I would not have been able to successfully breastfeed for 14 months through exclusively pumping if I had not learned and applied these 7 exclusive pumping tips early into my breastfeeding journey!
Before we get into the 7 Exclusive Pumping tips,
I want you to know that these tips would not have worked if I had not first been COMMITTED to making breastfeeding work!
Breastfeeding is hard work! It’s a full-time job all on its very own!
I’m a first-time mom and I was able to exclusive pump for 14 months because I was willing to stay the course no matter how painful, time-consuming, and exhausting it was.
You can too if you fully commit yourself and follow the tips below!
Post you may also like: 5 Infographics that makes Breast Pumping Easier!
Table of Contents
Here Are 7 Important Exclusive Pumping Tips!
1.Drink Lots Of Water
I cannot emphasize this enough! Drink lots of water!
How much more? double your required daily intake.
Have you noticed the second your baby latches on or you start to pump you instantly feel super THIRSTY?!
Why?
According to Verywellfamily, The reason you feel thirsty almost instantly when pumping is because of a trigger of oxytocin.
A hormone released during breastfeeding, which naturally affects your thirst cues by encouraging you to drink enough water to hydrate yourself and make breast milk.
When I didn’t drink enough water throughout the day, I would notice a decline in my milk supply!
You want to avoid this!
So if you only take one tip out of this entire post, please take this one and drink water!!
2. Pump As Often As Your Baby Feeds
This is another important one!
Why?
It takes about 3 months for your milk supply to regulate,
Therefore, pumping every time your baby feeds or around the time they feed helps your body know:
- that your baby still needs breast milk
- how much milk baby needs
- & how often they need it
It’s basically mimicking nursing at the breast.
After the 3 months,
your body will know approximately how much milk it needs to produce daily for your baby.
Which means, your breast won’t feel engorged anymore because it won’t be overproducing milk, just the amount your baby needs.
3. Eat Healthy
You are your baby’s food source!
(isn’t that crazy?!)
Everything you put in your body, you put in your baby’s body.
Just like during pregnancy. Your baby needs the right vitamins and nutrients to grow and develop healthily.
Also, during pumping, you will be burning a good amount of calories causing you to get hungry quicker.
Therefore, eating healthy will help prevent unnecessary weight gain.
4. Get A Breast Feeding App
This is a MUST!
Why, do you ask?
Breast pumping is delicate in the beginning especially because your pumping and can easily forget or not be in the mood for a pumping session!
Missing a pumping session every so often will make your body think it doesn’t need to produce “that much” milk because your baby doesn’t need it.
Therefore, you will start to see a decline in your milk supply, which is what we don’t want!
Having an app helps you,
- Track the amount of milk you produced on your last session.
- Reminds you too pump.
- Keeps track of when you last pumped.
- Keeps track of your milk supply letting you know if it’s increasing or decreasing.
- Tracks how many times you pump daily.
This is all crucial information when pumping because when you notice a dip in your milk supply, you can go back to the app and see what changed!
If you are overproducing, then great you can start creating a freezer stash for those days when your milk does decline.
**You can also use the app to track how much milk you have in your freezer stash**
You may also like: Exclusively Pumping Must Haves!
5. Get A Water Tracking App
Being that water plays a big role in helping you produce more milk, it’s important to track your water intake!
Getting a water tracking app will help you:
- Set a goal of how much water you should be consuming daily.
- Remind you to drink water.
- Track how much water you have consumed
It’s a great way to see if you are meeting your daily goal!
Also, if your milk supply does decline, you are able to check if it is due to not drinking enough water that day or the day before.
This will help you stress less knowing what is causing a decline in your milk supply!
6. Take Your Prenatal Vitamins
It’s important to take your prenatal vitamins because like I mentioned before,
there are important daily nutrients we need for ourselves and our baby that we may not get from our foods to keep us healthy and strong.
Being a first-time mom or a mom in general, can get overwhelming that we forget to eat let alone making sure its healthy.
This is not ideal when breastfeeding because your baby may take all the nutrients you have left through breast milk leaving you with insufficient levels of nutrients which can cause complications in your health.
You may also like: Best Prenatal Vitamins
7. Rest & Relax
Stress decreases your milk supply!
Therefore, Rest when you can so your milk supply doesn’t suffer.
I know it’s easier said than done but try your very best.
And,
Relax, the more you stress about how much you are producing or not producing the less you will produce.
How can you stop stressing?
By using the water and breastfeeding apps. This allows you to track what you are able to control like, how often you pump? or how much water you drink?
If you are still not producing enough then it’s ok to consider help from a lactation professional or supplement with formula.
Pin Infographic for Later!
I hope you found these 7 Exclusive Pumping Tips helpful!
Let me know in the comments below, which tip you found most helpful or which tip was new to you?