Reply to How Hard Is Pumping?

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[quote=Anonymous]I exclusively pumped, and it was really awful for me. I was upset that I had to pump because nursing didn't work for us, so the premise was negative from the beginning, which I'm sure didn't help. You seem to have a slightly better attitude about it, so that might help.

I was very worried about supply, and I had to pump frequently to keep it up. Thus, I was pumping all.the.time. It is double work because you have to pump and then feed, and if you are doing it all and your baby is needy and crying because they want to be held or fed and you can't really attend to them well because you're hooked up to a pump, it sucks. My baby was very colicky and had GERD and was generally just a hard baby who didn't sleep much, so on top of all of that, exclusively pumping was miserable. I was up for double the time in the middle of the night because I had to feed and pump.

A friend of mine exclusively pumped and had a slightly better experience. She went back to work before I did, and I think that actually helped because she pumped while away from her baby much of the day. It was really hard to do it while together with my baby as the sole caregiver.

I did have PPD and PPA, and I think exclusively pumping and the sleep loss and stress and lack of connection to my baby made it worse. But I don't think it has to be that way, and my friend had a much better (stressful but not awful) experience with it.

With baby #1, I was much happier when I finally quit and FF. With baby #2, I was able to exclusively BF, and it was great, but that was not an option with baby #1. I think if you are comfortable keeping a balance where you pump but also supplement with formula as needed and don't worry if it's not 100% breastmilk, it may be better as well.[/quote]

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