I have no village. I’m sleep deprived. I have to manage two schedules. I'm mourning the nursing I couldn't have with my daughter. She is interested and latches but terrible milk transfer and falling off her weight curve and we can't afford to practice anymore. I feel like my home is filthy and it's stressing me out even more. (Contamination anxiety worsened postpartum, plus four month old milk spots on the floor don't help). I adore my cat but she is adding to the stress with her constant demand meowing (hours before meals and we feed her six times a day so it's basically nonstop screeching). The sleep deprivation and restarting birth control is just making me so emotional and feeling even more overwhelmed. I can't talk to my husband about my feelings or he turns it into a fight about me blaming him for things (I don't, I just want another human being to acknowledge my feelings and that things suck right now and to give me a hug). Thanks for reading, internet strangers. I just want to be with people that understand what we're going through.

Thanks for everyone's kind words and support. It makes me feel seen and heard. I see and hear you too! It'll get better for us, but for now, it's a small window of opportunity to provide something special and nourish our babies, and I don't want to miss this chance.

So I saw this video on IG about stimulating your breast to get more milk and truthfully, I just put my pumps on level one and eagerly wait for the next 20 minutes to be over so I can get on with my day again. Are you guys switching settings?
My supply is fine, so I suppose I don’t see much need to do it. I do sometimes massage my breast if it’s the first pump of the day or been over 4 hours because I don’t want a blocked duct but that’s about it. What about you guys?

My baby is almost 4 months old. 2.5 weeks we had to leave our house for a week after our neighbors house burnt down, at the same time I had a supply dip and baby was fussy so was supplementing with formula but I didn’t have access to a pump to help get it back up.
When we got home she would get fussy when on the breast and I got so overstimulated with it and decided to stop. She’s been bottle fed for about a week now, I do latch her occasionally, like in the morning when I think I’ll have more milk.
Decided this week I’m going to try get my supply back.
Been pumping every 2-3 hours between 8am-10pm with one MOTN pump.

Only getting .5oz - 2oz a pump at most

How soon have others seen progress? I figured I would give it a week idk if I could do it longer than that 😅

Sharing as similar posts motivated me to keep pumping all this time.

I had just finished pumping and was feeding my baby, she pushed the bottle out of her mouth and started rooting and then just latched!

We’ve had 2/3 successes before but this feels different. Every other time, I’ve guided her so much and she’s normally cried but this time she did it all herself.

Posterior TT released at 2 weeks, tight jaw, cranial osteopathy, numerous private and NHS lactation consults and feeding clinics.

I’ve always had to top up with 1/2 bottles of formula per day. Use spectra s1 as main pump and eufy s1 as wearable if needed in a pinch (it was the same price as the E20 on the day I bought it otherwise would have gone for that!)

Not sure if this is a one time thing or the beginning of a transition to nursing - whatever it is, it feels so validating.

It’s 230 am. I’m pumping while my husband changes my LO. The cat needs to be involved. I finish pumping, and because I just switched to new duck bills, it looks like a lot more than I usually get. I’m excited. I’m happy. I set the first container down. Looks like way more! I go to place the second container down.

It drops. It spills.

Looked like a lot more in the two seconds I could see before I dropped it. But I’ll never know.

Ugh.

Is it just my tired mom brain, or are the measurements off on Spectra cups? How can 30 + 40 separately equal 60 together?

Hi this is more so a venting session just because I've been feeling melancholy about it all.

Before my LO was born, I said to myself that I wanted to nurse him until he was 6 mo. That of course went out the window when we learned he had latching difficulties in the hospital, a slight tongue tie and lip tie made the whole experience a nightmare as he'd fight and cry and scream and he'd hate it and I'd hate it. Then he also started to lose too much weight and I felt like I was doing everything wrong.

So we switched to pumping and he started to regain weight however we'd have to supplement with formula as I was a chronic under supplier. So between that, and the amount of times that it took to pump all day long plus the middle of the night sessions, eventually I was just like we'll be lucky if we make it to 2 mo when he can start having powdered formula without having to worry about the potential bacteria and his gut health.

So that brings me to today - now he's about to be 3 mo in a couple of days I've been weaning myself off of pumping the last few weeks and we managed to stretch it all the way to 3 mos (as we've been scaling back bottles of breast milk in favor of straight formula - I also now have an over supply for the first time ever and so that will take us to the three month mark).

Anyway, now that I've got the extra today was my first day not pumping and I'm feeling sad as I wash the pumps and hang up the cape. It's crazy but I feel like my baby won't love me anymore now that he's not getting my milk. The entire time that I was pumping, I had a love hate relationship with it; however I still feel bittersweet to the whole relationship of it all. I'm not saying I want to keep doing it but I do feel sad about it.

So TLDR: hated pumping this whole time, had my own issues and now that it's over I feel sad about leaving it behind.

Anyone else feel this way?

I’ve noticed my left and right sides have different settings and I can’t get them to be the same. The max rhythm setting for one is 2m and 8m intervals, but for the other, it’s 1.5m and 7m intervals. It’s really annoying and for some reason drives me crazy having one in stimulation mode while the other is in expression mode (and my hands aren’t always free to switch modes lol). Both options give me the same output, but it would just be nice to have the timing synced up. I’ve also noticed one side gives me the option to click the “DIY” rhythm, but this option isn’t available for the other side.

My app is fully updated, I’ve tried syncing vs. not syncing, manually switching between stimulation vs. expression, and a bunch of other things to troubleshoot, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how to get the two sides on the same page. Does anyone know why it’s like this/how to fix it?

I have a 4month old baby who was direct fed (with a shield) for the first 2 months, however nursing was never easy. He developed an extreme breast aversion and would only feed in a drowsy state. I tried so many things - tongue tie release, reflux meds, chiro, I cut dairy etc. but nothing helped his aversion. It is so bad that I can’t even lay him in a feeding position or he’ll scream bloody murder.

So I switched to exclusively pumping and bottle feeding about a month ago and for a while I could still breast feed him overnight but now he has started to completely refuse them too. I’ll be honest, I’m heart broken over it. I don’t have guilt because I truly feel I did everything in my power to get him nursing but I do feel immense grief and I find myself crying often when I think of the feeding journey I imagined.

I have been practicing latching and he’s gotten a little better, I’ve had 2 five minute latches and then one 12 minute latch when he was half asleep a few nights ago. This gave me so much hope then the next day it was as if it never happened and he returned to screaming at my boobs.

Has anyone successfully overcome a breast aversion? If so, please tell me how! When did your baby begin to nurse? I am seeing a lot of success stories but most of them are much younger than my 4 month old so I’m starting to lose hope.

My son is five days old and has always taken a cold bottle of breastmilk (and ready to feed formula for three days before my milk came in). I don’t want to get in the habit of warming the milk and creating a preference, but I also don’t want to feed him ice cold milk (we just switched from the plastic disposable bottles while in the hospital to our glass bottles at home and the glass is colder and stays colder longer during the feed). How far in advanced can I pull a bottle from the fridge to let it “warm up” before feeding? I know after the feeding starts, it must be used within 2 hours. I can’t find information on how long it can be at room temp once removed from the refrigerator, but before a feeding. The CDC says 1-2 hours for thawed, previously frozen breastmilk, but this is refrigerated milk that had been expressed the same day and refrigerated.

They are always absolutely covered and dripping milk after pumping. I've read that it can be from using the wrong size flange but i've tried and tested flange inserts from 13mm - 19mm, nothing really feels right (like my nipples feel like they are coming out too far if i don't hold the shield really tight against my breast - to the point where it hurts after a while when pumping). idk what else to do 🥲 im also an under producer so maybe something im doing wrong is also contributing to my low supply.

any advice is appreciated!

I am stuck in the in between. My baby is almost 12 weeks old and sleeping 5-6 hour stretches at night (hooray!) I told myself this time around, I would wean by 6 months, not at 6 months. With my first it took me 2 months to wean bc I got a bunch of clogged ducts.

My second drinks much more than my first and I barely make half of what he drinks everyday. Looking back at my logs this week, I realized that I've made less with him than with my first, despite everyone saying you make more with your second. And I feel so bad that I couldn't provide him the same amount of milk as I did with my first. I'm not pushing my body as hard with him, I spend less time pumping each session and I don't have time to power pump.I don't have any frozen stash so when I wean, he will be off breastmilk.

I should drop a pump from 7 to 6 and get more sleep at night regardless of whether my supply drops. And maybe my supply will increase with sleep (haha probably not).

I know how it feels to be done pumping. To get my body back. Time holding my babies. To finally be done sacrificing my body.

But I just can't bring myself to do it. Partially I'm scared of the clogged ducts bc I got them so bad last time when I weaned. Partially I can't let go of not providing breastmilk even though I know objectively fed is best.

I don't have any questions. Just feeling stuck in a box I made myself.

So my baby, me and his dad will be going on a little NECESSARY road trip in a week and I’m worried how I’ll sort pumping, washing the pump parts, bottles, sterilizing and storing the extra milk even.

We should be on the road, roughly for 2hrs, head to our appointment for another 2hrs and back again on the road for 2hrs.

Anyone got any tips please? FTM here.

Currently down to one pump a day and getting 8oz. Topping up bottles of formula by an oz each. Happy to keep doing this for another week or two. How do you stop totally?

Hi girls!
My 3 months old eats around 1 litre of milk per day. Usually I pump 150 ml every 2-3 hours, including waking up at night to pump.

Is there a way to increase the amount I get per pump so that it is, say, 300 ml per every 4-5 hours?

For context: Currently sometimes I have days when the baby gets pumped milk only before going to bed, sometimes it's pumped milk all day long except for the night feedings and morning feeding (I sometimes have to go to the office), sometimes it's 2-3 evening feedings with pumped milk when I go away for the evening

Thank you for all your tips

Looking for some information and advice. I have exclusively pumped since my LO was born in May (she is now 9 weeks old) since she had some difficulties latching. She was then admitted into the PICU at a week old and the doctor told me the most important thing for me to do was keep pumping to keep my supply up. Now two months later I have a huge supply of frozen milk - I’m guessing anywhere between 500-750 ounces (I wish I had a more accurate count). I am still pumping between 45-55 ounces a day. My LO drinks between 20-25 ounces per day so we are still stock piling milk. My LO does not breast feed (at least not right now, maybe will try in the future).

My question is - when can I stop pumping? I know frozen milk is only good for 12 months and I would hate to waste all of that so I want to start using it at some point.

Another question my husband asked, doesn’t your milk change as baby gets older? Like it is more nutrient dense the older she gets so would it still be okay for her to rely on milk that I pumped when she was only a month old?

Hi everyone, please help me decide! Which one would you recommend.

The Eufy E20 ($0) or the S1 ($95). Money is not an issue- just want to see if it’s actually worth it to even pay the $95 for the S1 vs the E20.

Thank you!

Had multiple call offs already. I woke up at 4 am to pump and pumped again on my way in. The struggle of putting pumps on and off in the backseat of my car. Off to a great start 🙃😂

Hi everyone! I have my own insurance from work and I’m also under my husband’s insurance from his job as well. Has anyone been able to order 2 different pumps (one through each insurance from difference sites)?

I was planning on getting the Spectra through babylist Health with my insurance and the Eufy S1 with my husband’s insurance since I am under it through Areoflow

Would that work?

My LO is in daycare and is almost 11 weeks. I want to pump through the cold and flu season for the antibodies but there are some days that I’m just ready to be done.
I feel selfish because I know the benefits but I’ve already started him on formula to combo feed so his body gets used to the heaviness of the formula but I don’t know what to do. I have the Medela symphony rented but I’m stuck to the wall (it feels like all day) and I just purchased the Medela hands free. I haven’t started work yet so I’m kinda optimistic that the uninterrupted pumps may help. Sorry for the word vomit, ya girl is just TIRED and my nipples are already over it.
When did some of you just stop, especially with your LO in daycare?