Help me please! Its about expressing...

[Cat_pj]

My OH desperately wanted to feed my LO, so I've bought a pump. I pumped yesterday (after a feed) and expressed around 30 ml, which took about 20 minutes. My OH then fed it to her and she gulped it in about 2 mins! Which got me thinking...if I did want to express for a full feed...how much is normal for a newborn? She's only a week old. I think that it might be a bit early to express? I just don't know how much she takes on the breast, but she is thriving so it must be enough....right?

 

[lynnikins]

yes she will be getting enough, tell your oh to wait and i wouldnt not express before 3wks at the earliest by then your LO will probably take 3-4oz per feed depending on how often she is feeding in 24 hours, your OH can do other things like bath time and nappy changing and skin to skin also you dont want to confuse her with the bottle teat as its much easier than BF and introducing one too soon could make her lazy on the breast

 

[kerrie24]

I agree with the above poster,your oh will have to bide his time and bond in one of the many other ways or your baby may begin to favour the bottle over your breast.
Also when you do decide to express,the pump doesnt milk the breast as efficiently as a baby does,I still now have to have 3 pumping sessions to get a 6 oz bottle if I need to leave my lo,but a feed from the breast takes 5/10 minutes max!

 

[mystika802]

I agree with the others, the pump is not nearly as efficient at getting the milk out. I can pump for about 15 minutes to get what he will eat in about 5, I can also pump and then feed him still even though the pump couldnt get any more out.
I wouldn't give a bottle this early either, some babies will start to prefer the bottle as its so much easier to get the milk out they become lazy at the breast and dont want to "work" for their milk.

 

[punk_pig]

My midwife recommended waiting till three weeks before using bottle, but said 40ml would be about right at that point. There is a formula based on baby weight to calculate expressed milk volume but apparently no-one's really sure where it came from/what research it's based on but it gives a general guide. LO will tell you if not enough/too much - although my LO screams for a few minutes (sometimes quite a while) after the bottle because she hasn't had the comfort of the breast and it seems to take her a while to realise she has food in her belly, which is a bit infuriating.

 

[Cat_pj]

Thank you ladies! I'm going to hold off expressing again for a couple of weeks....deffo don't want her to forget how to suckle, she's been great so far. Its so much easier to feed on demand than all this measuring stuff! I did like no research about breastfeeding before starting...so this forum has been a godsend! x

 

[punk_pig]

My midwife recommended waiting till three weeks before using bottle, but said 40ml would be about right at that point. There is a formula based on baby weight to calculate expressed milk volume but apparently no-one's really sure where it came from/what research it's based on but it gives a general guide. LO will tell you if not enough/too much - although my LO screams for a few minutes (sometimes quite a while) after the bottle because she hasn't had the comfort of the breast and it seems to take her a while to realise she has food in her belly, which is a bit infuriating.

I wrote the above but am now STOPPING the expressed bottles as LO has started chomping on my nipple and it has been suggested this could be because of using bottles occasionally. So I'm going to perfect my latch and wait a couple more weeks till trying bottles again - even though I know it will drive me to tears to not have an alternative supply!!

 

[cyclura]

hey pp, you can still express and freeze for the future if you want, what alot of ladies do (myself included) is feed LO in the morning and then pump the other breast as you have a larger supply first thing, I normally get about 100-120ml from this which I freeze. That way you will have a nice supply ready if you need it in the future and your supply with adjust to include this extrea "feed" while its sorting itself out.