I have been exclusively pumping (EPing) since my daughter was 3 days old. You can read about how I came to that decision in my first post here. For the first three months I tried to pump at least 8-10 times per day. I didn’t worry about the spacing as much as making sure that I got the correct number of pumps in per day. I tried to space them as evenly as possible and not go more than 4 hours between pumps. I ended up dropping the middle of the night pump when my daughter was just over a month old because I just couldn’t do it anymore. I would stay up really late and pump around 11pm and wake up about 6am to pump. I would usually be really uncomfortable and engorged, but I felt like I needed this extra sleep to function as I was continuing to feed my daughter throughout the night as well. As long as I continued to maintain 8 pumps per day, I didn’t see any decrease in my milk output. When my daughter was just over two months old I started experimenting with dropping pumps. My goal was to get down to 4 pumps per day by the time I returned to work, so I needed to taper. I basically just dropped 1 pump per day each week and re-spaced my pumps as evenly as possible throughout the day. I was finally beginning to feel like exclusive pumping would be possible long term and amazingly, I did not experience any drop in my milk supply as I dropped pumps. In fact, my supply increased when I returned to work when my daughter was 3 months old!
When I initially started pumping at home I used a Madela Symphony to build my supply. From what I have read, a hospital pump is absolutely essential to building your milk supply if your baby is not nursing. When I first started pumping I was not making a lot of milk (about 12-16 ounces per day). I had to work really hard to build my supply. I found the most useful techniques were to pump for at least 30 minutes (if you baby is not nursing at all), using heat packs, and breast massage. Also a hands free bra is absolutely essential! Once I made these changes to my pumping regimen, I saw a drastic increase in the amount of milk I was able to pump. I bought a Madela Freestyle so that I could pump on the go (in the car!) and to use when I returned to work. The portable pump allowed me a lot of freedom that I didn’t have with the hospital pump.
On the days that I work, I pump at 5am, 10am and 3pm at work, and right before I go to bed (usually about 10pm). I like to sleep in on the weekends (if my daughter will let me!), so my first pump is usually about 7:30 am and then I pump again around 12pm, 5pm, and before bed. I started out with 30 minute pumping sessions, but recently I have gone down to 20-25 minutes. I did see a slight drop in my milk supply, but I’m still making plenty to meet my daughter’s needs. I also developed mastitis about 2 weeks ago which may have contributed to the decrease in my supply as well. As a side note, mastitis is extremely painful and takes quite a while to recover from. Take good care of your nipples if you are EPing! I had not been using lanolin on a regular basis and developed sores and cracks which I think may have been the cause of my mastitis. I now put lanolin on my nipples before I pump to help reduce the friction. I have heard that some moms use olive oil and that works well too.
If you aren’t able to pump enough milk to meet your baby’s needs, she is still going to benefit greatly from whatever amount you can provide. Feel good about what you are able to accomplish and try not to compare yourself to other moms. Take EPing as far as you want to go and try not to feel guilty if/when you decide to give it up. EPing is a lot of work and is a huge time commitment. Please know that you’re not alone. There are a lot of moms who end up in this same situation and choose to pump exclusively. It is one of the many options to feed your baby. If you can make it through the first 3 months it truly does get easier!!
Here are some of my favorite internet resources that I found to be instrumental to my pumping success.
http://newborns.stanford.edu/Breastfeeding/MaxProduction.html
http://newborns.stanford.edu/Breastfeeding/HandExpression.html
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