BellaOnline Forums Health and Fitness Breastfeeding Exclusively Pumping

Hi all!
I was wondering if there were other Bella visitors who have undertaken the HUGE endeavor of Exclusively Pumping to provide your little one with breastmilk even though nursing failed for some reason.

I have been Exclusively Pumping for my "pumpling" Bella Francesca (pictured <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />)for five months since she went on a NASTY nursing strike at 3 months old and I was unable to get her back to the breast.

It has been a HUGE sacrafice to me and the rest of the family to keep her fed with my milk, but am committed to giving her the best for as long as I can. My goal is to get to her first birthday on April 28th.

At first I thought I was one of few who EPed but I've found that there are several online communities who support eachother in the endeavor. As a Bella Editor I would love to see Bella getting a piece of the action with this topic.

Happy New Year to all mommies giving the best to their babies!

Cyn <img src="/images/graemlins/heart.gif" alt="" />

Cyn - there's a whole section of the site devoted to breastfeeding.

http://www.bellaonline.com/site/Breastfeeding

I think what you're doing is WONDERFUL!!!

However, I was wondering if you've tried again to get her to latch on...

Hi Lynn,
Yes I know, I've been enjoying her site, but haven't found anything on EPing here at Bella.
I'm hoping to though!

Cyn

Jan~
You go girl! You are ALL OVER the place <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />. I thought you might pop up on this thread with your experience as a LC trainee!

To get to your question,
I tried the best I could with 4 other children (two of them 2.5 years old) running around. She would scream, kick, scratch, push away from me. The feeling of rejection was VERY difficult to get over.

Twice I have been able to trick her while she was asleep by pulling out the nuk and sticking in my breast quickly. About a month ago was the last time. To be fair, I don't try much anymore, Its been simpler just to hook up to the machine 3x a day for 45 minutes or so. I get about 24-30 oz per day that way. I have to supplement with formula about once a day when my production is on the low side.

I've heard tell its not too late (she's 8 months old) to get her back on but I'm not up for booby boot camp, Not with the other little guys and two teenage sons roaming around the house.

Do you have any other "tricks"?

Cyn

Hi, Cyn,

It's so good to know that someone else supports such endeavor. I do EP for my 5mo baby boy from his birth. I already got used to pumping milk and feeding him from the bottle. By the way, EP has an advantage: with EP you won't have the problem with weaning baby. As I heard, for some moms weaning turns out to be a trouble.

I ep for my 1st child for 13 months. He was a really hard sucker and it was too uncomfortable, but I still wanted him to get the benefits of breastmilk and pumping worked for me. I now have one year old twins and have been ep for them since i came home from the hospital. Pumping allowed me to schedule milk expression and drain both sides in about 20 minutes vs 30-40minutes of breastfeeding each. Since I had a 2 year old who wasn't going to tolerate all that diverted attention this worked well for us. If I hadn't been able to pump I don't think I would have been able to provide breastmilk this long. I continue to pump now.

That's great that you're pumping, but I have a silly question...

If you are washing bottles and pumping, doesn't that take more time than just nursing them?

Pumping was time-consuming for me and ineffective, so I can't imagine how it's easier than breastfeeding...I want to be a lactation consultant and want to learn more about pumping exclusively..

LOL Yeah, I tend to be a bit of a web addict..

Yes, I hope to be a lactation consultant but haven't started training yet. I just have too much on my plate to add anything else, so I'm waiting until my kids are a bit older. They're 2 and 5 now.

By the way, my 25 month old weaned last week. It was SO easy because we did child-led weaning. I feel great about it. My first wasn't breastfed at all so I'm glad things went well with my second.

Sure, it's an emotional time for me, but we were both ready!

Jan

Hi All:

As a pediatrician, let me just toss out that there are many moms out there who are exclusively pumping - some by choice and some because breast feeding just was not working for a variety of reasons. I have to agree with Jan that EP is a great deal of work and while I support it I try to help a family exhaust all paths before they go to that route. More times than not moms report that their milk starts to dry a bit than if they were naturally nursing so that is a down side to EP.

I've mentioned this before in this forum, there are moms that despite their best efforts, can't get breast feeding to work out and for them EP may be an option but it is high maintenance. Your babies growth will let you know if your milk supply is keeping pace this way.

Dr. Gwenn