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Recently, I wrote a post listing some “must-haves” for breastfeeding moms. I wrote that I had exclusively pumped for my first child. Many moms expressed interest in getting tips about exclusively pumping because their little ones were not latching but they still wanted to breastfeed.
As said in my other post (read here) I became quite the expert. I didn’t really have a choice! I knew I wanted to make it the whole year and in order to do that I HAD to make it easier somehow.
Pumping sucks. Both literally and figuratively (ha! See what I did there?). Finding ways to make it is easier is absolutely necessary, so here are some tricks I learned along the way. It might have to be condensed because there is so much to pumping!
The Stuff-What do I need?
Part of making things easier is having the right equipment. Having too big of a pump, or pump parts that you need a special bra for, etc can cause pumping to be an ordeal. Since I was going to be pumping for much of my day, I needed to be as normal of an experience as possible. Just another task in my day-to-day.
This was also the first thing I put on my other post as well. The reason is that this was the single most experience-changing product for me. These collection cups allow you to pump anywhere without taking off your shirt. The cups go inside your bra (yes, just a normal, non-nursing bra). It made me able to keep going as the most difficult part of the process for me was the loneliness. I could pump around other people when we were all hanging out and it was not a big deal.
This is always my first suggestion for mom’s asking me for advice. “Get. Freemie. Cups.” For the amount of freedom they gave me, the price is super cheap. You can use them with any of the major pumps (some need adapters) or you can use the Freemie pump. I used them with the pump below.
Battery-Powered Pump
If you are exclusively pumping that means you have to pump everywhere. Before having a battery-powered pump, this was a stress-inducing fact. Will there be outlets available where we are? This pump changed that. I was very rarely worried about having a place to go.
When choosing a pump, make sure that you have a hospital grade pump. Battery-powered is important as well. My first pump was not battery-powered and it caused a lot of
I did however have to use the adapter pieces for the Freemies. Since the pump is so small the diaphragm is not built in. You have to have two diaphragms attached to the tubing. This was fine and didn’t really make that much of a difference for me. I liked having the tiny pump.
Tips for Production
Galactagogues
As cool as that word sounds, it’s not one of my geek things… Galactagogues are foods that allegedly increase your supply. There are many things that are supposed to help increase supply. When you are not nursing your child at the breast, keeping your supply up is extremely difficult. When you nurse your baby there are a ton of natural occurrences that help your body bring up your supply. The machine just doesn’t do what a baby does for your body…
If you look up foods to increase supply, you’ll see a lot of suggestions. One of these is Fenugreek. I would advise against it… Although Fenugreek increases supply for many women, it also TANKS it for others. It didn’t do anything for me other than make me smell like maple syrup.
Some popular products for milk production are oatmeal, Mother’s Milk Tea, brewer’s yeast, garlic, and almonds. There are even lactation products like cookies and bars that you can get (see the cookies and cookie mix below)!
Water, Water, Water
The most important thing is to drink enough water. Milk is made up mostly of water. If your body does not have water, it’s going to have a harder time producing milk. The days that I drank enough water were my higher producing days.
Pump Often and Even When Nothing is Coming
As annoying as pumping is and we want to stop immediately after there is no flow, keep pumping a few minutes after the milk has stopped flowing. Every time you stimulate your breasts to make milk, you’re telling your body that your child needs it. This will trigger it to make more. Breastfeeding is a supply and demand game. If you increase the demand, your body will increase the supply.
This is why newborns want to nurse all day. They are building up your body’s supply. Unfortunately, as EP mommas, the baby is not on our breast. This means we have to try to make up for it by pumping often on the days that we can. Our bodies also do not react to the pump
“Power-Pumping” is a strategy where you take a day that you can pump a lot and you pump in between two of your regular pump sessions. It might look like, “pump 20 minutes, wait 10 minutes, pump 10 minutes, wait 10 minutes, pump 10 minutes.” Doing this for a few days usually gets your body going! When I felt like my supply was going down, I would do this over the weekend to get it back up for when I went back to work.
Cleaning pump parts
When I first started pumping, I very quickly thought I wasn’t going to last very long. The lady at the hospital told me to clean my pump parts after every use and make sure to boil them every day. It didn’t sound like that big of a deal until I was up at 3 in the morning having to pump, feed, and wash pump parts… Ugh.
It finally occurred to me to just put the pump parts in the fridge. Breastmilk is good in the refrigerator for 5 days. If I put the parts in the fridge, then they should be fine until I’m ready to wash them. This was a pretty important discovery because it changed the way pumping at work looked.
When I cleaned my pump parts I started to realize that the using mild dish soap
I actually used the wipes that are also made for pump parts. These were so convenient. I could keep a pack in my bag. I usually rinsed the parts first then wiped them down with the wipes and had them air dry. They worked WAY better than soap.
Medela steam bags
Medela Quick Clean Micro-Steam Bags, 2 Packs of 5 bags
These are awesome! I got sick of boiling my parts after about 1 time. These steamer bags sanitize pump parts, bottles, bottle nipples, pacifiers, toys… Anything that would survive being boiled could be steamed in these bags. I threw everything I could fit in with a few ounces of water, threw it in the microwave, and was good to go.
Pumping at Work
If you are planning on going back to work, these tips (especially the cleaning ones) will be super helpful. Being able to throw my pump parts in a bag and set them in the fridge until it was time to pump again saved me a lot of time. As a teacher, I was crunched on times that I could conveniently pump. I wasn’t going to take a bunch of time cleaning parts.
Use a jar or larger watertight container.
Everything I read and people I talked to always pumped directly into bottles and took a bunch of bottles home at the end of the day. This made sense because most of the pumps that women use pump directly into bottles. Once I switched to the
I used a big Mason Jar like this one. This was watertight enough to be able to put it in my bag to transport home.
Keep At It!
My biggest tip I can give you is to just not give up. It gets easier once you have a good routine and your baby starts eating food more. If I had not done these things, I don’t think I could have made it!
You’re amazing, Momma!
Can I just say what a relief to find someone who actually knows what theyre talking about on the internet. You definitely know how to bring an issue to light and make it important. More people need to read this and understand this side of the story. I cant believe youre not more popular because you definitely have the gift.