Instead of breastfeeding can i pump

So during your baby's first few weeks, you should try your best to pump at least every two to three hours about eight to twelve times a day to stimulate your body to produce a healthy milk supply.

As your baby grows, they will take more at each feeding, but go longer between feedings. As long as your milk supply is plentiful, you may be able to go longer between pumping sessions, as well. At each session, you should pump for at least 15 minutes on each side. It can take a few minutes for your milk to begin to let down , so give yourself enough time. You also want to try to empty your breasts fully.

Emptying the breasts is an important part of stimulating the production of more breast milk. After you drain your breasts and no more milk is flowing out into the collection container , continue to pump for one to five minutes longer.

Since breast milk is made based on supply and demand , the extra stimulation will tell your body to make more. You don't have to go longer than 20 minutes, though. Pumping for 15 to 20 minutes more frequently throughout the day will generally produce more breast milk than pumping less often for more extended periods of time. Pump as much as you can at each pumping session.

Then, put the breast milk into bottles or storage containers in the amount that your child takes at each feeding. Newborns drink less breast milk than older children at each feeding, but they eat more often. Based on your baby's age, here is how much they will need. The first week: Colostrum , the first breast milk, is concentrated and very nutritious, so a tiny amount is all your baby needs.

During the first few days after the birth of your baby, you will only be able to pump and collect a small amount of colostrum. On the very first day, in fact, so little will be expressed that it can get stuck in the tubing of the breast pump, which is why hand expressing colostrum is the preferred method during that time.

After you have hand-expressed a few spoonfuls' worth, pumping for a short while is a good way to stimulate milk supply until your milk fully comes in. After the first week , you should be able to pump two to three ounces every two to three hours, or about 24 ounces in a hour period.

You would need to double this amount if you have twins, triple it for triplets, etc. After about one month , you will need approximately three to four ounces every three to four hours, or about 24 to 32 ounces a day. By the time your baby is six months old , they will need about six to eight ounces every four to six hours, so approximately 36 to 48 ounces a day.

It's easier to overfeed your baby when you're bottle-feeding in place of breastfeeding. So be sure you're giving your child what they need every day and in each bottle.

There's a simple formula you can use to calculate how much breast milk to put in a bottle: The child's weight in ounces, divided by 6, divided by the number of feedings per day. It can be tough to maintain a healthy milk supply when you're exclusively pumping. It requires a good deal of dedication because you have to pump regularly and, if possible, during the night. To maintain and increase your supply.

Since you will be spending so much time using your pump, consider buying or renting a high-quality breast pump designed for long-term, daily use. Whichever pump you choose, be sure it's comfortable and the pump shields fit you well to prevent pain and damage to your breast tissue.

Frequent pumping stimulates the production of breast milk. Here are a few things you can do to make your pumping output more productive:. For women who spend extended periods of time away from their babies, whether for work or a NICU stay, maintaining a milk supply without nursing a baby can be incredibly challenging.

The wide pieces that cover your nipples during a pumping session are known as flanges, and having the incorrect size can be detrimental to how much milk you get when you pump. Also, ouch. A poorly fitting flange can lead to some seriously sore nipples.

However, one thing we absolutely cannot produce milk without is water. Drink TONS of it. If you want to reduce complex carbohydrates in your diet, do so by swapping in whole food carbs in their place, such as sweet potatoes and quinoa. You can also rub Olive Oil on the horns and inside the nipple chamber to reduce friction. Olive Oil is antibacterial so it is helpful. This is also safe to use and pump milk with.

There are times when I seem to get sorer than other times with no real explanation. But, it then goes away as quickly as it came! Who knows! Once I went hands free and had to do those early morning feedings by myself, I would sit on the floor and prop my baby up in her boppy pillow on the floor.

I would get hooked up to the pump and start it and pump while I fed her. About the time she was done eating, I was done pumping and I would put her back in bed and go to sleep myself. This will cut down on your time tremendously! The bouncy seat is my best friend! I would put her in the bouncy seat and bounce it with my foot while surfing the net and pumping.

It made time fly by and she was content. You may find other solutions if you have older children, or extra help. You may not need a lot of tricks for this one depending on the age of the child, or children. Some tricks other moms had mentioned to keep their other child entertained and kind of reward them would be to go shopping and let your child pick out a special toy or video that she really wants.

Then when ever it comes time for you to pump, she can play with it. But, she ONLY gets to play with it when you pump. This helps to make pumping time special for her as well and can help prevent any resentment she might begin to feel. Excessive caffeine may cause problems like keeping the baby wired! More on caffeine here. Medications that have Sudafed pseudoephedrine HCl in them can affect milk supply! Be careful! Regular birth control pills will impact milk supply, and some women even have a problem with the mini pill.

However, you may find you get hot flashes and things like that. This suppresses ovulation and allows you to make milk. I thought I was going crazy until I learned this! Sometimes if you get your period back while pumping, it can decrease your supply. Around 3 months your supply will probably be established. This is when you can begin to drop the number of times per day that you pump and not see too much of a decrease in total output this is again, where the spreadsheet comes in handy.

Of course, this is all dependent on how each woman produces milk. So, you may have such a great supply and so much frozen that you can drop pumps earlier. I began dropping pumps at 10 weeks and by 3 months I was down to 4 pumps per day! I lost a little with each drop but am currently at 50 ounces per day. You will have to decide for yourself. This is also dependent on the woman. I pump about minutes per pump now on 4 times because I get another let down at about 36 minutes into it!

If you try to view this as positively as possible, I think you will have a better outcome. Pumping allowed me to hang onto the last shred of breastfeeding I had left. I stubbornly clung to this idea as I cursed a system where it took weeks to get the help I needed to correct my feeding issues. Although I felt relieved to take the guesswork out of feedings, I also felt like a complete failure for not being able to nurse my baby directly.

Meanwhile, my entire schedule revolved around my next pump. For nine long months, until a noticeable supply dip prompted me to wean, I pumped five or more times a day to provide my son with roughly 18 ounces of breastmilk and kept supplementing with formula.

She says that mothers of preterm babies often pump exclusively after working to supply breastmilk to their babies in the neonatal intensive care unit NICU. Historically, mothers of preterm and low-birth-weight babies comprised the bulk of mothers who pump exclusively. Now, the improved quality and availability of electric pumps make the option more viable for other groups of women.

Abuse survivors may choose to pump if the demands of nursing their babies trigger adverse physical or emotional reactions that they are unable to work through. In such cases, pumping instead of nursing directly may help them dissociate the breastfeeding experience from past abuses. Newborn babies nurse eight to 12 times a day on average, so a mother who pumps exclusively should pump that often to keep up with the demand for milk. Foster encourages mothers to pump every two or three hours.

I believe that deviating from this schedule throughout my early struggles contributed to my supply issues. As with direct nursing, pumping sessions should be timed from the beginning of one session to the beginning of the next. Most general guidelines suggest 15 minutes per session, but the exact amount of time varies based on individual responses to the pump. Foster stresses the importance of draining the breasts. Pumping several minutes past when milk stops flowing will ensure that a woman removes enough milk to maintain her current average output and avoid clogged ducts and mastitis.

After establishing their supply, they can continue to adjust their routine. There are various pump logging apps that allow women to monitor the time, duration and yield of each pump.