Pumping Sucks

Pumping sucks.  Pumping really sucks.  For those moms who want to make sure that they feed their baby the best food for them (i.e. breastmilk), pumping is the way of life.  It is a bitch.  But, I will do it to the end of the earth, because that means that little baby Lily gets the best food for her.  My advice: if you can be a full time mom for the first six months to a year of your little one's life, do it. That, or move to one of the third world countries that have better maternity leave than the U.S. Almost every country in the world has better maternity leave than the U.S.

Let me tell you some of the complicated things I've learned about pumping:

Many women cannot pump colostrum.  It is better hand expressed.  Lily wouldn't latch well for the first three days because of the birth trauma she experienced.  So, I had to hand express everything until she would latch.  The pump couldn't express the colostrum.

It kinda hurts.  I mean, seriously.  Duh.  I would expect it to, but the fact that we spend hours a day and months upon months doing something that hurts is just crazy.

I should have started pumping sooner.  I played with the pumps a little bit, but I didn't really try to pump much until a week before I had to return to work.  Sure, I want to only feed baby girl refrigerated milk (frozen milk kills the antibodies present). But, I had no idea how much I could pump in a day or in that 8 hours I was gone at work.  So, when that first day, I only pumped 5 oz, and that started to decrease as the week went on, I was in a full panic. She was eating 9 oz per day then.  I've done a lot to increase my pumping output, which I'll talk about later.

Pump flanges come in more than one size!  OMG!  Standard is a medium.  You could need a small, large, extra large, or bigger!  And the size corresponds with your nipple/breast, not with your bra size.  So, you just have to try a few out and see what works for you by extracting the most milk.

You should pump for no less than 10 minutes.   Really 15 to 20 if you want to stimulate milk production.

You should also pump for 2 to 5 min after the end of your last let down to stimulate milk production.

Let down can occur immediately or after a few minutes. Sometimes, I am leaking milk before I even start to pump.  Sometimes, it takes a minute or two.

It is not uncommon to have multiple letdowns per session. I have three; one occurs immediately, one at around seven minutes, and one at fourteen minutes. 

I have to pump 7-8 times per day to keep up with baby girl.  Lemme tell you about running around.  I don't feel like I get a break.  Just to keep up with my baby girl, I spend nearly two hours pumping just when I'm at work.  That's not to mention the two additional hours I spend at home.  Even if the baby slept through the night, I'd still have to get up and pump!  I don't have time to go to Starbucks.  If I wasn't just bitching, I couldn't write this blog post this fast.  In fact, it's taken me two months to finish this post!  I can barely go to the bathroom or find something to eat.  Working out?  Forget it, until I stop breastfeeding.  If you see me at work, and it looks like I'm gonna run someone down, just get out of the way.

Forget something or it breaks?  You're probably screwed for a day.  We forgot to pack one of my flanges for a day at work.  I had to try to pump both boobs with one flange in the time it took me to double pump.  I forgot my flanges at work one day, so I had to use a smaller size at home.  Ouch!  Or, my husband was going to have to drive an hour and a half round trip to find them at 9pm at night.  Some gals have ripped membranes or cracked tubing.  I have some extra parts, but if something goes wrong at work, I'm SOL.

More notes on how to increase one's pumping output and/or milk supply soon.