I can't pump enough milk, even when breasts are full

[Anonymous]

Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Take Natural Calm magnesium with calcium if your menstrual cycle has returned. Eat steel cut oats every day. Eat enough fats and calories. Gah! When I was pumping I felt like I was a serious athlete.

Pump more often, not longer. If you are letting down in 15 min, stop and try again in an hour. Look at videos of your baby - even ones when they were super tiny. Make a video with sound of your baby crying because they are hungry. You need to trigger a let down. Once your body associates letting down for the pump with those triggers you may be able to do it without the triggers.

[Anonymous]

it sounds like the flanges are the wrong size.

[Anonymous]

I did better with a hospital grade pump, especially as a first time mom.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like you may be using the pump incorrectly- do you know how to use the settings in terms of massage, let down, etc? Have you actually been measured for flange size?

Also, try watching videos of your baby while you pump.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like you may be using the pump incorrectly- do you know how to use the settings in terms of massage, let down, etc? Have you actually been measured for flange size?

Also, try watching videos of your baby while you pump.

OP here. Yes I found something on Reddit about this yesterday and have been playing around more with the settings, starting with massage and then increasing the suction on the expression setting. I am starting to produce more so maybe things are starting to come together. But still doesn't seem like enough for how much milk he takes. I am able to pump about 6 ounces in the morning now, but for the rest of the day can get maybe 1 ounce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Definitely try a lactation consultant but I will say some of us just suck at pumping. My baby eats his 3oz in 5-10 minutes when it takes me a hour long power pumping session for me to get it out with the pump. I am struggling to keep up with my baby at daycare and very frustratingly have noticed that I do better when I’m well hydrated and not stressed… and of course not producing enough milk for my baby is a big stressor. 🙄

Seeing your baby is 8 months. Mine is the same, been in daycare for 2 months. Here's what I do (I didn't want to introduce formula for a multitude of reasons, but mostly because of the formula shortage):

1. Go hard on solids -- baby went for EBFing to four jars of puree a day in like two weeks. He's a huge fan so that was an easy transition. At 8 months, he's transitioning easily to table foods.

2. Power pump at least two times a day, sometimes three. I'm basically attached to the breast pump, either pump or resting, most of my work day.

3. Mini-pump session (~5-10 minutes) right before I leave the house for daycare dropoff. Sometimes this is nothing, sometimes it's surprisingly fruitful, so I keep at it to grab the 0.5-1oz when I can.

4. Nurse right outside daycare before dropping him off.

5. When necessary, wake up in the middle of the night to do another pumping session.

6. Feed the baby when he wakes in the middle of the night instead of encouraging sleeping through the night so he doesn't lose out on opportunities to eat.

YMMV if you want to any of these inconvenient things -- I'm fully aware that I'm not being wholly rational about it, but I only have a few more months to go so I'm going to stick with it for now. Breast pump goes out the window in favor of cow's milk as soon as the baby turns 1, though. I had trouble pumping for my older kid as well, but she was only in daycare for a couple months before her first birthday because of the pandemic and I'd been able to build up a freezer stash for her so it was way less stressful. I still stopped pumping and switched over to cow's milk at daycare on her first birthday, but kept the morning, nap (on weekends), and evening nursing sessions for a few more months. I plan to do the same here.

Oh, one more super important thing I have to do to support pumping enough: HYDRATE. Like a gallon of water/gatorade a day minimum. It's hard to remember but it really does help.

OP here. THANK you for writing this all out. There are a few things here that I missed so I'll try them out. Yes I feel you on the irrational piece. Where we are the formula shelves are still mostly empty and we also had a lead water scare so I'd rather not deal with that right now. I am going to give it a full go but some friends with older babies are giving me an emergency stash of formula.

[Anonymous]

It's really worth checking or replacing pump parts. And a lactation consultant can go over all the settings with you, but maybe there are also YouTube videos, I haven't looked into that. The legendairy Instagram account is a good resource. Also, try hand expressing a little before you start pumping.

[Anonymous]

Hospital grade pump or just even a new pump. They wear out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: I could try formula for daycare and nurse in the morning/ evening.

NP. Pumping never worked for me; lactation consultants said this is normal and happens to some women. We used hybrid approach, with formula at child care. It all worked out well. Hybrid is under-rated IMO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I could try formula for daycare and nurse in the morning/ evening.

NP. Pumping never worked for me; lactation consultants said this is normal and happens to some women. We used hybrid approach, with formula at child care. It all worked out well. Hybrid is under-rated IMO.

Did you have to do anything to keep up supply for the hybrid approach?

[Anonymous]

Pumping didn’t work for me until I switched to a manual hand pump. It sounds ridiculous, but that was far more effective than my hospital grade pump. Speak to a lactation consultant, but be open to switching up your pump.

[Anonymous]

The spectra was nice in some ways but the motor lost power and doing double sided just stopped working. I had a very productive breast and one which needed like double power to produce so I had to do them separately anyway, or a single setting would be too much for one too little for the other.

Consider a hand pump. I loved the Lansinoh Momma one because it's so much less work to clean than the spectra. Also its jar imperfectly fits the spectra but enough for pumping to work.... I actually first bought it in desperation at a nearby baby store when at work I realized I forgot my spectra bottles...

[Anonymous]

PP here.
Also, squeezing your breast into the flange with your hand in various directions, massaging the milk along....

Also on the hand pump. There you can control the length of a single suck. You can make one really long one or very short quick ones, which might be more effective than the medium sucking intervals of the electric pump.

[Anonymous]

As already mentioned, definitely check your pump parts and flange sizes.

As an aside, this happened to me as a result of my thyroid medication being too high (milk was in there but not coming out. My lactation consultant had me do warm compresses and then massage my breast as I used a hand pump (it felt kind of like I was wringing my skin out) and it worked when nothing else did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I could never get a drop when I pumped, despite having a good supply and good nursers.

So did you just stop? I could try formula for daycare and nurse in the morning/ evening.

NP. As someone who went to great lengths to try to pump enough milk even though it required a ton of time, pumping overnight, etc., I recommend you skip that and yes, use formula. Combo feeding is the absolute best and is highly underrated.

+1 yes. Pumping is so hard and just doesn’t work for many people even if BF does. I wish I had accepted it earlier