I had taken a picture!