You’re going to have to step down no matter what, so start planning that and try to step down now, to fewer pumping sessions.
Ask a lactation consultant (or read books) about how to do that specific thing— step down breastfeeding with a goal of stopping within a month.

It helped me to put bags of frozen vegetables on my boobs after pumping.

Anonymous wrote:My firstborn didn’t latch and I exclusively pumped for 14 miserable months. My maternity leave was spent feeding him, holding him to sleep, and pumping while he was awake and in a bouncer or something.

I didn’t realize until I had my second child (who breastfed and slept) what my maternity leave should have been like. I also had a nanny by that point so I was able to get some time out of the house. After my first, I absolutely knew I would never exclusively pump again. My supply tanked by 9 months with my second and I gave up breastfeeding without any regrets. I enjoyed it while we did it, but it was fine when it no longer worked and my child was happy on formula and is a delightful, incredibly bright 3yo now.

That said, quit if you want to, but you can also drop down to 1-3 pumps a day and combo feed if you want to.

This is my post ( not sure if I need to announce this every time but I don’t know how to differentiate myself from other posters).

This sounds a lot like my life but my child is actually a pretty good sleeper. We do have the fancy bassinet ( cheaper than a night nurse) so that does a lot of the work of getting him to sleep. I’m able to pump pretty easily because he only eats and sleeps at this age but it’s still a lot. I think about how much more comfortable I would feel and how maybe I would be able to nap or just go anywhere and be able to not bring anything to pump.

I would drop more pumps but I don’t see that becoming more comfortable for me. Dropping to 6 pumps is pushing it for me because I’m very uncomfortable going longer than 4 hours between a pump.

My firstborn didn’t latch and I exclusively pumped for 14 miserable months. My maternity leave was spent feeding him, holding him to sleep, and pumping while he was awake and in a bouncer or something.

I didn’t realize until I had my second child (who breastfed and slept) what my maternity leave should have been like. I also had a nanny by that point so I was able to get some time out of the house. After my first, I absolutely knew I would never exclusively pump again. My supply tanked by 9 months with my second and I gave up breastfeeding without any regrets. I enjoyed it while we did it, but it was fine when it no longer worked and my child was happy on formula and is a delightful, incredibly bright 3yo now.

That said, quit if you want to, but you can also drop down to 1-3 pumps a day and combo feed if you want to.

Anonymous wrote:Did you lose all the weight you needed to lose? If so go ahead and quit. The baby really benefits most from the colostrum which is done by now. Ebf helps but formula babies are fine too

This is my post.

This is an odd question to ask because I think many women aren’t focused on losing weight. I have about 10lbs to lose but I don’t care about that yet. My focus is on surviving newborn stage and feeding my child. The weight will come off when my body is ready.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He's going to be eating Takis and Mountain Dew in the school cafeteria in a couple of years. None of this effing matters! Focus on whatever gives him calories without destroying your mental health.

It’s not even mental health. It’s physical. The oversupply is causing me a lot of discomfort. Engorgement, clogged ducts, and just very uncomfortable.

The only good thing is I do have a good supply and I’ve been able to save a lot. My goal was to make it to 6 weeks but I don’t see that being possible.

Pumping is do much work and effort on top of bottle feeding and caring for my child. I just don’t think I can stick it out for another 4 weeks.

There’s a sweet spot you have to find to relieve yourself from the pain of engorgement without triggering the oversupply. The more you pump, the more the body thinks the baby wants to eat and thus produces more.

When you feel the engorgement, can you just pump for a couple of minutes (under 5) to relieve the pressure?

This is my post.

I have to pump in order to feed my baby. I’m confused about just pumping to relive the pressure. How else will I make milk to feed him? I’m already feeling discomfort 2 hours after I pump but I wait until the 3-4 hours to pump. I’ve also even went a couple days without fully emptying to see if that helped but I still had a lot of milk and I ended up getting clogged ducts.

I’ve stated that I’m pumping exclusively. That means pumping 6-8 times a day. I pump every 3-4 hours. I’ve made a lot of milk since my supply came in on day 3. I also even leaked a lot of colostrum so I collected and stored it. I had over 50 syringes full of colostrum. I think u just naturally produce a lot of milk.

I’m getting 6oz pretty regularly at each pump. Everything I’ve read said pumping every 2-4 hours is standard and what I should be doing.

My son is adopted and never even got colostrum. He is a healthy, seven year old now. Please give up the guilt. There is so much more to being a good mom than whether or not you breast feed.

Did you lose all the weight you needed to lose? If so go ahead and quit. The baby really benefits most from the colostrum which is done by now. Ebf helps but formula babies are fine too