Any EBF mums building a stash?
Any other EBF mums pump to build a freezer stash?
If so, how old is your baby, how often do you pump, and roughly how much do you get per session?
I’m nearly 5 months into breastfeeding and trying to build a small emergency stash. I know pump output isn’t a good indicator of supply, but I’m curious what other exclusively breastfeeding mums tend to get when pumping between feeds.
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I only started building a stash at 6 months pp when I got hit with mastitis and my cycle coming back 3 days of eachother. That’s when I realized I was screwed and needed some stashed just in case of another emergency. My son was sleeping through the night, so I started pumping in the middle of the night, and built a stash from those pumps.
This is just my experience, but trying to do caused me some trouble. She doesn’t want to take a bottle anyways, when she starts eating I’m planning on pumping a little bit when she would normally eat to have some to mix with her food, but I was just engorged all the time and it started a vicious cycle. She was having trouble latching and gagging, getting sprayed in the face all the time.
I get 5-6oz total from a 15min pumping session. My baby is only 4 weeks, I’m doing one pump in the morning about every other day to a few times a week to start to build a stash so that we can start introducing a bottle around 6 weeks and build a foundation for when I start working again in August.
I started building a stash around 6m when he started sleeping better at night (I think because of solids?). I would pump after he went to bed and before I went to bed as I knew I’d get many hours without a feed. I wouldn’t get much, 2-3oz. But I would store in the fridge and add a few nights together in a jar before I bagged milk. I only pumped 6-10m and we often used bottles of fresh milk when we were out and about (which was basically every day). I only pumped the one time a day and I had over 210oz.
But to be honest… I never really used the frozen stuff. Because whenever you feed a bottle you should pump to tell your body that baby is feeding and to produce more milk. I was so worried about ruining my supply that it was just easier to nurse. All of my frozen milk has since “expired” (over 12m in a deep freezer). So now it’s just bath water or for his skin.
I feel like I stressed to make it and I’m not even getting to enjoy the benefits of my liquid gold.
I did not Ben I first had my son and got 600ozs before I quit pumping. I only did it as a just incase I wasn’t able to breastfeed for long but I’m now 10 months in and still doing great thankfully. I ended up giving it all away at 5 months pp
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