Expressing

[25weeker]

I started back to work last week and tonight I was looking through my work blackberry. In my notes there was a list of dates and the milk I expressed. This time last year I managed to get 220ml from expressing a whole day. There is a weeks worth and they all range from 180ml - 220ml. My lo was 4 weeks old at the time.

It's hard to believe its the same baby especially now she has turned into a stubborn little madam

She is 13 months actual in 3 days and I am still exclusively breastfeeding along with her 3 meals a day.

I hope this can reassure anyone who is currently expressing and worried about the amount they are getting that it is possible to increase it and go on to breastfeed.

 

[Sugarmuppet]

I just answered a question in baby club about expressing - brought it all back! thought i'd never forget the noise of the pump or the pain in the ass that was getting up through the night to expess when Gaby was sleeping through - but i had forgotton it all!

Said to Oh about it, his most vivid memory was me lying in ICU and him trying to help me express by hand into a tiny pot and putting the milk into syringes, it is funny to think of it now - but it wasn't at the time!!

 

[AP]

You have done so well hunny!

And SugarMuppet you did it for a good few months expressing a home too didn't you?

Feels like so long ago now. I remember DH running about the corridors boasting that the first bottles of milk he was carrying to neonatal were mine jeeeezooooo

 

[25weeker]

Thanks sb. Although roll on end April when she can have cows milk and I don't have to express anymore! Happy for her to have a morning & night feed but the rest will be poured from the fridge hopefully the consultant will agree with this in April!

Sugarmuppet - it still makes me laugh the thought of me hand expressing and oh chasing the drops with the syringe

 

[Agiboma]

well i though i would share my memory of the first colostrum i expressed it was the morning after i had Michael and the nurse said to pump she said "you wont get anything but pump anyways to stimilate the breast" i piumped and got 5ml she was so shocked and so was i, she brought it down to NICU for me cause i was to sore from my secrtion to move, ahh those good old memories, little did i know in a few months i would be pumping out 2 liters a day and have 8 cartoons of frozen breast milk to bring home with me

 

[katy1310]

Ah I remember those days of trying to catch a few drops in a teeny syringe!! I was all stressed out because I was hardly getting anything but Sophie started out on just 0.5ml every 3 hours!

The midwife told me she'd just been helping someone to put the plungy bit into the syringe and the milk skooshed up into the air, and the woman went nuts and threw her out!

 

[AP]

The midwife told me she'd just been helping someone to put the plungy bit into the syringe and the milk skooshed up into the air, and the woman went nuts and threw her out!

That was me.....

Joke!

Hhahahahaha I can just imagine!!!

I phoned OH to tell him a hot nurse was coming to sort me out

Then an old bird came......

See i only had a midwife help me once or twice hand expressing and then i just got the pump out? I take it i screwed up somewhere then?

 

[Sugarmuppet]

Nobody told me about how milk production 'works' or that your milk doesn't come in for a few days. I was in the horrors about how I was ever going to fill bottles!!

I expressed by hand until I got out of hospital, so 6 days. Then bought a manual pump. That was hard work too! Remember one night we were meant to be going to Mums for dinner but we had to sit with Gaby until she did a wee so we could collect it for testing (as funny as it sounds, but again not at the time) took us hours! So I was needing to express anyway and then we had to drive to Mums, I was screaming at OH by the time we got there every time he went over bumps - it was agony! Straight into mums top of, tits out, begging her for hot compresses and a hand! Your dignity does go out of the window right enough with babies!!

Can't believe I wasn't told about the hospital electric pumps until day 10 of our journey. That made a huge difference and once I realised it was going to be a long term thing got an electric pump of my own.

 

[Agiboma]

Ah I remember those days of trying to catch a few drops in a teeny syringe!! I was all stressed out because I was hardly getting anything but Sophie started out on just 0.5ml every 3 hours!

The midwife told me she'd just been helping someone to put the plungy bit into the syringe and the milk skooshed up into the air, and the woman went nuts and threw her out!

that is so funny

 

[hopedance]

woah didn't anyone else struggle with supply? at 8 weeks i was still only getting 70mls per day tops! they told me it was because he was prem my body wasn't ready (maybe it didn't help that i never went into labour or anything) but nobody else seems to have struggled? i did go on to exclusively breastfeed but it was hard work!