Moms who pump...advice please

I just had dd on Friday and nursed while I was in the hospital but had to incorporate formula because she lost weight and was a little dehydrated. I just started pumping today because I have to measure how much dd is drinking. To my surprise, pumping is working out better than nursing. My milk just came in today. My questions: how did you make pumping successful? Do you pump throughout the night? How do you combine new milk with milk from a previous pumping session? How can I produce more milk?

Re: Moms who pump...advice please

I pumped more in the beginning because DS would sleep so much and didnt latch that well. Unless you have to for some reason (like latching issues) I wouldn't give up on nursing. The baby stimulates your supply more than the pump. And honestly nursing is way easier than pumping (not to mention the bond you develop with dc). I found and still find pumping to be a huge pita. So I would say do both; I found it easier initially but then got the hang of bf-ing and that's so much easier and now I'm too lazy to pump. For supply you can try fenugreek; I notice a difference when I take it.

Good luck!

Re: Moms who pump...advice please

I would agree that you should continue to try to nurse if you can. In the long term it is easier and less time consuming. I exclusively pump and wish I could nurse because it gets tedious to feed dd and then have to pump. All that being said, pumping also does get easier. I don't know if it's in your budget but what really helped me was getting a medela freestyle and a hands free bra. The freestyle is battery powered and light so you can do other stuff while you pump. This helped me tremendously. I would try to pump as often as possible ( ideally every three hours for eight times a day). This should help build up your supply. Also drink lots of water. Quite frankly I would do that as long as you can but for sanity's sake if it gets to be too much, you can spread them out and drop pumps. You are supposed to pump at least 7 to 8 times a day for the first 12 weeks to establish supply. I just hit 12 weeks today but I am down to 5 ppd because it was just too time consuming and I couldn't keep it up. My supply is still decent. Anyway good luck!

Re: Moms who pump...advice please

Oh and I did pump through the night in the beginning. Now I only do if dd wakes up. She occasionally sleeps through the night now. It's rough but for now you should try to pump whenever you feed her even at night. Also, you can combine milk from different pump sessions.