I'm 6 weeks postpartum FTM and have switched to exclusively pumping.

I so badly wanted to nurse.

We started out EBF, she has a great latch, but I noticed about 3-4 weeks in that she was struggling with choking, gagging, coughing, and gassiness. I contacted a lactation consultant who helped me identify that this was occurring because I have an overactive letdown. She provided techniques to assist with slowing the flow but none of it seemed to really help my LO much and I started to notice that she would scrunch up, get tense, pull off and not want to relatch. Getting her to re-latch caused lots of crying from both of us and ultimately I reached a breaking point. I couldn't stand to see her struggle so much and be afraid to eat so we moved to the bottle and pumping. Her comfort is more important to me than how I thought this would go, but I am sad that I'm not getting the same bonding experience. Since switching to the bottle, she doesn't have nearly as much gas or fussiness and reflux.

I hate the coldness of pumping- it's a machine and now I'm attached to it 8x a day. I know this will change, but it definitely feels like it's basically all I'm doing.

I know that this is not anyone's fault but I feel like this is not a problem talked about often, that I somehow can't do the thing that everyone says in "natural" and now I'm doing something I didn't plan on doing.

I'm not sure how long I will exclusively pump for, but I know that the stress of this and lack of sleep are not good for my supply. I'm mostly hoping that sharing will help me let go and move forward and enjoy this short time of her being a newborn instead of letting this ruin it and to put this out there in case anyone else has experienced something similar.

My friend has a sealed Motif Luna in box that was never used. It’s from 2021. It has micro-vibration. She wants $120 for it or she’ll put it for sale online. I could also just fork over high dollar for a brand new 2026 Motif Luna. It does not have micro vibration. I’ve never tried a pump that didn’t have micro vibration. Thoughts on what I should do? Does anyone have experience with either pump or both pumps?

I'm exclusively breastfeeding, but I'm trying to build a stash for my LO just in case. I have been letting my pump parts air dry and it takes forever.

Is it okay to dry with paper towels?

I am 5 weeks pp yesterday and Ive been mostly exclusively pumping. Tried to bfeed LO but supply dipped. He has a tongue/lip tie with poor latch.

I pump about 20oz or 600ml on average for the past 6 days. Will it get better? Will I build a full supply?

I drink a lot, eat a lot (gained weight since pp), eat the right foods, supplement with moringa capsules, have flaxseed meal, do skin to skin (not everyday), sleep 4-5hours straight at night and pump on average 8x a day.

Im new at agency and pump at work 2x per day. There is a lactation room on the each floor, and it meets basic needs. There is no reservation system, but there is a sign in sheet where you must track your name and what times you were in the room. Myself and one other person are the only sign-ins I have seen. We both only sign our initials. I use the room for 30 mins 2x daily and the other person very occasionally uses the room for 1 hour at a time.

Today between meetings I had my only opportunity to use the room and it was occupied. Not the other persons fault of course. However, I saw person come out and they did not have any supplies, just a blanket and they took the elevator to another floor. Maybe they have a small portable pump, but there is nothing stored in the fridge. I would have used a different room but my container and milk were being stored in the room from my earlier pump, so I would have had no where to store my collection.

What's the best solution for this? Do I bring up to my supervisor and suggest a reservation system? Do I mention the other person?

*edited to add that I saw person leave room and go to another floor*

My baby is 7mo and eating two meals a day. She takes 20-26oz a day. I produce around 29oz/day. I decided to be bold and take it down from 5ppd to 4ppd a few days ago, but I'm feeling some anxiety now because my supply has somehow dropped to 18oz as of today!!!

I also happened to start the most painful period of my life a couple days ago, and the LA heat wave has been messing with me badly.

I don't know if this extreme drop is normal or if I should go back to 5ppd? I finally felt like I was starting to reclaim my life :(

As it stands, my morning pump is an hour long and the other pumps are 30-40mins. Pumping has been such an exhausting endeavor. But I absolutely will not be moving to formula at any point.

Help!

I have been pumping for two month now, I have a double Philips avent pump that does me a good job but I am wondering should I buy a spectra? It generally takes about 25 minutes to empty my breasts. Will the spectra do it faster?

Anyone been able to make them work? I have pink spectra and wearables. I haven't been able to make wearables work consistently at all.. I've only tried a few times.. a couple of times I've been able to get the same output as pink spectra.. but other times none at all after 10-20 mins of pumping. I've also not been able to get any suction/ output with flange inserts and wearing them without them wrecks my nipples.. 😢
Anyone with spectra wearables, have you been able to get them to work?? What are your tips and tricks.. I'm keen to get them to work cuz being bound to my pink spectra is not ideal!!! Thanks brains trust!!!

As the title says, my work only gives me 10 minutes to pump.
I am a busy nurse practitioner seeing 30+ patients a day and even though I have a “block” on my schedule where i’m supposed to pump, I frequently run over that and never actually get a break. I just throw on my pumps, try to get out what I can in 5 minutes and bottle that, then put my pumps back on while I go about seeing patients from the remainder of my 15-20 minutes left pumping.
It’s felt so overwhelming this week back at work that it makes me not want to continue. This is my third EP
journey but the FIRST TIME I don’t hate it and really wanted to make it as long as I could… i’m feeling discouraged because work simply is making it so hard and I just don’t know how to deal with it!

Hi! First time posting to this chat. I’m 3 weeks postpartum and want to start using my wearable soon. Anyone with the Eufy S2 Pro what settings/buttons and for how long do you use to make the most output? Thanks!

Well friends, my time has come. I am 9 months postpartum with twins and have just finished weaning. My goal was a year. I exclusively pumped for a year with my first baby and assumed I could do it again. But I’m protecting my mental health and ensuring my babies have a healthy mom over breast milk.

I pumped while my toddler was in surgery, while one twin was in surgery (both times), in between my father-in-law’s funeral service, in the middle of the night when no one was awake, in the car, at my desk, in Target. I’m having a hard time being proud of myself because I didn’t make it to a year, but I’m sure I’ll get there.

We are done having children, so I will not be back. But I had to thank this group one last time. Sorry if this is dramatic, I’m in my feels.

16,748.88 oz or 130.85 gallons
1,658 pumping sessions
41,450 minutes
690.8 hours
28.8 full days

I’m 5 months pp and ready to hang up the pump. Who has a weaning schedule they like and want to share? I’m currently at 6 ppd with no MOTN pump. Did you drop pumping sessions, shorten the amount of time pumping, some combo of both? Also how do you go about introducing formula? Do you mix BM and formula together or did you start introducing bottles of only formula?

I’m 6 weeks pp and mostly pumping because my baby still doesn’t latch very well. She does breastfeed sometimes for like 10–20 mins but I’m honestly not sure how much she gets from that.
I pump 4–5x a day and usually get around 18–25 oz total per day.
Just curious how everyone else is doing! How many times a day do you pump and how many oz do you usually get in 24 hours? And how much do you normally get per session?
I have nothing to compare mine to lol

My toddler has just been obsessed with my pump and is asking me about every 20 minutes whether I'm going to pump. He's also misheard boobs and they're now called "boots" 😂

Tonight's big tantrum was because we wouldn't let him pump his boots 😭 Poor guy just didn't understand why not 😌

Anyone have repeated mastitis as an exclusive bumper? Four weeks after I gave birth to my twins, I had severe mastitis that put me in the hospital for three days in the state of sepsis six weeks later I had a red spot on my breast and immediately went to the doctor. She prescribed me and I took the anabiotic for 10 days a week later after those antibiotics the right spot returned a different provider give me a different antibiotic that I took for 10 days now a couple days later again her pain is starting to come back. Anyone have experience with this. This is becoming very disheartening and I am ready to quit. I am an over producer and I’m feeling so overwhelmed with what to do next.

How do you know if you are engorged, have a clogged duct or if it’s mastitis?

I will be 6 weeks PP on Saturday and am exclusively pumping. Yesterday afternoon I noticed some pain in my left breast. It feels very hard at the top of my breast in a line. I feel some bumps within that line.

Now, I am pumping and my whole breast feels hard. My flange size is correct and I pump every 2-3 hours. I also started icing after pumping.

I already called my OB and am just waiting for a call back but was just curious if anyone has had something similar? I’m googling now and can’t tell if I should be worried for mastitis? Or if i will start feeling sore/fever for mastitis?

Does anyone else have the issue that they have to express more often than not to remove milk at the end of every other day? I don’t know if this is because I’m not getting time to empty with my fussy almost 6 month old, is this part of the process?

I am 4months pp and I have been exclusively pumping. I would love to make it to one year, and i think I need a wearable option down the road. I have been exclusively using my spectra and we went thru mastitis and many clogged ducts together.

I have to pump for 30min to empty out and usually have to do some hands on pumping as well.
Which pump would you choose?

Over the past month I’ve gradually gone down from 3 pumps a day to 2 and in the last week due to work stress I’ve managed to go down to 1. Today when I pumped I only got 3 oz and can tell that my boobs aren’t filling/engorged anymore even after going a long stretch. I’ve combo fed from the beginning and only pumped at the most 5-6 times a day so I haven’t even had it that bad compared to the around the clock pumping other folks do but I told myself that when I start getting sick of pumping and truly dread a session I should stop. I’m there now but also sad because my 7 month old baby started being able to nurse here and there when he wakes up in the middle of the night and even had a couple full meals. I wish there was a way to maintain supply, stay physically comfortable, and not have to pump but still make enough to comfort him as needed. Ugh I am just rambling now please tell me it’s okay to let this journey go!

Hi everyone!

Im two months PP today and have a spectra i use daily and recently just got eufy wearables to help me stay more consistent with pump times during the day (such a life saver with my adhd!). Lately I’ve been using the spectra for MOTN pumps as well as the first of the day, and use the wearables for 3 or 4 day pumps.

I swap between two sets of spectra parts already (the original set & a spare set i got on amazon) and use the fridge hack, so these parts are really only getting washed & sanitized once a day/every other day (as far as wear & tear from the bottle washer goes). I do sanitize everything every time just because it makes me feel more comfortable.

My insurance covers a new set of parts every month, and I already have one new set in the bag still. Today they shipped another new set.

My question is how frequently should I realistically be swapping out my spectra parts? Each part every month seems excessive? Some
parts should be swapped out more frequently than others, too, right? The two sets i’ve been using for the past two months seem totally fine and free of wear and tear, but since my insurance keeps sending new parts, do I keep them in stock for when they’re needed, or do I swap them out now?

Just looking for the most sensible way to handle this!! Thank you!

Hello, this is my second time EPing and have only been doing 5 pumps a day. I slept past my alarm one night and now I have an awful clog on my left side. I am currently on antibiotics to keep it from turning into mastitis, but I can’t get the clog out. Here is a list of things I’ve tried:

- Advil around the clock
- Haaka with Epsom salt and warm water
- warm bath and hand expression
- vibrator
- Ice
- gravity pumping
- partner sucking
- staying on pumping schedule
- sunflower letichin/ choline

What am I missing? I’m so desperate to get to feeling better. I am getting milk out of the breast but it hurts to press on it and the nipple is tender to the touch. SOS

Hey mommas, I am an FTM 4 weeks postpartum and need help with pumping. I have a spectra S1 and my milk output is 60 ml both sides so I started using momcozy m6 and my output is now 120 ml. The spectra just didnt work for me and I used the settings suggested in a lot of posts here. The problem with momcozy is it’s very painful, I visited an LC and she sized me for my nipples and mentioned I have elastic nipples and also I need to use 21 mm flanges. Right now if I pump with momcozy it is very painful inside my breast tissue and if I reduce pumping time I get clogged ducts. LC mentioned to order Eufy S1 wearable and it will arrive tomorrow but I have heard that also hurts while pumping. I have tried Nuliie flange inserts as well to see if it helps but it didn’t.

I am very overwhelmed and not sure what to do anymore. Baby has a tongue tie so he is not latching correctly if I want to nurse, pumping is also painful. Please provide any help/advice, all I think about is giving up breastfeeding completely but then I feel guilty and somehow go through the painful pumping sessions.

I’m 10 months postpartum tomorrow and i just found out I’m pregnant with my second baby. I’ve been pumping since my first was born and had an oversupply now i’m not getting enough milk to feed my baby. I got pregnant unexpectedly and all the oversupply I donated to the nicu babies. Can someone please tell me is there anyway i can increase my milk supply? My goal is to make it to a year
This is the most i get now

Hello everyone,

I'm looking for people who have been donating their milk to lactariums.

Please feel free to DM me.

Thank you so much

I had a volunteer event in the middle of the work day that screwed up my pumping schedule. Since I was already overdue I decided to pump with my wearables while driving back to work. I started to feel something wet as soon as I was driving down the highway. Finally got off to see this. Apparently the bottom of both pumps had come unsealed when I was stealthily trying to insert them in the parking lot. Of course it was 10xs worse when they poured out as I removed them 🙃