Practicality of pumping without breastfeeding

[KateNicola]

Backbground
Due to complications of the rapid nature of my little girl's birth (1 hour from start to finish, resulting in a tear), she was introduced to formula before the breast. The attending doctor, who was stitching me up was worried about her blood sugar and I was not in any condition to put her to the breast. Afterwards, we tried having her latch for the two days that we were in the hospital and she flatly refused after crying herself purple in frustration. I have large breasts and inverted nipples, which adds some fun. Due to this, I began pumping colostrum for her (on the hospital supplied pump) and supplementing her with formula. I have no issues with supplementing, so long as she is healthy.
Now we are at home and my milk has started to come in due to continued pumping, but she cannot latch properly and leads to extreme frustration all around. I want to try and give her as much milk as I can, but I am plagued by the practicality of pumping (by hand for now) while trying to feed her and keep up with my preschooler. DH is incredibly supportive, so that is not an issue.
But how practical is it to pump for 30 minutes every 2 to 4 hours for an ounce of breastmilk?

 

[PurpleIvy44]

It's totally up to you but the more you pump the greater your supply will be and you can express feed her. I had to do this with my first DD because she was tongue tied and had a bad latch. I started pumping in hospital like you and supplemented with formula until my milk came in. Then I would pump every 2 hrs in the beginning. I had an ample supply though and would get quite a bit of milk, more than enough since she took so little in the beginning. I will say it's a lot of work but I really wanted her to have breast milk. I then pumped about every 4 hrs or so and would get 4-6 oz. At most she would drink about 5 oz but that was closer to when she was 1. Depends on you schedule and want you are comfortable doing. Good luck!

 

[brunette&bubs]

I exclusively pumped for my son from 6 months onward.

I have a coworker who pumps up to a year as well...

I did take some medication to increase my milk supply but I can't for the life of me remember what it is called.

 

[marigold91]

I'm in sort of a similar situation and am quickly finding out how demanding exclusive pumping is...

My daughter was born at 36 weeks and was taken to the NICU right away. I began pumping right away every 2 hrs (never was able to pump colostrum, but my milk did come in on day 3). Now she is 2 weeks old and still not strong enough to feed at the breast more than twice a day, so I'm essentially exclusively pumping.

It's one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, and definitely the hardest part about being a mom these days. I feed her breastmilk through a bottle when she wakes up, and then have to spend 30 minutes pumping immediately after. By the time I'm done pumping, I have maybe an hour until she's up again and ready for the next round. I'm not getting any sleep and it's making me a worse mom to my 5 year old DD. I know, no mom gets any sleep the first few weeks, but this is even worse! It would be so much easier if I could feed her at the breast.

Honestly, I don't know how much longer I can do this. I'm sorry that this isn't a more motivating post for you, but it's my honest experience. I would really like to try to make it to 6 weeks before I reevaluate, but I'm starting to lose my sanity.

Edit: I just re-read your post and realized you may have been asking whether it's worth it to keep pumping all the time to yield such small results. I will say that it does increase steadily and you should continue to get more.

 

[PurpleIvy44]

Express pumping is not for the faint of heart it does take a lot of work, which is why you need to determine if it's manageable with you schedule. It's a lot easier when you only have 1 that's for sure.

 

[KateNicola]

Thanks for all the feedback
I am trying to pump every 4 hours (which is when my breasts begin to hurt), which gives me about 2 oz each time, which means she is still supplemented with formula, but it is working for us so far. The pumping is easier each time, just waiting for the supply to increase. I am going to keep going as long as I can maintain sanity.
The other catch is that ALL of us, even wee girl, have colds. Thank you hospital germs

 

[noon_child]

You have to do what is right for you. I know the time consumption of pumping as I had to do it when my LO was refusing to latch and after all the feeds she did latch, in order to increase my supply.

I really hated that time, but it was important to me because I wanted to make breastfeeding work. When we cracked breastfeeding it was so much easier than pumping. So my advice to you would be to try to proper help in discovering why your baby won't latch and how to encourage it. An international Board Certified Lactation Consultant IBCLC would be recommendation (la Leche league for example).

However there's no point getting yourself miserable for something you don't want to do. Only you can decide what is worth it in your situation.

 

[SoupDragon]

(sorry, this is long...)

My DD also had blood sugar problems at birth and was cup-fed formula before we got to try breastfeeding, especially as she was extra sleepy from all the drugs I'd had during labour.

I pumped for a year due to DD's posterior tongue tie and inability to latch (tt wasn't diagnosed until 2 months old, by which time she'd developed a strong bottle preference so we and the LC felt it wasn't worth getting it snipped). I hand-expressed colostrum in hospital (we were in for 3 days due to my emcs) and spoon fed her that, and started pumping as soon as we got home using the single pump I'd bought while pregnant. I'd intended to bf and just pump to build a freezer stash so thought a single would be fine. After a couple of weeks I bought a double pump, and that helped immensely.

I took a while to get into a routine - for a while I was only pumping morning and night, for an hour each time, and unsurprisingly my nipples were absolutely shredded, bleeding, red raw, and I was getting only 12oz each day. After seeking advice on here, I cut down the duration of each pump to 20-30 minutes, but added extra pumps during the day, so I was still pumping for 2 hours total. My supply went up to about 19oz at best. I was therefore never able to feed her bm exclusively, as at one point she was taking 40oz of milk daily.

I did try fenugreek but it gave me the most awful stomach pain, and I was up every night in agony until I realised why and stopped taking it. I also tried domperidone, but it didn't make much difference to my supply and it made DD have horrendous diarrhoea, which unfortunately took 5 weeks to get to the bottom of.

I found once she was mobile things got a LOT harder as she didn't want to be contained in her bouncy chair, and I couldn't just have her laid kicking about on the floor while I pumped, because she'd be crawling about getting into mischief. I then started to use a manual pump during the day and just fitted in pumps here and there whenever I could, and sometimes used to pump while running around after DD.

My supply tanked when I got tonsillitis at the same time as my pump developed a suction fault, and at the worst point I was only getting 3oz in an entire day. This was at about 7 months in, and I thought it was over for us, but I got a new pump (mothercare were great, they exchanged the faulty lansinoh for a medela swing maxi with no hesitation!) and with persistence I managed to get my supply up to about 14oz per day.

It got easier when I went back to work when she was 10 months old, as then I had pumping breaks. I started winding it down just before her birthday and she had her last bm feed at 12 months, 2 weeks.

I really don't know if I could have done this with an older child too. I found it so hard, and I desperately hope that I can actually bf baby #2 when the time comes. I think all you can do is see how you get on and balance the pros and cons of it.

 

[bumpy_j]

Have you considered trying nipple shields at all? The shape might be more recognisable for your LO in comparison to a bottle teat, and may aid them in latching.