LIFESTYLE

3 MONTH EXCLUSIVE PUMPING UPDATE

Here’s a little update on how our feeding/pumping journey is going three months in.

EXCLUSIVELY PUMPING

I am still exclusively pumping and it’s been going really well, I’m really happy with the decision we made to exclusively pump and personally haven’t found it all that time consuming to clean the pump parts. We have a bottle sterilizer and I just pop the parts in to clean them after every session. It takes about two seconds to rinse them, I pop them in the sterilizer and then I just let them air dry.

my pumping schedule

I am still pumping for 45 minutes at a time but am only pumping 3 times a day now. I managed to phase out the 4th session without sacrificing any supply which has made life a lot easier. 3x a day is way more manageable and it means I don’t need to worry so much about Hudson when I’m pumping. I know he’ll be sleeping in the morning and Nick can watch him at night and I make sure to pump during his longest nap time in the afternoon.

When it comes to timing out my pumping sessions, I wait at least 5 hours between pumping sessions for the best results.

First: I pump first thing in the morning after Hudson has his first diaper change and meal of the day. He usually wakes around 6am and goes back to sleep until about 10am. So I pump between 6 and 10am.

Second: I pump for the second time when he has his longer afternoon nap around 3pm.

Third: I pump right before bed between 9-11pm. Nick does Hudson’s nighttime routine with him by changing him, putting him in his love to dream swaddle and feeding him before putting him in his bassinet for the night. While he does this I pump for the last time.

WHAT I’M PRODUCING

I usually produce between 700-950mL a day and Hudson eats an average of 712mL a day which means we rarely have to supplement with formula which has been awesome. I usually have 3-4 meals worth of milk in the fridge at a time. Sometimes I have a day with lower supply and Hudson has a day where he eats more and he burns through my supply but this is very rare. It happens maybe once or twice a month.

Hudson is a hungry boy so I haven’t been able to build up a freezer supply but that’s okay with me, I’m still able to produce enough that he has breastmilk available 99% of the time and that’s good enough for me.

HOW OFTEN AND HOW MUCH HUDSON EATS

Hudson still eats every 2-3 hours. There’s the odd time where he’ll want a little snack after an hour and a half. Usually that happens if he has a big poop and has gained some room in his stomach lol. He eats on average about 140mL at a time.
Based on our huckleberry app, Hudson eats an average of 6-7 times per day and eats an average total of 712mL/day.
He’s been sleeping through the night from about 9-10pm until 6-6:40am everynight and goes that entire time without a meal. He’s been doing that since he was just under 2 months old I beleive and thankfully because he’s a healthy weight we can just let him sleep. We find if he sleeps through a meal he’ll make up for it at his next feed.

GETTING MY PERIOD AND IT’S EFFECT ON MY MILK PRODUCTION

I got my period back 2 months after giving birth even though I’m pumping. It can happen but it’s not really supposed to. At least that’s what I read. The first month it came back I saw a dip in my supply by about 100mL a day for that week. The second month I had it, I didn’t really notice a dip in my supply, however once it finished my supply daily average increased by about 50-100mL.

correctING my UNEVEN MILK PRODUCTION SUPPLY

When I first started pumping my supply was pretty even between my left and right side. However eventually the right side was producing more than the left. Not significantly more but enough to notice a difference. I read about how to even out the supply and tried pumping for 10 minutes longer on the slacker side for a few sessions and that evened things out.

However, once we neared the second month mark it switched. I was producing more than double the amount in my left than in my right. I started pumping for an extra 10 minutes on the slacker side each seasion and using a warm, wet cloth on my right side after each session to make sure nothing was getting clogged. After a week or so things started to even out and now I am producing almost the exact same on both sides. I still produce a bit more on the left side most of the time but sometimes the right side produces more.

A picture I took of the milk from one pumping session when I was getting way more out of the left than the right. I got 240 on one side and 60 on the other.

DEALING WITH PAIN

After I hit 6 weeks of pumping I started having extreme pain every time I pumped and I even started bleeding on my left side. I realized that after all that time my phalange size was too big and ordered a smaller replacement. Since then the experience has been way less painful. I also put lanolin cream on before every pumping session and that has pretty much stripped any pain or discomfort I was feeling away. However for a little while there it was pretty rough. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to keep going.

MY TIMELINE GOAL

It’s my goal to pump for 6 months full time on this schedule but once we hit 6 months I hope to transition to formula. I however am just listening to my body and if I get to a point where I feel like I can’t go for that long or want to go longer I'll make that decision when the time comes.

I hope your journey is going well, feel free if you have any questions to please pop them in the comments below.