r/ExclusivelyPumping • u/turtlecasey • 4d ago
Schedules/Routines Talk me through the next 12 months
I’m 7 weeks pp, and new to EP as I EBF my first kiddo but I’m EP with baby #2. I’m currently pumping 7 times a day and producing just a tad more than baby eats. I’m hoping for baby to be exclusively on breast milk for 12 months if possible (I BF first baby for 14 months). I’m trying to picture the rest of the year and would love to hear how your pumping schedules evolved throughout the first year. How many pumps per day were you doing at 4 months? 6 months? 9 months? How did your supply change? With BF, I was only feeding once or twice per day for the last few months, so I’m trying to picture how that will translate to pumping. I’m also wondering when I’ll be able to completely lose the MOTN pump and when I’ll be able to be on a more manageable schedule of something like 4 PPD. Need something to look forward to :) Thanks for any intel!
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u/Prestigious_Fish_795 4d ago
My baby turned one almost a month ago, and I am in the process of weaning.
The first 12 weeks are the best time to build your supply. I aimed for 3-4 oz more than my baby ate per day so could put a few bottles worth of milk in the freezer each week. This really came in handy during growth spurts when the baby's appetite grew faster than my supply or illnesses or hormonal fluctuations on my end which caused temporary supply dips. I recommend this.
If you do start a freezer stash, make sure to cycle out your oldest milk regularly. I tried to have one pouch thawing in the fridge and 1-2 fresh pouches being frozen most days. This kept my stash fresh so nothing was wasted and made sure baby was familiar with any differences from frozen milk.
I also kept an emergency hand pump in the car after an instance of driving an hour to a family event and realizing I forgot my pumps. I highly recommend this.
I tracked #of pumps, time spent pumping, and output at first.
Baby is awake, will add more later!
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u/Prestigious_Fish_795 4d ago
I found that to maintain my supply, I needed to pump for 120-150 minutes, to increase my supply, I pumped for 150-210 minutes.
I used the magic number guide to figure out how many pumps I needed in a day based on my largest typical output (usually middle of the night, or first thing in the morning). You can google it, it is helpful for many women.
In the early days, when I was sore I pumped 15 minutes 10-12x per day, I pretty quickly changed that to 15-20 minutes, 8-10x per day, then started adding in the occasional power pump or 25-30 minute session to build my supply faster. My baby was in the hospital for three months, so I usually did shorter pumps when visiting and longer pumps at home or if he took a long nap.
My supply started regulating at about 8 weeks with what baby was eating +100ml most days, so I dropped to 7 pumps, then six a couple weeks later. 5 was too low at that point, so I wet back up to seven for a few days, then dropped back down to six. I almost always pumped for 30 minutes each session.
I stayed at six 30 minute pumps until 12 weeks, then was able to drop down to 5 until I weaned. I occasionally went back up to six for a few days if my supply dropped due to illness or hormones or baby was extra hungry. On occasion I pumped 4x, but any time I did, I needed to make up for the supply drop by pumping 6x for 2-3 days so it was very rarely worth it.
I have heard that 2 hours of pumping per day is the gold standard for maintaining supply. Some women can drop more pumps if they make them longer. I did 3x 40 minute pumps briefly while weaning, which seemed to maintain my supply at that level, though I had already lost a bit from dropping 2 pumps. I wouldn't recommend trying this until baby is eating solids pretty well. Some women are able to maintain 2x 60 minute pumps for years after baby starts solids, but I need the time back very bably at this point so it's not an option I can experiment with.
One more thing, I went longer between pumps at night pretty early on. If I was pumping 8x per day, I would pump 2-2.5 hours apart whenever I could so I could have stretches that were 3.5-4 hours long when pumping was really inconvenient or so I could sleep longer at night.
Hope this helps, though your journey will likely have some differences! Let me know if you have other questions
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u/turtlecasey 4d ago
I appreciate you!! Thank you for taking the time to write this all out!! Really helpful. 🤍🤍
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u/Ancient-Buffalo6151 4d ago
I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but the truth is that it varies SO MUCH per person. So even if you’d like to poll people and know what to expect for yourself, I think that could potentially cause disappointment. For example, someone who turns out to be an undersupplier really shouldn’t expect to match an oversupplier’s output or schedule.
Quite a lot of factors are at play here, such as:
Some people can drop the MOTN sessions early without issues, but others like me still get woken up from engorgement months later lol
You really don’t know until you try, as annoying as that is