My Exclusive Pumping Story, Part II.
Breastfeeding is breastfeeding, whether the breastmilk comes straight from the tap or is expressed with a pump. But pumping is not latching, and nearly all of the benefits that come with breastfeeding are experienced by the baby and not by the mom. Exclusive pumping is a true labor of love, because you can’t stare lovingly into the eyes of a pump like you can with a baby. Well, you could, but it might be a bit weird and one-sided. For that reason, exclusive pumping is especially hard from a mental and physical standpoint to keep going. I say this not to take away from the effort of mom’s who latch, because being at the mercy of your baby’s hunger is its own form of torture, but washing pump parts at 2am while your baby is sound asleep (and your sleep deprived self could be sleeping too) hits a little different.
Exclusive pumping (EP) seems to be a growing trend, most likely due to the fact that double electric pumps are now widely available, less expensive, and able to be covered (partially or fully) by insurance. They are also more convenient than ever before with wearable options that are cordless and allow for movement and portability. I say all of this anecdotally since there is very little research on EP currently. To an outsider, it might seem like the decision to EP is a lifestyle choice, like it is an easier solution to breastfeeding (spoiler alert: it’s not). I can’t tell you how many people (including medical professionals) appeared confused by my choice. I think most people assume there are only two ways to feed a baby, 1) breastfeed at the breast, or 2) give them formula. But if breastmilk is truly “liquid gold”, why shouldn’t exclusive pumping be promoted more for moms that fall in between?
My “liquid gold”. I always thought it was so cool to see the different layers of fat composition settle. My pumps, flanges, and chargers became part of our kitchen decorations, haha.
From what I’ve gleaned from other mom’s I’ve personally talked to or commiserated with in online support groups, it is rare that a mom chooses the EP path prior to birth, unless they have breastfed before and know what to expect and/or how it affects them. EP is typically the result of premature birth, difficulty latching, negative emotions associated with latching (D-MER), or anxiety over milk production/amounts fed to baby. Pro tip - never ask a person who EP’s why they EP, it is extremely triggering and so difficult to fully explain the myriad of reasons why the decision was made.
Although up to now I’ve probably made it seem like EP is the worst way to feed your baby, there are some benefits! A major perk is the ability to have others help you with feedings while still providing breastmilk. This came in handy since Sloane woke up 2-4 times a night until she was 6 months old, and my husband and I could trade off when he was home. We could also feed on the go while we traveled somewhere in the car, so I felt less anxious about going places knowing I could give her a bottle when she needed it instead of stopping to latch her. If my husband worked a normal schedule, EP would have worked even better for us. His schedule as a firefighter made EP’ing challenging since he works 24-72 hour shifts and with no family close by, the brunt of childcare often fell on me. Up until 6 months, when my husband was at work I would sometimes be up every other hour overnight between Sloane waking up to eat and my pumping schedule. I’d never been so deliriously tired - I’m thankful my husband could support us financially because I couldn’t function other than to take care of Sloane, and this is coming from someone who never imagined herself as a stay at home mom.
One of Sloane’s many flights to TX to visit family. With my Elvies I was able to pump anywhere - in the airport, on a plane, in the car, walking around at an aquarium! They provided a lot of flexibility.
I stopped trying to latch Sloane at 3 months postpartum (PP). Prior to that, I would pump after an unsuccessful attempt to feed her or whenever she took a bottle, which worked out to every 3-4 hours. When I fully transitioned to EP, I continued to pump every 3 hours but followed more of a schedule. Things got a little easier around 4 months PP when I spaced out my pumps to every 4 hours and then dropped my overnight pump. My pumping schedule at that time looked like: 4:30am, 8:30am, 12:30pm, 4:30pm, 8:30pm, and 12:30am. Since I was pumping so often and was lucky to have a decent supply, I would only pump for around 20 minutes per session. I was happy to discover that my supply only dipped around 1-2 oz total when I dropped my 12:30am pump; my output was just higher at my first pump session of the morning. The dip in supply was worth potentially sleeping from 9pm-4:30am if my husband could help out with the overnight feedings. Sloane still wasn’t sleeping through the night yet, but even if I didn’t have help it was nice to only be up for the 15-20 minutes it took to feed her instead of adding on another 20-30 minutes to pump and wash parts before going back to bed.
I started to feel like I needed to drop another pump when Sloane became more active and my husband was being forced to work a lot due to staff shortages. Even though the Elvie pumps are “hands free”, they don’t allow for much movement without spilling and I found it hard to have a let-down if I was moving, distracted, or feeling anxious. If Sloane got fussy or started crying I had to figure out how to entertain her without picking her up in order to finish my pumping session. I did a lot of planning before my sessions to make sure I had a lot of toys and a bottle within hands reach. The Elvies provided more freedom than being tied to an electrical outlet, but I still felt like I was chained down every few hours. In my opinion, one of the hardest parts about EP was the anxiety of trying to get through a pumping session without Sloane getting upset, waking up from a nap, needing me to hold her, or having a blow out (I’ll save the photo proof of this one).
For a while I did most of my pumping sessions sitting on the floor so I could feed and play with Sloane on her blanket when she was first learning to roll and crawl around. You get really good at multitasking as a mom!
Around 6 months PP I dropped down to 4 pumps per day (PPD) or every 5 hours at 5:30am, 10:30am, 3:30pm, and 8:30pm. There’s lots of different ways to create a pump schedule, sessions don’t have to occur at the same time every day but it is important to remove milk consistently in order to maintain supply. It was helpful for me to follow a specific schedule, but I will admit that it created anxiety when something got in the way of pumping at my usual time even though pumping 30 minutes to an hour before or after didn’t impact my supply. The best resource I found for learning how to exclusively pump is from this website (and associated IG page), and she recommends a general rule of pumping a total of 120 minutes per day no matter how you schedule the sessions out, which I loosely followed. I primarily structured my schedule around my last pump at 8:30pm because I can’t stay up past 9pm, so every change I made to my schedule revolved around that last session.
Dropping to 4 PPD boosted my mental health so much - my first pump session was closer to my natural wake up time and it provided a good chunk of time in the morning where I could go for walks or runs while it was still cool out (a routine I really missed). A couple of downsides were that my supply dipped a good amount (around 4-6 oz total), and I suddenly had to pump for around 45-55 minutes vs. my usual 20-25 minutes each session to produce the amount I wanted. I was prepared for the dip in supply, and I needed to use my frozen stash anyway since it was approaching 6 months and per CDC guidelines nutrients in frozen breastmilk can start to degrade between the 6-12 month mark in a freezer. I wasn’t prepared for how long the pumping sessions started to take. Sloane was getting even more active, and I had to revolve our entire day (including her naps) around entertaining her during my pumping sessions. If I needed to run an errand, it felt impossible to schedule it around naps, giving her a bottle, and pumping. I started to consider the idea of weaning. I wasn’t even close to my “pie in the sky” goal of making it to her first birthday, but I would akin the time in months of EP to the length of dog years, it feels like double the time to make it to that one year milestone. Spacing out my sessions to every 5 hours also made me more prone to clogs; I had to buy a lactation massager, take sunflower lecithin religiously, and spend a lot of time trying to work the clogs out with a Haakaa pump and epsom salts after taking a shower.
I was so excited to be able to run in the mornings again once my pump schedule changed. Sloane clearly was not, haha.
At around 7 months PP, I started supplementing with a bottle of formula a day to get Sloane used to the taste in preparation of weaning. Almost as if the universe heard, the formula shortage hit. I saw reports of moms driving hours to find the formula they needed and how stressed they were over potentially running out of milk to feed their babies. I couldn’t willingly put my family in that situation given that I had a supply and the ability to continue pumping. I eventually came to terms with the decision to push out my plans to wean, and it helped that I was now receiving more support from family to continue my journey with the formula shortage being a major headliner on the news. The hardest part was having no idea how long the shortage would go on for, and at the same time struggling with Sloane not accepting solid foods well. Her appetite increased with her being more active, and with her only taking milk I couldn’t meet her needs any longer. I experienced a lot of anger at this point; the tiniest of things would trigger a huge emotional reaction and I took the daily fluctuations in my milk supply very personally. I can see now that I was likely feeling out of control over my life, but postpartum hormones are also a beast. The only benefit of having to pump longer than I anticipated was being able to continue freezing milk in order to give Sloane at least one bottle of breastmilk until her first birthday, and I accomplished this by swapping out one bottle a day with formula instead of fresh breastmilk.
Once I was able to stock up on a good amount of formula and saw that my preferred brand was (mostly) back on the shelves, I decided to start weaning. This timed out to be around 9.5 months PP, and I anticipated the weaning process to take about a month since I planned on dropping one pump per week. I figured 10.5-11 months was a good enough run, but I was caught off guard by the mixed emotions I experienced. I thought I was beyond ready to wean, to have the freedom that would come with it, to be a more present mom and have the ability to work harder on building my business since I wouldn’t have the restrictions of a tight schedule. The day I dropped down to 3 PPD (which signaled the start of the weaning process) though, I felt immensely sad. I cried all day and I couldn’t figure out why. It wasn’t like I was giving up the bond that comes with latching, and I had gotten used to giving formula. I certainly didn’t have an attachment to my pumps, although I had gotten into such a routine it felt weird to not put them on. After some soul searching, I chalked it up to possibly a mix of hormone fluctuations (a drop in oxytocin and prolactin), and a feeling of guilt because of the association I had made between being a good mom and giving my baby the best source of nutrition possible. Even though I had told myself I could stop whenever I wanted to, I had a nagging goal in the back of my head that I should make it to one year to meet the standard recommendation for breastfeeding (which just changed to 2 years, but don’t even get me started on that). I’m a goal oriented kind of person, and stopping just short of a year made my heart ache. Here’s the thing though, I’d consider myself a much better mom now that I’ve weaned. I’m able to easily attend to all of Sloane’s needs, I have more time to play and interact with her, and I am a happier, less anxious, calmer version of myself. At this point, Sloane will benefit more from having a present mom than she will from breastmilk.
I love being able to spend more time with my girl since weaning! And also be able to wear normal shirts again that don’t provide easy access to stuff pumps in my bra.
To touch on the weaning process, it definitely took longer than expected. When I started the process I was pumping for around 2.5 hours a day, so it took a while for my body to adjust to pumping less. The entire process took about a month and a half and I loosely followed the instructions found here. I had planned on dropping a pumping session per week until I got down to my last session at 8:30pm, but both my body and brain needed more time. It helped me mentally to move through the process slowly so I could adjust to seeing my supply diminish, and I also struggled with persistent clogs so moving quickly wasn’t an option. Each time I dropped a pump, I experienced really bad headaches that I believe were associated with a change in hormones and pressure from overly full breasts. I dropped from 4 PPD to 3 PPD cold turkey by consolidating my mid-morning and afternoon pumps together, which looked like 5:30am, 1pm, and 8:30pm. I waited a week and then I started reducing the time of my 1pm session by 5 or so minutes per day until I got down to 15 minutes, then I dropped it entirely. When I switched to 2 PPD I spaced them 12 hours apart in order to not go too long between sessions, so I pumped in the morning at 8:30am and again at 8:30pm. I did the same thing as before where I waited a week and then slowly reduced the pumping time of the 8:30am session until I could drop it. Then I adjusted to only pumping once a day at 8:30pm, and worked on reducing that one until I finally pumped for the very last time! I felt uncomfortable (but not in pain) for a couple of days following each drop, but the feeling of fullness would improve fairly quickly. My breasts felt “off” for a solid couple of weeks after dropping my last pump, and I did pump an additional time after I thought I was done because I felt really uncomfortable. I would recommend listening to your body when deciding whether or not to pump after your “last” session, but also fighting the urge if able to manage the discomfort and you don’t have any major clogs. Eventually, the body does reabsorb the milk and your breasts settle into their new and slightly sad (ha!) normal.
My milk stats! That’s almost 68 gallons, my friends! The human body is amazing. My right side was my slacker boob and always gave me the most issues and clogs.
I never imagined I would EP for as long as I did, but once I established a routine it did get easier. Tips I’d give to someone choosing this path would be to:
Look up the fridge hack (not endorsed by the CDC but I never had any issues).
Buy a Boon drying rack or sanitizer/dryer (caveat: high heat can warp pump parts, but worth the risk for occasional quick drying).
Watch a favorite show during your least favorite pump session (only way I could get up for my 4:30/5am session).
Test out your reaction to a massager using an electric toothbrush - they can be expensive and not everyone will see improved let-downs with them.
Take sunflower lecithin if prone to clogs, 1-2 capsules daily for maintenance and up to 4 per day to remove a clog.
Use a Haakaa pump filled with a couple of tbsp epsom salts and warm water to relieve the pressure of or remove clogs.
If possible, get a back up pump. I felt extremely anxious over something happening to my only set of pumps.
Buy duplicate pump parts where you can to reduce time spent washing parts. It’s also recommended to replace parts frequently, but I was personally bad about this.
Hands-free pumps are amazing and worth the money if able, despite wanting to throw my Elvies out the window more times than I can count. I’ve heard good things about the Elvie Stride and Freemie cups as well.
Make sure you eat enough. My appetite was through the roof while breastfeeding and it was hard to keep up, but I noticed dips in supply when I didn’t have enough to eat the day before.
Might have been a placebo effect, but I feel like I saw a boost in supply after eating oatmeal, lactation cookies, and drinking beer.
If you’ve made it through this massive post, I’m so grateful! The biggest lesson I’ve learned as a mom is to seek out, reach out, and accept help. This whole motherhood ordeal is not easy, and I’m happy to be available as a resource to anyone struggling with the decision to EP, the logistics, or if you just need someone to listen to you vent!
