Pumping - how/when?

[anna*]

With Stan I had the luxury of pumping after feeds but not so this time. The most effective seems to be to use the hand pump while she is feeding from the other side but the only time I can do this without compromising what's available for Audrey is MOTN feeds and I cannot for the life of me make the pump work properly in bed! It all just dribbles down my tummy and gets wasted. Cue tears of frustration, I just can't position us all right!

[clazzat]

I found that the best time for pumping for the girls was immediately after breakfast - it seemed to be a quiet time as far as them needing attention went, and I always had enough milk to pump. For x, I pump at 9 before I go to bed, but I have never done a df so I can see that that might not be the ideal time if you are doing one.

Someone said that as babies are more efficient than pumps, you can actually pump and then feed without the baby getting much less than she needs - is it worth trying that?

[shivi]

I always pumped first thing in the morning, from both sides, once they were done feeding - straight after the 7am ish feed. There was always enough for the 10am in that case and I could relax in my day knowing that I had the DF ready in the fridge.

If the morning was particularly stressful, I would sometimes have to pump after the 10am feed as well, but only rarely.....

Honestly, with Emma, I gave up pumping after 8-ish weeks. I was DFing her straight from the breast anyway, she was no longer needing 7pm top-ups and I knew I wouldn't be needing much of a stash anyway so I gave up and even didn't need to pump once back in work.

S x

[anna*]

I don't do a DF as such but she does wake at about 11 anyway. I seem to be pretty low on supply come the evening. I just want to keep like 3-4 feeds in the freezer so I can leave her with DH/granny now an then. How do you find time in the mornings while getting ready for nursery etc? At the moment our mornings are quite relaxed but come Jan Stan could be full time.

[squeakersmum]

From about 5 weeks with Abi I would feed her from one side for the first morning feed and immediately pump from the other. So it was before we got up and Ben got into the routine of playing with his toys on our bed while I did it. Then we'd all get up.

[squeakersmum]

As for timing - I would wake Abi up (if she wasn't already awake) at 7am ish. Then I had enough time to feed her, pump, and get up at 8. Then I'd get showered and we'd all get dressed. Downstairs for Ben's and my breakfast and out by 8.45. It was a bit like a military operation in the mornings TBH!

[anna*]

Yeh, that's what I need to do, wake Audrey in the morning. 
It's soooooo hard to make myself, when she's sleeping peacefully (after being up in the night) and I'm shattered and I know Stan isn't going to come in til 7.30.

[Roseii]

I also only ever really pumped around breakfast time, fed baby in morning, gave dd1 her brek and the tv, an hoped dd2 would stay content for 20 mins! X

[squeakersmum]

I know. Luckily (??) Ben would be up normally just before 7 screaming and shouting in his room (we were going through that phase) so she would have been woken by him anyway in all probability.