? for those who've exclusively pumped for a period of time

[DeChRi]

How many times/day did you have to pump to maintain supply?

I have a 14 wk old and will be not BF-ing for the foreseeable future, but may have an opportunity to go back, so would like to maintain a decent amount of my supply. I currently have a well established supply and a hospital grade pump. With my last DD I worked FT and always was blessed w/ plenty of pumped milk for while I worked. But I've never pumped while bot having any actual breastfeeding going on.

Over, say, 6-8 weeks...if there was no nursing, how many times should I pump if I hope to maintain some kind of decent supply?

[Bellabaz]

I eped for a year and after the first 2 months (during which I pumped like 8-10 times a day to establish and maintain supply) I pumped 4 times a day. Double Medela PIS and I pumped for 20-30 minutes each time.

[2boyzmama]

I think that you could do this through trial and error, especially if you are usually a good pumper with good supply.

At first try a schedule of every 4 hours or so, maybe even let yourself STTN without pumping once in a while (8am, noon, 4pm, 8pm, midnight). Watch your output, watch for plugs, etc. If everything goes well, stick with it, perhaps even dropping the midnight pumping. If you drop supply quickly, or develop a lot of plugs, then immediately go to every 3 hours round the clock until things settle down, then try to space back out, drop a night time pumping, etc.

If your supply starts to drop a little, try to artificially create a growth spurt. You do that by pumping for 5 minutes, breaking for 10-15, pumping for 5, breaking for 10-15, etc for a 1-2 hour period, then break for 3 hours, then repeat. That is how many babies cluster feed during growth spurts, it signals your body to produce more milk. You could also get a similar result from pumping once an hour for 3-4 hours, then a 3 hour break, then once an hour for 3-4 hours, etc. During these artificial cluster feeds, don't pay attention to output, you might have a dry session, but you will still be stimulating your body to produce more.

Hang in there! You're doing such a great thing!!

[Llyra]

I EPed for DD1, from two months until around 7 months or so, when I gradually started to lose my supply. What I found was that I needed to pump at least every three hours. If I let that slip too much, my supply would start to decline. That's what finally happened, actually-- the schedule got so grueling, that I started to get casual about delaying or skipping pumps, and the milk gradually disappeared. I don't think that would have happened had I stuck with the three-hour schedule.

The suggestion to have frequent-pumping days, to simulate growth spurts, is a great one. I did that several times when the supply started to decrease, and it always worked great. I'd spend a long weekend pumping very, very often, like every half-hour for ten minutes, for long periods of the day, especially in the evening, to sort of imitate how a baby has frequency days and cluster nurses.

Another thing to do is to keep the pump on for a period of time after the flow stops, to try for another letdown. Even if you aren't getting milk, the stimulation will help stimulate the supply.

[boobs4milk]

i ep'ed for ds. i pumped every 2-3 hours around the clock. you should pump as often as you would feed baby, so i pumped after every feeding. good luck!

[monica82]

don't see an update-how has it been going?

I exclusively pumped once DS was 4/5 mo b/c latching/emptying issues. I pumped 5x a day for quite a while. I might have done 6 when I started-can't remember. Must have been 6 b/c one was in middle of night. Always got a ton in morning so that prob got him 2 bottles and/or helped. I had no supply issues though. I would pump 7-10oz most the time.

[bri276]

I EP'ed 21 months. When DD was 14+ weeks, I pumped 7 times a day with a double hospital grade pump for 20 minutes each time and then hand expressed after (good hindmilk this way). This allowed me to sleep through the night- at that time in her life, DD actually STTN, so it was good to take advantage of that. Then I'd have a ton of milk first thing in the AM.

I don't think I went down to 6 times a day regularly until she was about 9 months old. I also liberally used oatmeal and fenugreek to help maintain. Maintaining is a lot easier than trying to get it back after it drops!