Expressing mum and pump recommendations

N

New mum 0301

New member
I have a 7 weeks old baby and I have been expressing to her due to issues with breastfeeding. I have tried a couple of times, each time for a period of a week but had to give up due to sore, cracked nipples. Later on she can latch on correctly but she would only suck very hard for five minutes and then use my breasts as dummies and fall asleep. I have tried everything, play with her ears, feet, undress her, change her nappy but not been able to solve the problem.

I'm still trying to build up my milk supply to match my baby demand so I pump about 7-8 times a day using my Avent single electronic pump but would like to invest on a double pump to save time. Currently considering the Medela freestyle as I like the fact that its small and you can attach to a belt on your waist so I can do other things while pumping at the same time. I checked the price at b2b is $6600 but I can ask my friend to get me one cheaper from the UK. Has any use this pump or any other pump you would recommend?

Even though I know I have tried my best in breastfeeding but the fact that I'm not able to nurse her still makes me feel some sort of failure as a mum. I know i shouldn't feel bad and my baby can still get the benefits of breast milk etc. but I wish I could just breast feed her! I also don't know what to say to people when they ask me if I'm breastfeeding. Can any expressing mum share their experience?
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I had to express for my daughter for medical reasons and found it very hard work!! But I do think it was worth it... I expressed for a year and she was 100% breastfed until then. Of course I wished that we could have directly breastfed, but we had to make the most of our situation the way it was. So pumping "worked" even though it wasn't my first choice.

You can read some of my thoughts about the whole thing in these two blog posts:
http://madeline-hope.blogspot.com/2010/10/exclusive-pumping.html
http://madeline-hope.blogspot.com/2011/07/one-year-of-pumping.html

Oh and I used the Medela Pump in Style advance with a pumping bra (which was an absolute godsend!!) but I mostly did sit down and pump. I would have liked to have tried the freestyle so I could have been more mobile, but I found that when I did move around with the PISA, the bottles sometimes fell off. Not sure if I'd have that same problem with the freestyle (I was pumping large volumes and so the bottles would get very heavy!!). The PISA was fantastic though...
 
Thank you nicolejoy for sharing your experience! Good to know how someone did it and that it is possible to exclusively expressing. I also have contacted a le leache leader but that was focusing on getting baby back to my breasts instead of expressing so I didnt get the advice of how to build up my milk supply. At the moment I'm only able to pump around 500-600 ml a day but my baby needs around 800-850 ml a day so I'm hoping I can match that soon. By getting a double pump should help make things easier, I also heard good things about the Medela PISA but I like the mobility if the freestyle as I will be traveling in a few months time so I will need something small and allow me to pump anywhere... quite possibly in the bathroom on plane.

Would love to hear other mums share their pumping experience...
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I use the freestyle. I pumped at work with the freestyle until my oldest son was 23 months old, at which age he stopped taking expressed milk. I am now pumping at work again for my youngest son.

I really like the freestyle. It's small and light. It's not too noisy. It's powerful, I think it compares well to the Symphony that I used when my son was in hospital. I haven't used it walking around. I made my own pumping bra as I found all the little clips and attachments that come with the "hands free" package too fiddly. I charge the battery once a week but it's never flat, usually still has one bar left. And I pump 3x a day for 5-7mins each time, so it gets a workout. :) HTH.
 
I used the Freestyle as well...very portable and not as noisy. Didn't really figure out the handsfree kit so didn't use it. I found it was difficult to double pump for me because it was hard to drain my breasts properly. I would have to help massage the pumping breast with my free hand so I wouldn't get engorged. You can do it and YOU ARE breastfeeding when you're pumping. You gotta do what you gotta do and don't stress if baby can't latch. I had Annerley's Hulda come over when my baby was a week old (she was in special care for a week) to help me teach baby to latch...it was tough but worth it. But if baby just falls asleep at the breast, maybe bottle is better for your baby. Good luck!
 
You are not a failure. You're a success for producing a beautiful baby. And you're very brave for trying so hard despite the difficulties. Many less-determined moms would have given up. So be proud of yourself, and good luck!
 
I think honestly, pumping takes MORE work and more determination than breastfeeding does - and comes with a whole lot more guilt as well. So pumping in my opinion should be "applauded" even more than breastfeeding.

When my baby came home from the hospital at 4 months old, I was giving her a bottle of EBM at my church and a friendly older lady with lots of opinions came over and said to me "What, why aren't you breastfeeding her?? Don't you know that's the best thing for her??" I wanted to slap her silly... instead I told her "I know, I would if I could, I wish it were possible - I'm pumping which takes twice the effort for the same result." I felt at other times like I wasn't part of the "breastfeeding mums club" OR the "formula feeding mums club" - kind of stuck in a weird middle place with far fewer people!! But ultimately, I wasn't doing it for anyone else so it doesn't matter what they think or say, or which "groups" I could identify with - I was doing it for my baby.

All the best!!
 
Dear New Mum 0301,

If you would like to work towards getting your baby to fully breastfeed rather than having so much supplement the first thing to do is start to give the supplement BEFORE you breastfeed the baby instead of afterwards.

I would start by giving the baby about half the amount you usually give her and then put her to the breast to finish the meal. When you do this the baby usually works harder at the breastfeeding. You may need to experiment with the amount of supplement you need to give it could be less than half the amount or maybe a bit more than half but it should definitely be less than the amount you need to give after the feed.

You want her to be satisfied after the feed but not too full. Ideally each feed will last about 30 minutes (both the bottle and the breast together) and she will have about 12 feeds a day.

The reason for this is to do with the flow of the milk. A normal breastfeed starts with quick flow and then as the feed progresses the flow begins to slow. So you have fast flow at the start of the feed, medium flow in the middle of the feed and slow flow towards the end of the feed. This is what the baby expects. When you give milk in a bottle the flow is always very fast. So rather than the natural fast, medium, slow rhythm of breastfeeding you get the medium, slow, very fast rhythm of topping up with a bottle. This does not encourage the baby to breastfeed but rather it encourages the baby to drink the milk at the breast while it is fast (usually for about five minutes) and then fuss until a bottle is given.

If you change when the supplement is given to the beginning of the feed. The baby gets the very fast milk first and then gets the medium and slow milk at the breast ? at the correct time in the feed ? and the result is that the baby works harder at breastfeeding.

There is also a way of bottle feeding that slows the flow as much as possible. Sit the baby up in a vertical position and bring the bottle horizontally. This means that gravity is not helping the milk to come out of the bottle and into the baby?s mouth. Usually babies prefer this as they don?t need to ride their tongues to reduce the flow from the bottle.

There is an article which explains about this technique at http://www.bfar.org/bottlefeeding.pdf

Please feel free to call me on 9125-2343 or email at [email protected] if you have any questions.

Best wishes,
SARAH
www.lotuslactation.com
 
You're not a failure at all - I think breastfeeding was one of the toughest things I've ever done in my life. You should give yourself lots of credit for still trying hard to make it work after a difficult start. I think breast milk is great for the baby but would I work myself to death to give my baby 100% breast milk instead of 50%? The answer is no....

Freestyle worked well for me for my first baby and I did walk around in the house while pumpling. I also had no problem with all the accessories coming with it. However, I'm thinking about renting Symphony after delivering my second one as some people say it's a lot more powerful. I bought my Freestyle from www.mommygear.com. They ship to Hong Kong and the price is great! I've bought other things from the website and been happy with their services. Do check it out!

Keep trying but please don't be too harsh on yourself :)
 
Thank you all for sharing your experience with using the pump. I think I will go for the freestyle. Workingmom, thanks for sharing the website but they just got back to me that they no longer allow shipping Medela pumps to Hong Kong.

Also thanks for the lovely messages and encouragements! I don't think men understand how difficult breast feeding can be. It's great to hear others pumping mum's stories and people who has done this before and know what is like.

Sarah, thanks for your suggestions im a bit hesitate to give another try...
 
Nursing was one of the toughest things for me as a mom. It's hard work, draining and time consuming. It requires a lot of dedication. I actually nursed my first and 2nd son for about 2 months, then expressed. I actually prefer expressing b/c it I didn't feel as bound to indoors and a schedule ( I don't like nursing in public). I actually feel quite accomplished for expressing and for me, it was just easier. I used the Ameda double electric pump that my hospital in London recommended. It was very easy to use and put together.
 
I had the same issues you cited with my baby. He would fall asleep after 5 minutes and never get a full feed. As a result, he would wake up hungry after 15-20 mins and I would need to try and feed him again, only to have him fall asleep again! It was really frustrating. That led me to exclusively pump after one month. Exclusively pumping was really depressing for me because I felt like I couldn't spend time with my baby while I pumped even though I double pumped. It was hard to hold my baby while pumping. And I was constantly pumping in order to up my supply. It just felt miserable...but it was better to have breast milk for my baby rather than go all formula. For me, the pumping experience was the least fun out of all the motherhood duties, but the thought of giving my baby what he needs kept me motivated.

It's tougher than breastfeeding directly in my opinion because you lose that time to bond. And it's 20 minutes each pumping session, 8+ times a day. You should not feel like you failed; if anything, it's another challenge you've overcome as a new mother.

Google ivillage and exclusively pumping for great forums on how to handle EP'ing.

Good luck!!

FYI, I also used pump in style with pumping bra. You have to massage your breasts while you pump to drain breasts and get all the milk out, which is the best way to increase supply.
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My son is a lazy nursling, too. He usually sucks for 5-7 minutes then falls asleep. He nurses every 2 hours. What I found that works for us at night is let him nurse on one breast while pumping the other breast at the same time. This simultaneous nurse & pump increase milk flow on both breasts. I end up with a good quantity bottle, and he has enough milk to last him 4-5 hours of good sleep at night. And this only takes us 10 minutes.
 
I had the freestyle, and was sick about how much it cost here compared to buying it in the US. I had issues and had to pump as well, but my lactation consultant did not think the freestyle was powerful enough for what I needed. We ended up renting the Symphony from Celki and it was MUCH more powerful. If I had known that, probably would have just rented instead of spending the big bucks on the Freestyle, which i only used for one week.

My daughter is 7 months old now. I remember being so upset and feeling like I was letting her down. Now several months later I realize how wrong I was and have gotten over it. :)
 
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