3Am Pumping Sessions

I think at this point your sleep is more important. I never had trouble nursing and always had plenty of milk. I am not an expert but when your are well rested and relaxed milk flows better. Make sure you have alot of water and good food. I hope this helps. I didn't get up at night once my kids slept through the night and I had 6.
Goo Luck,
C. B

I know you probably don't want to hear this, but I exclusively pumped for my daughter for 9 months, and I did get up and pump in the middle of the night. I also fought low milk supply and found that in the end, it was worth being up and spending the 10-15 minutes doing that. I didn't ever set my alarm - when my little one got up to eat, I had my DH warm up a bottle for her and feed her while I pumped and then we were both only up for a few minutes. Otherwise, I would have to feed her, then pump, then get her down again to sleep, and I would be up for too long. This way, we worked together as a team, and both of us were only out sleep for a few minutes a night. It will come to an end, that's a promise.

For you, it sounds like she is not needing to eat during the night, so you may need to set an alarm to get up. I kept my pump right next to the bed and sat on the floor, pumped for 10 minutes, put the milk in the fridge, and went back to bed. Most of the time I did this half awake. Once I even fell asleep during pumping! :)

It was difficult for me to finally give up pumping - emotional, and I felt guilty for doing so. I tried to freeze as much milk as I could, but my supply being low didn't allow for a big bank of frozen milk. My daughter got formula for about 3 months until we started her on whole milk at 12 months. She did fine and all was okay.

Good for you - remember, it's work nursing and pumping and providing our little ones with milk. Try to pat yourself on the back for putting forth the effort. It's not easy - and that's no lie. Know that your decision to give your baby your milk is one of sacrifice - even a few minutes in the middle of the night. Give yourself a break - hang in there if you can.

I hope someone has the "magic answer" for you - I would love to keep reading your post in hopes of learning more myself.

We had a little guy who slept too long to keep up milk supply. We started waking him just before we went to bed to feed one last time. It helped tremendously, and never seemed to disturb his sleep. He'd go right back to sleep. It did postpone his wake time a bit, but the milk supply was not a problem.

There are nights I too get up to pump so taht I can keep my supply. I find if I pump right before I go to bed I am ok for 10 hours with out adverse effects. I work full time and pump all week long. I bank what is left at the end of the week so that if I run into problems during the week I have back up.

I find if I get stressed out about it, I have less milk. Drink a TON of water during your wake hours also. I drink on average 128 oz during the day ( 4 -32 oz bottles) and have found that keeps my supply up better then anything!

Good Luck!
S.

My baby never nursed. So I pumped and feed. I would suggest pumping your last pump at about 10 pm (or right before bed). Then wake up about 5-7am and pump again. If you can, pump every 3 hours during the day, every 4hours max. It was suggested to me, if I found my milk supply going low, that after pumping for the 20 min (I pumped both sides at the same time), turn off your machine and wait about 3-5 min and then pump again for 5 min. This will help build up your supply. I also kept a very large cup of water beside my pump. And I drank the whole thing each time I pumped. This also helped keep my supply up. Sleep and keeping your stress level are two key factors of keeping your milk supply flowing. I am a high stress oriented person, so I would literally have to remind my self to breath and relax...multiple times every day!

You can take straight fenugreek to help increase your sipply. Fenugreek is one of the ingredients in Mother's Milk tea, but it's better taking it straight. I got mine at Whole Foods. You have to take 2 capsules 3x per day, but it's really not too expensive and it's sure worth it to build up that supply!

If it were me, I would wake my baby up to feed them because I've learned how to feed in bed and the baby is the best at getting out the milk. Also, my daughter has gotten to a point now where she will root around in the night, we pop in the boob, she eats and rolls over right back to sleep. We are all getting great sleep now!

Some great advice here, I would certainly go to LLL site and keep pumping! It's a wonderful thing you are doing for your baby!

I don't have a good answer for you, but I am very sympathetic. I never had enough milk even before I started back to work, and I used to pump one side at night when my daughter fed on the other side to try to stimulate more production. She didn't sleep through the night until she was a year old, and still often doesn't.

When I went back to work I decided the night pumpings were too much on top of getting up to feed her and pumping during the day. We had always had to give her some formula, and I let her go to about half-and-half formula and breastmilk when I started working.

I hope the night pumping works to maintain your supply. At least when you eventually decide you've had enough pumping it sounds like you'll be able to sleep all night!

Instead of pumping during the night can you try to nurse more during the day? Many nursing moms can continue with good supply without nursing at night but you need to be nursing frequently during the day to make up for it. I would try posting your question on the La Leche League forums. There is a section devoted to working/pumping moms. I am sure some of those moms would have great advice. I believe that the site is down for maintenance though until Sunday.
http://forums.llli.org/index.php

Wow, I've been there. Many people said they could sleep through the night and still have enough supply... I think that's wonderful! Unfortunately, I could not, and it was so hard. I got up for a full year and pumped in the middle of the night, even when my son was sound asleep. And I still couldn't get enough milk. I tried and tried until finally I just couldn't do it anymore.

I think everyone's different. Some people are able to get enough milk when sleeping at night, others are not, even waking up to pump. My sister said Fenugreek helped her. So you could try that. Even with night pumping, Reglan was the only thing that got my supply so it was enough for my son (but it caused me terrible headaches, so I had to stop it).

I think you have to weigh the pros and cons. If you can sleep and still get enough supply, great. But if not, you'll have to decide: will your child be better off with breastmilk but an exhausted mother, or formula and a rested mother? I don't think there's an answer to that question that is right for everyone, because we all have different physical and emotional resources.

Whatever happens, I wish you the best success. You certainly are a dedicated mother to be up at 3 am, and your child is blessed to have you. Good luck!