How long can you safely go without pumping or feeding at night? Don’t want to affect my strong supply but also want to sleep (:
Baby is currently 3 weeks old. I’m currently breastfeeding but supplementing with pumping a bit - like one or two bottles per day, so hubby can help out and I can get a break.
Last night hubby let me sleep for SIX+ consecutive hours from ~9pm to 3:30am it was amazing! And he just bottle fed him during the time I was sleeping, if he was hungry. He had around 250ml from three short bottle feeds from daddy at 22:20, 00:20 and 01:50am.
Now I’m worried though- will those three feeds I didn’t give him affect my supply? How often can we do this and get away with it?? I pumped this morning after feeding him to try and make up for the lost feeds I didn’t do - but I know the timing makes a difference so this may not make up for me being asleep…
So far baby has had no issues with nipple confusion or anything despite him having some bottle and some from me directly — even after four days exclusive bottle feeding while I was in hospital, he easily switched back to breastfeeding.
My supply is really good right now, like I got 400ml in 15 mins this morning, but I don’t want that to change!
Any advice on the sleeping gap? Should I avoid sleeping that long over that time period or is it OK because I still fed him at 3:30am and then 5am and 7am?
I’m also considering moving to exclusive pumping bcos I find breastfeeding a bit painful and pumping so easy but I’m not sure if feeding times vs pumping times makes a difference… thanks in advance for any advice.
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It may take a week or two but having big gaps between pumping at this early stage will effect your supply, I had the same issue, once my milk finally came in after c-section I was consistently able to completely fill my pump cups, and I didn’t really research much into EP-ing, I wasn’t really able to BF well, so chose to pump exclusively in the early days, but I just pumped whenever I wanted to and had big gaps between pumping when baby slept like a dream for the first couple weeks at home, and I had a huge supply at first, but after about a week of doing this I noticed my supply drop drastically, talking like half of what it was previously. I had to implement a strict routine, where I wouldn’t go over 4 hour without pumping and now I’m back to oversupplying. Your supply doesn’t stabilise until you’re about 12 weeks pp so it’s recommended you pump every 3-4 hours until then. even if you feel like you’re producing way more milk than you’ll use, freeze any excess or use it for baths.
Starting a decent freezer stash now will be a godsend later on, supply can dip when you’re ill, stressed or tired etc, or you might want to have a night away from baby or whatever, and you’ll massively thank yourself when you’ve got loads of milk in your freezer to fall back on. Best of luck with your pumping journey, it definitely isn’t an easy one! 💕
Can I ask what pump you’re using?
Recently switched from the Nuuliie wearable pump to the Elvie pump, I get roughly the same output from both, but I find the Elvie a lot more gentle on my nips. The Nuuliie pump is pretty affordable, it’s only £50 on Amazon at the moment, it’s pretty decent if you’re wanting something affordable. The Elvie normally costs £500 for the double set, but I managed to get it for cheap off eBay, I like the smart features and that I can control everything from my phone, I’m a sucker for smart tech though, so if you’re not too fussed about that, a cheaper set would do you just fine.
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