Breast Milk Pumping

Last Updated on 25 June 2018 by Colette

Over the last 5 years that I’ve been breastfeeding, my experiences of expressing my breast milk have varied.

Ben had occasional bottles of EBM (Expressed Breast Milk) from about 4 weeks old just for the flexibility.  It meant Dave could get involved with feeding and gave me a bit of freedom to go out or have a lie in.  Ben was never bothered by this and swapped between boobs and bottles with no fuss whatsoever.  I couldn’t hand express but Dave was quite skilled at it and often needed to help me express a little excess milk to soften my breasts before Ben could latch on comfortably.  I regularly used Tommee Tippee hand pump and had no problems with it, I could express around 5oz on each side in a good session!

I remember crying when I was in the throes of a sickness bug and Dave defrosted my entire stock thinking he would need it for Ben while I got better.  Why he didn’t just defrost them one at a time I don’t know but I was devastated as Dave ended up with the bug too so I just had to carry on breastfeeding and all my EBM just went to waste!

When I was breastfeeding Chloe I expressed once. Just once.  I had borrowed a Medela Swing (the electric pump) – set it al up, sat there pumping away with it making it’s strange noises only to discover I hadn’t connected it properly and the milk was just being pumped all over the sofa!  GUTTED.  You know the phrase “Don’t go crying over spilt milk” ?! Yeah I did.  I never bothered after that.  On the odd occasion I needed to give Chlo a bottle we just gave her formula.  To be honest it worked better that way as she wasn’t really keen on bottles and seemed happier to have formula.  It was almost as though because formula wasn’t meant to come from boobs she didn’t expect to drink if from boobs if that makes sense?

Now that I’m over 7 months into breastfeeding Amy I haven’t expressed at all.  The pump is sat upstairs in an unopened box.  I haven’t really needed to as I’ve just been able to keep her with me.  In all honesty with two other small children running around the last thing I want to do is sit and pump – especially as the best time to do it is first thing in the morning.  As if my school mornings aren’t mad enough?!  The down side to this is that at 7.5 months she is still very much a breastfed baby and pretty much refuses to take a bottle at all – this is of course find for the most part but does mean it’s tricky to leave her!

This time round I had all good intentions of donating my expressed breast milk for premature babies but my Health Visitor was very negative about it and told me not to take on too much.  Its a shame really as I’ve always been lucky to have plenty of milk so could easily have spared it!  I wish I had known about it when I was feeding Ben as I would definitely have donated my spare milk then!