Tips for expressing milk for storage

[Rymel12]

Hi ladies!
I have a question. I exclusively express (pump)and as of right now, I have been feeding my 7 week old 2.5 ounces every 2-3 hours. I have a wedding coming up in a week and a half that's out of town which I am considering leaving my LO overnight for the first time with her grandma. So today I decided to try something different as I want to try to start storing breast milk now. I would pump every 3 hours, feed her 2.5-3 ounces and store what was left. This worked okay in the beginning, but as the day went by, i seemed to only be making just enough milk to feed her with none extra to store and now I'm stuck pumping before each feed late at night when I want to have a little stashed for late night so I can skip the pump at the 3 am feeding. So my question is, what are you ladies who are expressing do to store enough milk? I'm not sure if I'm not making enough milk to do this, or just need a different approach. I'm not opposed to supplementing with formuła when out if town, but I would like for her to have as much BM as possible. Any tips would be helpful. Thanks!

 

[claudinator]

What bottles are u feeding your LO WITH?

 

[Rymel12]

I either use the meldela bottles that came with the pump or tomme tippee bottles.

 

[kung_pao mama]

i know it may not be fun, but definitely pump after the night feeds and maybe pump a little longer each time. i've noticed that if i pump for a few extra minutes after the milk has stopped flowing, my pumped output increases right away. i really started noticing a difference in a couple of days.

 

[Noo]

Absolutely don't drop the 3am pump. This is when your prolactin levels peak and supply/demand cycle is most efficient.

 

[src]

If you are not opposed to supplementing occasionally, if you get the premixed formula you can mix it in with the expressed milk. We had to do this when I went back to work. My husband gives him a half and half mixture in a bottle, so our son is always getting at least some breast milk. It stretches the frozen supply out quite a bit! The premixed formula is more expensive but we don't go through it very quickly as I just nurse when I'm with my son.