Pump whenever baby eats. It’s not about how much you get but stimulating your body to eventually make more milk. I didn’t see results right away it took like a week but it was worth it.
If you have to do it longer you can rent a hospital grade pump that is much quieter. Text me if you want I can pass along the contact of who I rented the pump from. I texted a phone number on a Friday night and Saturday by 10 am I had the pump delivered to my house.
Money doesn’t exist for the first few months of the baby and all pumping things count for HSA spend if you have one.
Find something fun to watch or do when you’re pumping. I had some shows and found YouTube of concerts to be enjoyable.
Once per day if you can, try to do a “power pump” where you pump for 15-20 minutes, 10 min break, 10 min pump, 10 min break, 10 min pump to simulate cluster feeding.
Most of all remember, this pumping is not about how much milk you get now. Supplementing with donor milk or formula is absolutely okay. Fed is best. All of this effort will make it easier to breastfeed later (it did for me)
Finally, my baby also lost 10% of his weight and we were in jaundice watch (three times back for a heel prick until it was cleared). The interventions the doctor gives are WAY before there is an actual problem. So staying on top of things is great and exactly what you need to do, but your baby is not being harmed in the process.
FINALLY, you’ve got this mamma. Your baby is so lucky to have you as her mom, you’re doing great.
Two things I wish I’d tried were 1) pump one side and nurse the other (and then switch, obvi), and 2) hand express after pumping/nursing to get any little bit else out. This is assuming it’s more of a supply/milk coming in issue and less of a baby efficiency issue (which it was for me).
It’s also okay to not do that if it isn’t working for you however you want to define “working”. Feeding the baby enough (timing and volume) is more important than following a strict regime. I stopped triple-feeding after 24 hours because whether or not it was physiologically working for my body, it was not working for my life and needs (and thus Larva’s needs as a knock-on). Probably as a result I was only able to combo feed and went to 100% formula within a few months. I have no regrets about that except that I wish I’d known to try 1 and 2 above in the early combo days.
You and baby live in bed/sofa, whatever. Other humans do full care. Nurse plus hakka or similar, offer other side, partner give bottle while you pee. 2h is a lie. It is every hour because the whole thing takes an hour plus. Make partner or parent amazon order more parts plus baby boon cookies.
Also… I supplemented without extra pumping other than the hakka stuff (put down in a mug so it doesn’t fall) and did eventually supply caught up. If pumping is bad for mental or physical health, don’t do it. Combination feeding is a thing. A great thing.
+1 to drink milkshakes! All the easy high calorie liquid foods
If I had to triple feed, we probably would have switched to formula pretty quickly. I didn’t have enough support or sleep to triple feed. Fed is best. It’s ok to try and decide whether it’s working or not after a few hours or a few days. (Even without Triple feeding we switched to formula at 7 months and I wish we had done it at 4-5 months in retrospect)
Do you have a haaka? I would get a letdown from both breasts at once so having a haaka with a very light suction on the other side at the beginning of nursing to catch those dribbles was helpful for me to feel like I wasn’t wasting anything.
Alternately, know if you’re not a leaker some people don’t get anything from the hakaa or hand expressing. (It me). Had multiple LCs try and no once could hand express me at all.
Highlighting this for @Greyweld because something that was important for me was knowing that I got to decide how hard to work at breastfeeding.
And I don’t want to be like, don’t worry about how much weight baby has lost- obvs. you should do what the ped. says- BUT I do think that babies can be a little fluid swollen from birth when you have a long labor and then they lose the fluid. If that’s a reassuring thought at all.
Just jumping in to say that D1 lost 11% of her body weight so I was also told to supplement 1 oz each feeding. We used formula and only supplemented for 2 days and then she was back on track when my milk fully came in. We had a nurse sent by Kaiser to our house daily to do her weight and bilirubin checks. I didn’t use a pump at all until I was prepping to go back to work and getting her used to a bottle. I was a super-producer so I did everything to NOT stimulate more milk production.
I also found triple feeding unsustainable for more than a day or two. For me, I prioritized supply over breastfeeding and fed formula while I pumped. I preferred it this way because breastfeeding became less stressful since baby was getting their calories elsewhere and I’d only work on breastfeeding when I felt up to it. Maybe for you the opposite will be true - prioritize breastfeeding and then supplement, and don’t worry about pumping every time.
Both times my supply caught up after about 2 weeks and breastfeeding got figured out after a month or two.
If what they’re asking of you feels terrible, don’t do it! Your mental health matters too.
Thank you everyone so much, both for the advice and the experiences. All of these things that crop up often feel like they have never happened to anyone else ever and it’s good to see that it’s not.
I got a nap and snuggles and feel a little better.
I triple fed my preemie on and off for a couple months. A few more things to add:
Every 2 hours doesn’t mean you have to do precisely spaced intervals. You can build in a 3h stretch overnight to get a little more continuous sleep, for example, and then do some daytime ones at 1h40.
+100 on partner doing literally everything else for you in the early weeks, including washing pump parts, labelling and refrigerating milk, food, groceries, etc.
If you can take a moment away from logistics… how important is breastfeeding to you? And for how long? Is it some breast milk that you want the baby to have, or is exclusive/majority BM important to you? I found it helpful to do a little bit of mental boundary-setting (eg for 1st kid I was willing to endure more hassle to get him some BM bc preemie and pandemic, but did not care about exclusive.) Maybe do this triple feeding thing for 2 days, or a week, or however long you want to feel it out, and then evaluate?
Hospitals often have lactation consultants available if what they’re telling you isn’t working and you want 1:1 help. There are also LCs who do virtual appointments.
Good luck, and hope you’re enjoying some snuggles too amidst the early chaos.
It’s just starting to. I got 4 ml twice when I pumped without breastfeeding first. Which isn’t much but it was so exciting to get an amount measurable in something bigger than a syringe.
Another data point for triple feeding, in my case due to wrecked nipples from bad latch so she didn’t gain enough within the first couple days, i was determined to exclusively breastfeed and triple fed for a couple months i think? It sucked at the time but has faded in memory now. Definitely see an LC if you can, just for peace of mind at least that everyone is working together and baby’s latch is good. You’ve got this, one day at a time.
I did triple feeds for awhile, my sister suggested just washing the pump parts once a day, and otherwise the pump parts lived in the fridge between sessions. This was helpful for us, to just cut down on the things that we needed to do between feedings. I echo all the others saying fed is best & hope you’re able to give yourself compassion around it, however it goes.
What have you all heard from your pediatricians about the RSV antibody shot for infants? We had our 4 month checkup today and my ped said they hadn’t heard when it would be available yet or what hospital practice would be when it is available (I.e who they would give it to)
I echo all the others saying fed is best & hope you’re able to give yourself compassion around it, however it goes.
