So my little girl was due 23rd of July but decided to make her appearance 10 weeks early (17th May) she is in NICU and I have been pumping to make sure she gets all the goodness. I am now thinking about when and how to start weaning my self of pumping as she will eventually go onto formula. Any tips and advice would be really helpful.
Thank you as always x
Congratulations hope she and you are doing well no advice really think whenever you are ready shes had the "best bit" of the milk so far so what ever the professionals advise and up to you at the end if the day hope you get to take her home soon !! Xxx
It’s totally up to you when to stop, my only tip is it will take time to decrease your supply (mine took 2-3 weeks). I just pumped when my boobs felt uncomfortable and full and just took enough out to feel comfortable again. This should help prevent you from getting mastitis or blocked ducts and also not overstimulate your boobs to continue making as much milk. Slow and steady and eventually you’ll not need to pump anymore and your boobs will stop producing milk. Hope it’s not long before you can get your little one home x
I read about stopping one of the pumping times then a few days later stop another time etc etc but do you think pumping at similar times but for less amount of time is better?
I hope it’s not too long either but I reckon will still be a good few weeks yet. x
I’m no expert I’m afraid and I wasn’t pumping on a schedule just when I could 🙈 (trying to fit in pumping around attempting to feed a baby from the breast with a cows milk allergy who’d been given formula sent me a bit insane as she wasn’t at all a settled newborn 😬) You’ll probably find what works best for you anyway. Perhaps try the drop one session approach if that’s what the experts recommend but if your boobs get sore let a little out before the next pump? x
Aw hope she is doing well and you get to come home soon. It’s so hard being a NICU parent!
I expressed for about a month when my baby was in the NICU and for a couple of weeks or so once we were home. My supply never came in brilliantly and i was having to do formula top ups. I didn’t actually plan on stopping expressing as such as I wanted to carry on but once I was home baby took up a lot of my time and I struggled to fit it in around feeds and looking after him and although my baby is now 7 weeks old I can still get milk off but it is a minimal amount and I did think about trying to increase again but I just can’t seem to fit it in as baby wants feeding every hour or so at the moment.
I would say gradually reduce the amount of times you express in a day every couple of days and if you find that you’re getting sore or lumpy then pump off what you can to relieve the pressure and go back up again to the amount when they didn’t hurt. This is basically what ended up doing when I couldn’t fit expressing in as often. X
NICU is hard but we do the best we can. She’s been in for 2 weeks and I expect her to be in for at least another 4... I will express the whole time she is in there and then slowly reduce once she’s home. I can imagine it’s hard to express whilst looking after baby. Hourly feeds must be exhausting? What formula did you go for? xx
Hourly feeds are pretty tiring, he seems to do it at night and then go longer in the day (2-3 hours 🙄) hoping it’s just a phase and he’ll go back to his usual night feeding pattern of 3 times a night or that we might start going longer soon.
I hope you get to leave sooner. We were in for just over two weeks in the end, but the staff were amazing there. I hope you’ve got a good support network, but feel free to message me if you want to talk to someone who’s been through a nicu experience, although everyone’s journey is different.
We are using sma from birth at the moment as that’s what he had at hospital when I wasn’t there or there wasn’t enough expressed milk left so we figured for now we would keep it the same. X
Exclusively pumping milk
Breast/formula/expressing advice 
Expressing during the night? 
