Quantity of pumped milk v. weekend milk

[Gretchen_PDX]

My son is 18 mo. I work full time as a teacher, and I pump anywhere from 2-5 oz/day. It is really hard to always pump, and I'm wondering if I need to continue. I know my son drinks the milk I pump at his school, but he also drinks cow milk too. One reason I haven't stopped pumping is that when I am home on the weekends he wants to nurse constantly. Will my daytime supply go away if I stop pumping (or reduce to just once/day)? Will the demand of the weekend be enough to keep the supply there? I can't imagine that I am only producing 2 oz on weekend days since DS is latched on so much!!

[CheriK]

By now your supply should be robust enough to stop pumping & just nurse when you're together.  Your body will respond on the weekends when he increases nursing frequency and make more milk.  If you notice that you're full enough to be uncomfortable at work, you might express to comfort as needed.  I stopped pumping for my twins at around 2 (kept pumping that long for my own comfort, not their needs, they were fine w/out the milk by then) and for my current nursling at about 18 months.  I also noticed that as my nurslings got older I had a harder time letting down for the pump, even when my breasts felt full and I knew my nursing would have been nursing if we'd been together.  It just didn't seem worth the effort, and they were/are always happy to nurse my supply back up whenever it drops!

Cheri

[hildare]

i woh ft.  i stopped pumping at 13 mos.

my supply is just fine, on the weekends, dd only nurses a few times during the day (our dc are around the same age) it's possible that the all day all weekend thing is related to teething or is developmental. 

at any rate, are you off during the summer?  you only have a few weeks left if that's the case, right?  :) 

are you nursing during the night? (in our case, dd is a frequent night nurser but i'm considering nightweaning.  it's pretty hard to deal with that and working etc.)