Honesty required

[Sophie_P]

Is expressing very hard to establish? I keep reading things about how it's very hard & it can make you want to give up. And the breast pumps? Are electrical ones better? Any tips /advice would be great just so I can try and prepare for when baby comes x

 

[Gemsy]

I find it quite easy to express, but I know it is not the same for everyone. At the moment I am expressing about 4oz every morning with a manual pump, as Freddie is only feeding off one boob and the other is so engorged, I have to express (plus, I am trying to build up some stock for the festive period!).

If I was doing more, I would definitely invest in an electric pump as the manual ones are a pain in the arse!

 

[CARNAT22]

Hardest thing I have ever done.

Complete nightmare... James would sleep in 3 hour intervals and I'd have to set alarms to express - day and night!!

I felt worn out, stressed out, unhappy and I would never put myself through it again... (well I would if I had to but ideally I'd be able to feed straight from breast next time!)

If you can breast feed then that will make life much easier.

xxxxxx

 

[Emily0505]

Pretty much what Nat said.

It was awful! Alarms set every three hours. Sat on a pump for 1/2 hour! Nightmare!

I hated it. I felt very helpless and vulnerable sat on the pumps.

Its such hard work so if you can bf its less work.

SX

 

[Sophie_P]

See, I'm wanting to do both but not wanting to rush expressing just wanted your personal experiences. Xx

 

[Gemsy]

I can express enough for a whole feed in 5 minutes and he will take the bottle in 10 minutes, versus 30 mins for a breastfeed, so for me it would be quicker so I guess it depends on how easy you find expressing?

 

[kedi376]

I'm not going to lie, it's hard, especially at first. BUT if you get yourself a good double pump and get yourself into a routine it can be done. I ended up giving J about 60% of her bottles breast milk and 40% formula. No matter how much I tried I just couldn't express enough for her.

If you have a double pump you should be able to express for about 15 minutes at a time. But you need to do it at least 6 times as day and at least once in the middle of the night.

The hardest thing is you have to get up to feed baby, put baby back to bed and then stay up to express.

By the time I stopped expressing I found it easy and all fairly normal. With no. 2 on the way I'm really anxious about breast feeding and wondering if I should just not even try and go straight to expressing.

 

[Sophie_P]

I'm wanting to express for the odd night feed and when I go back to work
when I'm home I'll be boobing it. Guess the only thing for me to do is try and see how I get on.

 

[Nomad]

One thing I would suggest is starting to express asap. I waited until LO was six weeks old as most advice is not to introduce a bottle until baby is six weeks old as can cause nipple confusion - however I wish I'd started expressing earlier as I could then have built up a supply by keeping it in the freezer. However as others have said it can be very time consuming and you're so knackered in the first weeks that you might find you don't want to be giving yourself anything else to think about! Good luck with it xx

 

[Mum2betash]

Personally I hated it. Couldn't get on with it at all. I could never express much so gave up and just fed directly from the boob xx
Also the electric pump I found easier as I didn't have to keep squishing the leaver and it killed my hands

 

[cosmicgirl]

I hated expressing and baby refused the bottle anyway

 

[Alexandra84]

Couldn't express at all, not as much as an oz, it was very frustrating. So LO didn't have a single bottle of my milk, ever, only directly from the breast. Ironically your ability to express has nothing to do with how much milk your baby can get out. LO shot up from 45th to 91st percentile in the first 4 months and looked like the Michelin man by 6 months, all on breast milk she got from me.