If women never receive a guide on how to raise their children, they certainly should receive one on breastfeeding. For new moms, breastfeeding is a whole other stress on top of caring for a newborn. Recovering from a C-section or vaginal tearing is bad enough — but throw in sore, bleeding nipples and swollen breasts, and you’ve got a cocktail for misery.
Breastfeeding is not glamorous. If you’ve ever seen professional pictures of a woman out in a field of flowers with her infant suckling on her breast, hair glowing from the setting sun with a serene look on her face, consider her lucky. Although I used to be jealous of this woman, I learned to own my pumping work. Because let’s face it; it is work.
If you’ve found yourself in a situation where nursing is impossible, I encourage you not to give up. You may feel all sorts of emotions about pumping instead of nursing, but rather than look at the glass half full, recognize you’re still giving nutrition to your baby, no matter how it’s transferred.
My hope with this article is to give you pumping mamas out there a resource to make your exclusively pumping journey a little bit easier. Trust me, you will go through your own trials that not I nor a lot of moms out there have experienced. Don’t let these adversities stop you from achieving your goals!
Pumps
- Order the pump through your insurance company one month before your due date. If you wait longer and decide to pump exclusively without a breast pump, you run the risk of developing clogged ducts. If you’re absolutely out of options, contact your local WIC, hospital, or lactation consultant to rent a pump while you wait.
Depending on the insurance, your choices on a breast pump may be limited. If the option is available, please get the Spectra 1 or 2! I may be biased, but when it comes to cleaning and portability, these are it. No cleaning of the tubes is required, and the S1 comes with a portable battery (the Medela battery works on the S2). - Find the right sized flanges. The breast pumps come with a standard size that might fit your nipples. If you find your nipples are chafing or if no milk is coming out, you have the wrong size. I would recommend getting your nipple size checked at the hospital just in case. I had a hard time latching after delivery and was lucky enough to get a nipple shield from my lactation consultant. From there, I had a baseline to determine what size was best for me.
Schedule
- In the beginning, it’s a good rule of thumb to pump every two hours. Your milk is just coming in, and it’s very important to establish a routine. Deviating from the two-hour mark can result in your production dropping. If you’re okay with this (like I was), space out pumping to every three hours. I supplemented with formula throughout my six-month journey and had no qualms about it. If you want to feed your baby breast milk only, stick to the two-hour schedule for at least a month. Once your body is used to it, you can start dropping pumps.
- Like I stated earlier, pumping is work. If you start to feel depressed or stressed about pumping so often, consider sharing your thoughts with a friend or therapist. Your wellbeing is of utmost importance. Studies have shown psychological stress can lower your milk supply. Not only that, but the stress hormone cortisol can also be transferred to your baby through breast milk!
- Download an app that tracks your output. Most breastfeeding apps require that you buy their app once a certain amount of days have been reached. If you’re like me and NEVER buy apps, just pick another one once the trial is up. My favorite is Baby Tracker. This app allows you to record what time you last pumped and how much, when the baby was last fed, number of wet or poopy diapers, and how much time you’ve spent on the pump. I logged 20 hours one week, which is the equivalent of a part-time job.
Other Tips and Tricks
- Do not wash your pump parts after every session! All you have to do after you’ve stored the milk is throw your parts in the fridge for up to 24 hours. Invest in some gallon-sized bags to store them in, and when 24 hours is over, you can clean them. This will save A LOT of time!
- A lot of moms or pump websites will say to replace your parts every so often. The only thing I had to replace was the tubing because it kept coming undone from the pump. Parts can become worn after so much use. Look on Amazon for deals for pump parts. If you need tubing, look for airline tubing in the aquarium section. It works just the same and comes in eight feet or more!
- Join Facebook groups pertaining to exclusively pumping. A simple search for “exclusively pumping” will come up with oodles of groups for you to join! Heed my warning: Do not join a breastfeeding group if you do not want to see mothers nursing. Try to stick with pumping groups.
- Get yourself a good pumping bra. The Dairy Fairy and Rumina make amazing hands-free pumping bras. They’re a little pricey, so if you’re a cheap-o like me, Target has nursing bras — but they aren’t hands-free.
- Any product that claims to increase output is purely marketing. Each woman is different, and what may work for one may not work for you. If you really want to increase production, there’s no other foolproof way to do it than to pump every couple of hours religiously.
- Hand express after each session. Although you may feel empty, squeezing out excess milk will lower your chances of developing mastitis.
- Nursing pads: disposable or reusable? It really all depends on you. I used the Target brand pads, and they were super absorbent. Towards the end of my journey I found pads at Kroger for $2 a box!
