Breastfeeding/pumping

This might be a stupid question but does anyone know if you can just pump or do you have to breast feed first? I am still up in the air about what I want to do.

Re: Breastfeeding/pumping

you can exclusively pump - there are some pople who do it- there was times arrticle about this about a year or soback - do a google search - i think there is was a blog dvevoted to it

it is a bit more work because you have to wash all the bottles and pump and it is hard waking up in the middle of the night to pump but it does work for some people - some people like knowing how many ounces the baby is getting each time

Re: Breastfeeding/pumping

Yes, I know someone who exclusively pumped for a year. It's possible

Re: Breastfeeding/pumping

Re: Breastfeeding/pumping

Yea this is what I was hoping for but wasn't sure if it was possible. You all just made me feel better. I want my baby to benefit from my milk but not sure how I feel about actually breast feeding.

Anyone have any pump recommendations?

Re: Breastfeeding/pumping

i would recomend renting a hospital grade one from the hospital for the first month or so to make sure you get a good supply

then i would get the medala freestyle - so easy to pump anywhere - i used to pump and drive some days - great sunction and battery powered - needs a charge every 5-7 days or so

Re: Breastfeeding/pumping

you can pump without breastfeeding but its not that easy to build a milk supply on pumping alone. you will def need to rent a hospital grade pump in order to create and maintain a milk supply through pumping alone. even if you dont plan on breastfeeding, keeping your LO close to your skin and laying with them skin to skin will also help your milk supply. keep in mind to really build a supply off of pumping alone you will need to pump at the very least as much as your LO wants to eat, if not more. i pump about 8 times a day and that's with 2 breastfeeding sessions a day as well (my baby is the NICU so i cant breastfeed exclusively). so figure you will need to pump around 10 times a day, about every 2-3 hours.

good luck!

Message edited 5/26/2011 3:24:05 PM.

Re: Breastfeeding/pumping

I plan to do this. I might have to supplement at the begining to get my supply up and I'm ok with that.

there are a lot of blogs and websites out there dedicated to just this so do a google search

Re: Breastfeeding/pumping

Thanks for the info girls

Where woudl I purchase a hospital grade pump?

I am also fine with supplementing at the beginning until my milk supply is enough.

Re: Breastfeeding/pumping

Here is a board about EP.
It helped me alot when Iw as pumping in the beginning...but I decided to go to breastfeeding instead...

Exclusively Pumping

Re: Breastfeeding/pumping

I started BFing and switched to pumping with both of my DS's. My only thought about starting from the get go, is the first few days of colostrum. I don't know how that would work pumping. My best advice is to BF for 3-4 days until your milk comes in and then you can switch to pumping no problem, as long as you keep up the same pumping schedule as feeding (which means waking up in the middle of the night for at least the first 6-8 weeks)

Re: Breastfeeding/pumping

I ep'd for a year. DS was only bf for the first 10 days and then it just wasn't working for us, so I started exclusively pumping and bottle feeding him. He only had maybe 20 oz of formula during those first 10 days and after that none (except for one or two days when he was 5 weeks old). It can definitely be done. It's a lot of work, but it is something that I am very proud of and glad I did. With that being said, baby #2 is coming in 6 weeks and I am going to try my hardest to stick to nursing this time around. I can't imagine pumping and running around after a 20 month old.