Breastfeeding relationships with my babies have never come easy. Here’s a look at our 10-month journey of exclusively pumping
During my last pregnancy I came across a blog post highlighting how to get breast pumps through insurance. In the past I had rented a breast pump and only used it for a very brief time. We had a new insurance company this time around, so I thought if it’s covered then I’d go ahead and have one on hand just in case.
I ordered the Spectra S2 pump Aeroflow Breastpumps and the experience was extremely easy. I went with the Spectra S2 because it was almost 100 percent covered by my insurance. And I wasn’t sure what my needs would be as far as a pump or breastfeeding goes. Little did I know this machine and I would have a long journey together.
This breastfeeding journey starts the same as the previous three, but happily has a more successful ending!
With each of our children, they’ve been put skin-to-skin immediately after birth and nursed fairly soon afterwards. We would ask for help from the lactation consultants at the hospital during our stay and try to get as much help as we could before taking the babies home. Inevitably, we’d return to the newborn checkup at the hospital, usually two days after we were discharged, to be told the baby had lost too much weight. We would take the advice of the lactation consultants at the hospital and end up frustrated and burnt out and eventually decide to forgo breastfeeding because it was so hard watching them struggle to gain weight.
This time we took a different route. After the return newborn check, followed by a second weight check two days later, we chose to see a private lactation consultant. She’s a retired neonatologist turned lactation consultant, so we were in good hands. Her practice was just beginning around the time our third child was born, so we didn’t have the privilege of seeing her during our previous experiences. Tom and I both felt that having another opinion would be wise. We were frustrated that our experience was following the same pattern as previous times with no real answers as to why.
We had a wonderful visit and talked over our previous breastfeeding challenges and our current struggles. She examined him and his mouth and immediately told us the problem. He had a tongue tie. It was tight and rigid. She clipped it right in the office. Afterward, she weighed him and then helped him latch. We did another weight check after he nursed. We were relieved to know the tongue tie was the source of the problem. And, likely, the same reason why we had so much trouble in the past.
THE NEXT FEW WEEKS: Over the course of the first few weeks, we would see her several times to check in on our progress. We had a baby scale at home to weigh him and that helped ease my mind so much. I could see if we were going in the right direction and when we were making a slip backward. Our first weeks were a blur of long nursing sessions with a nipple shield, followed by supplementing by syringe with breastmilk I collected from the Haakaa. We worked hard on getting a latch without the nipple shield, but it never happened.
At the three week mark, he had another dip in his weight. That week we saw the lactation consultant again. She said we’d have to start using the Dr. Brown’s premie bottles instead of the syringes to get more milk in him after a nursing session. I was disappointed and this is where we almost gave up. We felt like we’d done all that we could and still weren’t having much success. I knew giving him a bottle may make our latching difficulties even greater. But we had to do it.
That appointment was on a Tuesday. We’d see her again on Friday. I came home and got my pump out of the box, and I pumped exclusively for three days and only fed him using bottles. When we saw her again on Friday, he had gained around 6 ounces! So we chose to keep going. I kept the mindset that I had plenty of milk and we had never made it this far before so let’s just see how far we get. Using the Haakaa from the beginning gave me that peace of mind because even without using the electric pump I knew there was plenty of milk. Unfortunately, that handy contraption wasn’t yet available with my other babies.
GOING FORWARD: I asked too many questions of my sister-in-law and friends that exclusively pumped. They graciously listened and offered advice. This exclusive pumping blog became my lifeline about any pumping topic I could think of. I made a schedule that fit around our family life. Everyone pitched in feeding him bottles and we just went forward one day at a time.
I ended up with an oversupply for the first few months and froze what was extra. At the six-month mark my period would return. This, coupled with being down to four pumping sessions a day, put a dent in my supply. I had never used any supplements to increase my supply from the beginning. And at this point I didn’t feel comfortable trying them. I felt that the main cause for the decline was hormonal fluctuations.
I continued with four pumping sessions during the day and began using my freezer stash to meet the difference. That stretched us to the 8-month mark. At that point I began slowly introducing formula. I chose to use the Lebenswert Formula Bio Stage 1 and ordered from this online seller. I had no problems mixing it with breastmilk and Isaac tolerated it well. I had always wanted to use one of the European formulas because of the higher standard of ingredients. The world of formula and all the ingredients can be overwhelming. I felt comfortable with the research in this post and made a decision from there.
At the 10-month mark, Isaac became completely formula fed. I was down to one pumping session of only a few ounces and I felt comfortable stopping. I didn’t experience any uncomfortable physical symptoms from weaning, likely because there wasn’t much left being produced. There were a handful of hormonal fluctuations that hung around for a little while as things leveled off.
In all, I felt extremely thankful for the amount of time I was able to pump. I never would have imagined this would have been our journey. There’s a part of me that’s always felt I missed out on an experience of breastfeeding/pumping with my other children and that my supply was the reason for it. So 10 months of pumping was something I could never have imagined achieving. When things continued to decline in the past, I assumed it was something wrong with me that caused it. Before seeing a consultant outside of the hospital, the possibility of a tongue tie was never mentioned with the other babies or with Isaac.
Throughout our 10-month journey there were staples that I relied on daily or were helpful at specific stages. Here’s a list of my favorite things:
ELECTRIC PUMP/BAG A good-quality pump if you’re exclusively pumping is a must! Had I known how many hours I’d ultimately spend using a pump per day, I likely would have opted for one of the newer hands free pumps. I know they’re more expensive and there’s still some issues with the battery life and output. Hopefully, this will improve and they’ll be more efficient and more affordable over time. They seem like what pumping dreams are made of!
I opted for the pump/bag combo and loved having a bag ready to go with pumping supplies for times I needed to pump away from home or in the car on occasion. I purchased a charging adapter for the car since my pump wasn’t the model that was battery operated.
HAAKAA I can’t speak highly enough of this tool. I wrote a little about it above and also in my baby favorites post.
NIPPLE RULER There are a few different versions of these online. I downloaded a ruler to measure and get the correct flange size. I ended up needing a smaller size than what Spectra made so ordered the Maymom flanges to use with my pump.
HATCH CHANGING PAD/SCALE/APP I wrote a bit about this in my baby favorites as well. The scale as part of the changing pad was immensely helpful in the early weeks when we were tracking weight. I continued to use the app to record my pumping output the entire 10 months.
HANDS FREE BRA I had two of these. I felt that they were supportive and secure and made things so much easier to be hands free while pumping.
COLLECTION BOTTLES I always preferred to pump into the collection bottles and then fill bottles for the day. Whatever was left over I added to storage bags to freeze. These were my favorite bags. I tried a few other brands but ultimately liked the weight and pour spout on these the best. For the bottles, I ordered a set from Maymom with different sizes. There came a time once I dropped the middle of the night pump session where I was overflowing the smaller size that came standard with my pump during the morning session. It helped having a larger collection bottle size for that.
LAVIE MASSAGER This was possibly my favorite item. I had a slow let down and I would use this to help get the milk flowing and during pumping just move it around in different positions to stimulate the milk flow. I did feel like when I used this I had a more output than when I didn’t use it. I also didn’t experience many clogs, but when I did, this broke it up quickly.
LECITHIN I had mastitis six weeks postpartum. During that time a few people mentioned this supplement. It’s said that Lecithin can help make the milk less sticky and help it not to clog. I took it every day until the end of my pumping journey and didn’t experience many clogs or mastitis outside of that first time.
