Exclusively pumping for preemie

[BabyMaybe917]

My little girl was born at 25w5d I was lucky to have my supply come in at 2 days! Anyone have any advice? The lactation consultant said I'm doing great but I'm terrified of not having enough later on. Right now she has an overflowing bin in the nicu freezer and about 50 bottles in our freezer. My supply is up to 22 oz a day now and I'm pumping every 3 hours for 15 minutes at a time. I have no idea what to expect for pumping and how much I should be getting now and in the future. I'll also post this in the breastfeeding section just thought someone here might have more specific advice.

Oh her feedings right now are 6 ml every 3 hours. She'll increase up to 17 ml, an increase of 1 ml every 12 hours, then will stay put for a while. I can't remember when she increases again.

I'm using the hospital grade medela symphony right now. I have a medela pump in style that I'll be using after 1 to 2 months. I'm going to start slowly switching over to the in style this week for comparison.

 

[kanga]

It sounds like you're doing a great job. I just stopped pumping for mine. I used to pump every 3 hours and eventually got about 900mls a day (30oz) and have a massive freezer stash like you. Don't worry about not meeting demand, you'll always meet it while you're pumping and your baby is so small. Right now it's just about keeping your supply there so that when the time comes for your baby to join in, it's as easy as possible for them.

I used to continue pumping after the flow had stopped to keep telling my body to make more milk. I had an awesome supply and would recommend doing this if you can. I'd pump of at least 20mins each time.

 

[Jes.shortcake]

Your doing great! I pumped for 8 weeks for mine but could never get my supply up it was fine at first because he wasn't getting tube fed that much..but as he started getting bigger I couldn't keep up. I tried but I just get my supply up by exclusively pumping. Then towards the end I would eventually get nothing.

 

[sunnylove]

I exclusively pumped while LO was in the NICU for 3 months. I'd say on average I probably got around 14-16ozs a day. One reason for the lower supply is because I absolutely refused to wake up in the middle of the night to pump. After recovering from the c-section and the stresses of the NICU, it was too much and I needed sleep! And LO always had plenty of supply at the NICU, in fact they eventually told me to stop bringing so much in lol.

If you can transition to exclusively breastfeeding LO eventually, you'll start producing a lot more. At least that was my experience.

 

[misspriss]

I exclusively pumped while LO was in the NICU for 3 months. I'd say on average I probably got around 14-16ozs a day. One reason for the lower supply is because I absolutely refused to wake up in the middle of the night to pump. After recovering from the c-section and the stresses of the NICU, it was too much and I needed sleep! And LO always had plenty of supply at the NICU, in fact they eventually told me to stop bringing so much in lol.

If you can transition to exclusively breastfeeding LO eventually, you'll start producing a lot more. At least that was my experience.

I had the opposite experience, when I started feeding LO directly I got engorged and my supply went down (although I always had oversupply).

I ended up donating my 250 oz NICU oversupply after a while. I still make enough to keep a stash AND donate a little.

It will be okay, you sound like you are doing great!

 

[BabyMaybe917]

What kind of pump did you all use? I rented the hospitals medela symphony for the first month. I've since gotten a medela pump in style advanced. The lactation consultant told me yesterday essentially not to switch and that it will guarantee my supply to drop. She suggests I continue renting the symphony at last until Ellie's home. I've used the pisa a few times without a noticeable difference but each pumping even with just the symphony can bary quite a bit. My daily amount is now up to 22-25 oz.