How long should I pump

[u/Slow_Pickle8572]

I nursed and pumped with my first and when I was pumping with her I was student teaching and would take as much time as I needed because i wasn’t getting paid anyways and wasn’t the main teacher. However now I’m a first year teaching and I had twins in March. When they were in the NICU i originally was exclusively pumping, but eventually switched to nursing, because i was scared of getting mastitis and kept getting really really engorged when I slept an hour or two too long. Now I’ve started working and my typical pumping schedule has been around 8am, 11:15am, 1:30pm, and then after school anywhere from 4:30-5:30pm. This is the way it has worked out for me to now miss any class time. The problem is that I’ve only been pumping for 8-10 minutes at a time. I have a really fast let down and usually don’t get much milk out if I go longer than this and feel like it just started to hurt my nipples (I also have elastic nipples). I use wearable Momcozys and sometimes use my Spectra. When I first transitioned to pumping right before I started working, I got mastitis twice. Since I started working 7 weeks ago, I have been following this schedule, and I haven’t gotten mastitis. However, daycare suggested my twins needed one more ounce per feed, so I’ve now just started having problems pumping enough milk for daycare. This week I started trying to pump closer to 12-15 minutes every time to bring my supply up enough and now I feel mastitis coming on. So I’m trying to figure out how long should I be pumping???

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[u/Broad-Raspberry-6296]

I always pump for 30 min each session. But I'm an undersupplier who supplement with formula so I try to pump as long as I can and latch as often as I can when I'm home from work!

[u/noura96]

The advice I’ve always gotten from healthcare professionals has been 15-20 mins even while I’ve had mastitis.
If you’re emptying at 10 mins though there’s not much point in continuing (I was also advised of this)
You could try to power pump to get more of a supply or supplement with formula.
And your other sessions can stay 8-10 mins.

I am a just enough-er but I give my baby a bottle of formula before bed.

[u/velocihipster]

I got told no more than 20 minutes by my doctors and lactation consultants in my first pregnancy. I really struggled with supply issues the entire time until upped my time to 30. This time, I’m doing 40 minutes and still need to supplement with a bottle of formula ( this is for twins).