Exclusive Pumpers Tribe - Page 87

[groovyem]

How wonderful to find this thread! I am about at my wits end trying to manage pumping and my little high maintenance drama queen. I swear the child as severe ADD plus she's a cat napper and trying to find the time to pump some days is nearly impossible. If she doesn't sleep, I can't pump. Some people have told me to put her in her crib and let her cry herself to sleep so I can pump. Um, yea, NO! I've been at this for almost 6 mo now and hope to make a year (I have quite the frozen stash for beyond that year), if I don't go crazy. Yea to all us moms going the extra 10 miles for our babes!

[Omsmom]

so happy to find this thread!!! as I type, I'm pumping at work....my baby is 4.5 months and I hope to continue as long as I can without going insane. I also have a 4 yr old who gets a cup of the excess bm every morning. He loves it too, and hasn't got a single cold this flu season without getting the flu shots. I think its something to do with the bm he is getting. My baby is getting big too and I really hope to continue pumping as long as possible...

[anj_rn]

DD just turned 10 months and we are still pumping. We had a 2 night stay in the hospital this week, with a very incredulous nurse. The conversation went something like this?

Nurse - What formula is your daughter on?

Me - She is not on formula, she is on a blenderized diet and breast milk.

Nurse - but what do you feed her through her g-tube?

Me - Blenderized fruits and veggies and breast milk.

Nurse - What formula do you use to supplement?

Me - We don;t use formula, she gets breast milk?

Nurse - But what if she runs out?

Me - My boobs and my pump are here, she will have plenty.

Nurse - oh, OK.

[groovyem]

Mixing breast mix with formula?

My little girl does not like breast milk that has been frozen. I have been trying to use my frozen stash (old stuff) and I have to mix 1/3 frozen to 2/3 fresh to get her to drink it. I am having alot of problems with milk blisters/blebs and have been in excruciating pain for a few weeks. Nipple pain is the WORST. She's 7 mo now and I am wondering when I calling it quits with pumping can I mix the frozen with formula to hid the taste of the frozen milk? I'm not going to do this for quite awhile, just doing research. She's too young to get anything else but my milk. But I need to see the light at the end of the tunnel!

[prairiebird]

I've been adding formula to pumped milk bottles since my son was two weeks, but it's always been fresh milk that I add several ounces of formula to right before he has his bottle. I don't know if there are any drawbacks to supplementing the frozen stuff, unfortunately. I don't produce enough to have a frozen supply.

Have you tried different temperatures? Hmmm. It's an interesting issue. You said you are planning to do this in the future, so maybe she won't mind the flavor when she's a bit older? I wish I could be more help!

[archamberlain]

I need encouragment

Hey I am new to pumping, my baby is 8 weeks old. At 5 weeks I had to take him off because of large fissures I was getting from his bubble palette. He was off for 4 days and then refused to go back on. He never had any problems nursing or gaining weight originally. He just screams when I try to put him on, he won't even attempt to latch. I am so sad about his reaction and have tried every suggestion and aid possible with the same result. I am tired of this reaction and have decided just to pump. I am getting enough milk for now but would love any suggestions or just somebody else in this position. I am feeling angry at this result as I really wanted to breastfeed. Thanks for any support I can get

[GooeyRN]

Try to bf when he is already asleep. If you can sneak it in when he is just rousing like during the night if you co-sleep.

I just HUTH after 4 years and 7 months about 1.5 weeks ago! It feels great to be free of the pump after so long! I am still bfing my 2.5 year old. I am glad I lasted so long pumping for my first child. No one can say I didn't do the best I could with a crappy situation. Don't believe people when they say you can not pump long term. You can do whatever you put your mind to.

[April Dawn]

Originally Posted by GooeyRN

Try to bf when he is already asleep. If you can sneak it in when he is just rousing like during the night if you co-sleep.

I just HUTH after 4 years and 7 months about 1.5 weeks ago! It feels great to be free of the pump after so long! I am still bfing my 2.5 year old. I am glad I lasted so long pumping for my first child. No one can say I didn't do the best I could with a crappy situation. Don't believe people when they say you can not pump long term. You can do whatever you put your mind to.

Oh my goodness, you are amazing! Here I was just whining to my husband about how tired I am of EPing!

Edited by April Dawn - 7/5/11 at 7:17pm

[April Dawn]

Originally Posted by archamberlain

Hey I am new to pumping, my baby is 8 weeks old. At 5 weeks I had to take him off because of large fissures I was getting from his bubble palette. He was off for 4 days and then refused to go back on. He never had any problems nursing or gaining weight originally. He just screams when I try to put him on, he won't even attempt to latch. I am so sad about his reaction and have tried every suggestion and aid possible with the same result. I am tired of this reaction and have decided just to pump. I am getting enough milk for now but would love any suggestions or just somebody else in this position. I am feeling angry at this result as I really wanted to breastfeed. Thanks for any support I can get

Have you tried nursing him with a nipple shield? He might have more success with that. Also, try expressing some milk into the shield so that he can smell and taste it, that might make him more willing to give it a try!

[mom2tig99Nroo03]

in one week my little guy will be 11 months old.... still pumping. still hating it. still gonna do it anyways since he still doesn't nurse, though i have gotten him to latch onto a nipple shield now 4 times total. i still try several times a week but it is just too much still to try daily, especially now that he is pretty set in his ways.

[GooeyRN]

EPing is rough emotionally.

[MsVyky]

Can I join you mamas?

I'ev started exclusive pumping for my [almost] 8 month old DD because of problematic biting (and we've pulled all the stops on that one, nothing's worked to discourage her) and the physical damage it's caused to my nipples and areolas.

In the last few days I've noticed a dramatic drop in my supply. I'm now only able to pump 2-3 ounces every 3-5 hours. I've started fenugreek and Milkmaid tea (and I'll have some oatmeal for breakfast tomorrow, ick).

What else can I do to maximize the output?

ETA: I'm double pumping with a Symphony

[mom2tig99Nroo03]

MsV i've heard domperidone works wonders though i've never had to us eit. fenugreek and mother's milk tea always have eliminated hurdles. you could try pumping mre often. i've JUST dropped to 5 x a day (and today will still likely be 6)

gooey, thanx for hte hugs.

so as of y'day 11 months down, approximately 8 to go (i wanna get him through cold'flu./rsv season this coming yr)

[OneWithTwo]

looking to join in...

My son was born 8 weeks premature. I started pumping day 1. He spent 42 days in the NICU and I fought every single minute to keep him off of supplements and I won sort of. He was on a supplement for 2 weeks, but he stopped growing, so they switched back to breastmilk.
He has Pseudohypoaldosteronism and needs sodium chloride added to his breastmilk, so as of right now he doesn't BF. It's stressful to pump. It's even more stressful to find a pumping/breastfeeding schedule.
I try hard to pump every 3 hours, more like every 4 hours. I am lucky if I pump 7x..which turns into 6x a day..maybe 5x sometimes.
I use these little books the LC's at the hospital gave me to keep track of how much I pump from each side each time. Within the last week I have notice a gradual decline to a HUGE decline in my numbers...I could pump 5oz from the left side alone and now I am maybe pumping 2oz....I would pump 50oz a day down to 25oz?
I am taking fenugreek right now waiting on my dom to get here. I fear losing my supply completely waiting on the dom. I've been pumping for almost 5 months now and I do have a wonderful freezer stash, but it could be burned through quickly.
I feel like my body is failing. I don't understand. I have done power pumping. mothers milk. I do compressions. I try heat packs. I eat oatmeal. I feel like my body is just pooping out.

[CorasMama]

so, I maybe belong here?

my baby daughter is 2 weeks old, and has a Giant Omphalocele. Her liver and some of her bowels are out of her abdomen in a sac. She'll have surgery in 6mos-3y. She needs extra protein and calories, to help her heal and grow, plus nursing and even feeding from a bottle takes too much energy that has to be reserved for healing and growing. So she's on an every 3 hours feeding schedule, where we either bottle (5x/day) or breast (3x/day) feed, then whatever of the amount she's supposed to take in that's left over (I estimate her milk transfer, based on weighing her before/after at the hospital) through her ng tube.

After each feed, I pump while she gets her tube feed.

I'm already hating it. More to the point, I hate the lack of sleep. I don't ever get more than an hour and a half, usually more like an hour, at a time.

Could domperidone increase my supply so that I could take my pumping down to 5x/day? Isn't there some kind of problem getting dom in the US? If so, how do you get it?

[jess_paez]

hi mamas, i have 5+ (100 ct) boxes of domperidone/motillium please pm me with interest.

[sahmmie]

Fiona is such a pretty name! Congratulations on your little sweetie. Sorry she has such difficult beginning in life. I'm sure it must be very hard on you.

I pumped exclusively for all of my babies for a variety of reasons (poor latch, flat nipples, reflux, feeding aversion, etc), so I know how very, very hard it is. I would not suggest pumping any less than 8 times per day. I pumped 10 -12 times per day which was of course a complete nightmare as I was caring for first one newborn, then a newborn and toddler and finally a newborn, toddler and 3 year old by the time I did it for the last time. There's just no easy way to pump and feed but here are some tips I learned to help keep your supply up:

1. Pump in the wee hours of the morning when supply is highest. (4-6 am is when I always got my biggest yield).

2. Cluster pump. This means you pump or feed every hour for once or twice a day for two or three hours. I used to pump at 4 am, 6 am, 7am and 8am. This cluster feeding tells your body that the baby is not getting enough and then your body will respond by producing more milk. It sounds awful, and it is, BUT you don't have to do it forever. Once my supply got the boost I needed I'd drop one, then two or more of those pumping sessions and go back to my regular schedule and my supply usually would stay up.

3. Try to pump for an additional 2-5 minutes after your flow stops. Often times you will tap into a reserve supply that you didn't know you had, and this extra pumping also tells the body that the baby is not getting enough and your body will begin to produce more.

The lack of sleep is tough, but remember at some point your baby will sleep for 4-5 hours at night, and eventually more, so you will get some sleep soon. I used to stop pumping at 11 pm and sleep like a rock until 4 am and that was heaven, but that didn't occur until 6 weeks or so.

I never took dopermine so I can't comment on that. Good luck. I know how hard the pumping is.

[crystal_buffaloe]

Originally Posted by pemja

OK, so pumping has never been totally comfortable for me, but for the last few days I've been trying to ignore some discomfort when pumping my left breast. Well, last night in the shower, I looked under my nipple (my very large nipple) and found a 1/4 inch cut! OUCH! Looks kind of like a tooth mark (which we know can't be, since I'm EPing and my daughter doesn't even have a tooth!). Any ideas on quick healing?

I would guess that some of the remedies for helping nipple trauma from BFing would apply here, too. First off, fix the source -- don't ignore that discomfort and make sure the horns fit and that your nipple is centered. Second, moist wound healing plus going topless/braless at home. Lanolin or even just Neosporin will probably help immediately after pumping.

[mom2tig99Nroo03]

cora'smom, i really would advise against dropping to only 5X a day this soon. ds is 11 months old already, and i only dropped to 5x a day very recently. i'd wait a bare minimum of 12 wks before dropping sessions.

[mom2tig99Nroo03]

<---- ah the days when giving breastmilk to the lil one was free..... i killed yet another pump. *sigh*