My Breastfeeding Journey
I think many know that breastfeeding is a very popular topic among the parent community. Some people say, “it’s the best option for your baby” “nursing is the only way you will bond” “you have to breastfeed for a year”… there are so many opinions no wonder so many moms are stressed out. Guys, I was stressed out too. As a first time mom I really had no idea what I was doing but I wanted to know about all the options I had.
Let’s Start From the Beginning
In the hospital, I felt as though they made it seem there are only two ways to feed your baby. Either straight from the breast or formula fed from the bottle. Let me tell you, this is not true. You can do any combination of formula and breastmilk, while also doing any combination of using a bottle or straight from the breast. You can even choose to breastfeed straight from a bottle! Yes that’s right, exclusively pumping is also breastfeeding just a little differently than what most people picture. I had no idea what exclusively pumping was or that it even existed until a few months before giving birth to Joey. While I was pregnant I did a lot of research on breast pumps, nursing, different bottles, different formula… basically trying to learn about everything so that we could try and figure out what will work best for Joey once he was born. This is when I came across exclusively pumping and I was immediately drawn to this idea of breastfeeding.
For anyone who is new to exclusively pumping, it is basically pumping everyday on a regular schedule, instead of nursing your baby straight from the breast. You then store the milk and feed it to your baby from a bottle. Hear me out though, breastfeeding is hard no matter how you choose to do it. Nursing, pumping or combination of both. It is beautiful that the human body can make the proper nutrients to provide for a little human but it can sometimes bring a mom to tears providing it for her little one.
Once Joey was born, I only nursed him until my milk supply came in and increased to the point that I could start to pump more. This was about a week or so after he was born. Then I started to pump on a schedule roughly 7-8 times a day. Every woman’s body is different and I read into many blogs and watched many videos on women speaking out on this topic. Many said you need to pump for at least 7 times but can go all the way up to 12 a day. Guys, I am no pro at this and I was literally learning with every pumping session but I quickly noticed that for me, pumping 7 times a day was causing my supply to increase slowly and 7 times a day was doable for me. Trying to wrangle a baby and set aside time to pump is tough so in my opinion try to find the least amount of times you can pump to keep your supply up, this will save you time. In regards to how often you should pump, many things I read said that in the beginning you need to pump every 2-3 hours to mimic a baby nursing. This will then increase your supply. So I was pumping about every 2 hours starting at around 8am. My schedule looked something like this:
8am, 11am, 2pm, 4pm, 6pm, before bed (8-9pm), and finally middle of the night pump whenever Joey woke up
– Each time for 20 minutes
Now, I know that when looking at my schedule I was not constantly pumping every 2-3 hours throughout the day and that is because (for any mom who has done this before, you know) it is extremely hard to stick to a pumping schedule. On top of feeding your baby, changing your baby, trying to find the time to eat yourself, shower, do all the house things, IT IS HARD. Every woman’s body is different and some moms might need to pump constantly every 2 hours to keep their supply up, however I was very lucky to say that pumping like this successfully increased my supply to about 40oz a day! I know not all moms are this blessed and I’m extremely grateful that my body was making more than enough to feed my son.
Again, I am not pro but I think that what is key to increasing your supply is not so much pumping ever so often BUT making sure you are pumping the same amount of TIMES for the SAME amount of TIME each day.
Meaning, for me: always pumping 7 times a day for 20 minutes each time, or whatever it is that your specific numbers are.
In regards to the middle of the night pump, this pump is crucial! Your milk producing hormone levels are the highest between the hours of like 1-4am so getting in at least one pump, if not 2, during this time is key to helping increase supply. I only pumped one time during the night my entire pumping journey because it was extremely difficult for me to wake up to my baby at night and then also have to go pump for another 20 minutes. I was determined to provide for my baby though, so I pumped on this schedule until Joey was about 6 weeks old.
How I Was Doing Mentally
Before I continue telling you guys about the rest of my pumping journey, I want to take a minute to talk about how I was feeling mentally. I think this is just as important if not even more. All you moms out there know, that being a mom is one of the hardest yet most rewarding things you can possibly do. So I am not going to say I was enjoying every second of my pumping journey because that is simply not true. There were so many times that Joey was screaming during my pumping time, or he needed to be fed, or he was fussing because he didn’t want to be put down… I mean the list goes on. For me, the most heartbreaking thing was that I could not be the one to comfort him or be the one to provide whatever else he needed in those moments. I wanted to be the one holding my son but I couldn’t because I had to pump. This was honestly probably the hardest part (along with having to stay up longer in the middle of the night to also pump). If you are an exclusively pumping mama, I just want to say you are doing an AMAZING JOB. Whether you pumped for a year or just pumped for a day, you are doing the best you can to provide for your little one and that is truly amazing.
Let’s Get Back To Pumping…
Around week 5 of my pumping journey I got mastitis. I woke up in the middle of the night with what felt like a fever and by the morning, I knew what was happening. This was the worst I had (I got it one more time which I will share later on). I remember crying to Joe in the middle of the night saying “why me” and he just wrapped me up in his arms while telling me it would be okay. I started losing faith that it would but finally the antibiotic kicked in and it did get better! (The first antibiotic I was on did not work for me so I was running a fever for 2 days nonstop and for anyone who has been through something similar… IT SUCKS!) This drained me both physically and mentally and I was ready end it all right then. I was honestly miserable.
This was around the time that I really wanted to give up on pumping. I told myself I would try for 3 months but it got to a point that I didn’t even know how that would be possible. Every person is different and for me pumping was extremely hard. I put on a happy face but there came a point that I broke down. I literally started looking up on google the average time for someone to breastfeed hoping that if I could just read somewhere that two months was fine it would justify me stopping. The mom guilt was consuming me whole, all I kept thinking was, “how could I stop if I am producing so much?” “How could I not want to keep pumping for my baby?” I was just not enjoying having to constantly pump, label bags, tired on top of it, I did not enjoy it.
BUT, I looked at myself in the mirror and I said I am going to push through to 3 months by trying to drop a pumping session. (This way I would not have to pump as often).
When you are exclusively pumping and decide to drop a pumping session, the proper way to do it is by adding time to all your pumping sessions, so your total daily pumping time still remains the same. What I mean by this:
- I was pumping 7 times a day for 20 minutes each time, totaling – 140 minutes a day of pumping
- Now I dropped to pumping 6 times a day for 23 minutes each, totaling – 138 minutes a day of pumping
- (2 minutes less but that is the closest I could get it in my case)
You do this because in order to maintain your milk supply you need to pump for the same amount of total minutes daily. (If you were looking to drop your supply you wouldn’t add time, you would just drop a session but that was not what I was trying to do).
Some moms might lose a little milk and some moms might actually gain a little milk after dropping a pumping session but for me it stayed about the same. My new schedule looked something like this:
- 6am, 8am, 11am, 2pm, 5pm, before bed (8-9pm)
Guys, the difference this made was huge. I had a little bit more time in between pumping sessions and I did not have to pump in the middle of the night! You can choose which session you drop but for me I choose the middle of the night one. I wanted to be able to sleep a longer stretch since Joey was not feeding until closer to the morning. Some moms are not able to drop that session because it might cut their supply drastically but luckily my supply remained about the same.
Now that I cut that night pump out, the amount I pumped per session changed and looked something like this:
- 6am (12oz) ~ this was the biggest pump since I was going all night without pumping
- 8am (8oz)
- 11am (5oz)
- 2pm (4oz) ~ it is normal to see a decrease in the afternoon
- 5pm (4oz)
- 8pm (5oz)
However, I only continued on this schedule until Joey turned 2 months because this is when we were told that he has a cows milk allergy. (I posted a blog post on Joey’s current feeding routine if you want to go check that out for more information.) Now this I am going to tell you because I want be completely honest: I did breathe a sigh of relief. Not because my son had an allergy (I was NEVER happy that he had an allergy, please do not take it like that) but because I now could not feel as bad for wanting to stop pumping. I do not know how else to explain it to you guys but say that this just took some of that mom guilt away. I now knew that my milk was hurting him and it was doing more harm then good for me to keep him on it. We decided to continue him on formula and from that day I started to wean myself off the pump. This was hard. Going from a full supply to zero is pretty painful! This was when I got mastitis for their second time. I am not going to get into how I weaned off pumping because I do not really think how I did it was ideal. The ideal way would be to gradually keep dropping pumping sessions to avoid engorgement but I was trying to signal to my body to stop prodding milk all together so this would have taken WAY too long. If you guys have questions please feel free to message me, I can always try and help offer advice!
Ohh my gosh, this post was so long but I really wanted to explain my journey to you guys in hopes that it might even help just one mom out there!
I want to end this and say I did not hate breastfeeding, but I did not enjoy it. It was a new experience that I learned a lot from and I’m glad I tried it. I truly believe that you are not a bad mom for choosing not to do it. FED is always BEST though and you do what you think is right for you and your baby!
I will say this: if something is causing you more stress during the day then joy, it might be time to reevaluate.
-With love, Kasia
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