Anyone pumping beyond infancy?

[Funny Face]

Ds is 9 months and still nurses frequently and most of the night. I'll be going back to work when he is just over a year.

Has anyone pumped for a child this age or older? What was your experience?


I'm hoping pumping will be effective because I do not want my milk supply to decrees! :

[SharonAnne]

Totally doable. I pumped for both my kids when I woh. DD1 nursed for 26 months and only stopped because I was pregnant with DD2 and my milk dried up. DD2 is 20 months and still going strong.

I tried to pump at times that they normally nursed when I was home with them. I made sure that they nursed well when we woke up in the morning, and then as soon as I got home, from work.

WRT pumping away from the baby, it can be tricky to get a lot and tricky to get let down, too. I used to bring whatever DD wore to bed the night before to work with me and just close my eyes and smell her and lean forward (a little boost from gravity never hurt ) to help stimulate let down.

You can totally do it. You're awesome, mama!

[Funny Face]

Originally Posted by SharonAnne

I used to bring whatever DD wore to bed the night before to work with me and just close my eyes and smell her and lean forward (a little boost from gravity never hurt ) to help stimulate let down.

I'm so gonna do that!

[Baby_Cakes]

DD will be a year in about 2 weeks () and I am still pumping. I WOH part time, and she still has about 12 oz of milk while I'm at work. I work 8 hours at a time. I pump once in the am on days I don't work, and three times a day on the days I do. I feel like I've been pumping FOREVER! (LOL)

I would love to gradually decrease this as she gets a little older. She can't drink out of a sippy cup yet (do I even really want her to?) and still relies on my milk for a lot. She has one solids "meal" during the day w/her DCP (Grandma) and some snacks but needs those bottles, still.

I'm probably going to keep pumping until I'm confident that she doesn't need the milk during the day. She hasn't ever had soymilk or anything else "instead" of my milk, though I am looking into those options for when she is older than 12 months.

[Funny Face]

I guess I'm afraid that by pumping (i.e. going back to work) I might jeopardize our long term nursing relationship and I'm also afraid that by not pumping (weaning during the day) I might do the same thing. I hear about how pacifiers and sippy cups and such can interfere with extended nursing and I'm hoping that going back to work doesn't do that!

My friend has been pumping since her ds was born and he has weaned at a year, which freaked me out!

[Carita]

I pumped for 17 mo for DS. He is 26 mo and we are still nursing strong and I have day-weaned him (on workdays). He gets some soy milk during the day. I think as long as you can do it the better. But it is exhausting and time consuming. I followed ALL the tips on kellymom.com for keeping up my supply. To get it very well established, lots of tea, oatmeal, good calories, water. Pump for 5 min after you are "done" to stimulate more milk production. If you have a bad session, turn it off, wait 10 min, relax, eat something, and try again. Massage breasts well before and during pumping... kellymom.com was great! I highly suggest it!

[MommaShark]

I pumped until DS was 18 months when I quit my job.....he nursed until 3.5 years old.

[Megan73]

I actually started pumping at a year (although I'd pumped before to boost supply) when I went back to work.
I nurse him twice before I go to work, pump once at lunchtime, then nurse him after work and before bed. I pump a second time if I'm going to be working a bit late. He STTN.
The main reason I'm pumping is so I'll be able to nurse him at that time on the weekend.
My supply doesn't seem to have changed since I went back to work five weeks ago and he's more interested in nursing than ever.
I'd planned not to pump when I went back but I was too nervous about losing supply. So far so good!

[nummies]

My son went on strike at 20 months old. He wouldn't go back to the breast but I wanted to give him two years worth of mama milk, so I pumped for close to 4 months. My supply did drop drastically, but that was just because he wasn't nursing.

I think that as long as you nurse on demand when you are with her, you should be just fine.

[MelW]

I started working again when my oldest daughter turned one, and I pumped at work until she was 19 months old. I stopped pumping when I was getting a lot less volume and she boosted her solids + water during my work times and just nursed a lot when we were together. She continued to nurse around the clock until two when she night weaned, and kept nursing 2-4 x daily until after her third birthday.

[KirstenMary]

I have been pumping for over six years. Maybe someday, I'll get to stop.

[thtr4me]

I pumped at work until DS was 19 months, although he stopped using my pumped milk around 1 year (complete and total rejection of all artificial nipples at that age). The only reason I kept pumping was because I could not make it through the day without some relief. DS is 3 1/2 now, and still nursing. He says he is never going to stop!

[calihannah]

I was a full-time grad student from the time DD was 4.5 months until she was 25mo. I pumped 3x per day while at school until she was 22 months old. It's very doable! I only stopped pumping because my daughter only wanted mommy milk straight from me. She's still nursing at 2.5 even without the pumping, and now I'm at work full-time out of the home instead of in school.

[Ellien C]

For what it's worth, I stopped pumping at about 10 months and my daughter continued to nurse until she was 4.5 years old, at which point, I truly felt done and weaned her. My experience and physicians advice was that pacifiers and bottles are more of a problem for newborns when they are establishing nursing, but not such an issue after 6 months or so.

Was your friend exclusively pumping or just during work? I continued to nurse my child when I was with her in the evenings and weekends. There's no need to wean when going back to work.

[New_Natural_Mom]

DS will be 19 months in 6 days and I am still pumping. Sometime prob around 15/16 mos I cut down from 4 times a day to 2. THings are going well.

[Mama Lo]

13 mo+ pumper here! I went back to work full-time when dd was only 6 weeks and pumped 3 times a day. Now dd is 13 mo and I only work M-W, I still pump twice a day for those 3 days, so she can have 2 bottles with grammie. We show no signs of weaning or any problems. I will say getting a let down is much harder now than it used to be, it can 10-15 minutes to get it going good

[Sara806]

So great to hear from all of you who have pumped so long -- I'm still pumping 3x daily at 15 months M-F and nursing at home; I'd love to pump until at least next April or May (end of cold/flu season), or simply as long as my DS will take EBM and my body will make it... It's much harder now -- my body isn't responding to the pump the same way -- but MDC and Kellymom has lots of good info and often reading the boards (like this thread) is enough to keep my spirits up when they flag. Thank you, all you wise mamas!

[justKate]

Funny Face, you can totally do it. It will be great. When you get home, your LO will expect the breast right away....

This is the most special time of my day--when I get home, DD and I lay down together and BF and "talk" about our days. She's 9 mos. and I hope it never stops. I hope it's the same for you.

[Baby_Cakes]

Originally Posted by Sara806

So great to hear from all of you who have pumped so long -- I'm still pumping 3x daily at 15 months M-F and nursing at home; I'd love to pump until at least next April or May (end of cold/flu season), or simply as long as my DS will take EBM and my body will make it... It's much harder now -- my body isn't responding to the pump the same way -- but MDC and Kellymom has lots of good info and often reading the boards (like this thread) is enough to keep my spirits up when they flag. Thank you, all you wise mamas!

I didn't even think about the importance of pumping through cold/flu season. Although, I think I learned at LLL that nursing at the breast is more effective for warding off sickies than pumping.

I'm down to pumping just once a day at work. I've eliminated all pumping otherwise, and it has made my life much easier -- and made pumping more tolerable.

[vegancat]

My LO is going to be a year old at the end of the month and I've been expressing milk for her since I went back to work two months ago. She still nurses quite a bit during the day (about 4 times) and then during the night too.

I was really starting to wonder if we were 'normal' doing it this way especially since no one else in the nursery we go to seems to be.