The Struggles Of Pumping... For Breastfeeding Moms

Here back with another blog with The Little Milk Bar. So as you can see by the title, I’ll be talking to you about my experience with pumping. It sounds like an easy task but trust me it is not! Or for me it just wasn’t.

My struggle with pumping was having engorgement breast and my baby not latching at first. When he sucked, it hurt so bad that I didn’t even want him to latch lol. Now imagine having a machine sucking milk out of you and to actually see how it comes out. Like wow! Mind blown.

Before starting, I read the manual that came with my pump and set up everything. One thing I noticed that is very important to do so you can avoid hurting your nipple is getting the right flange size.

Thankfully my kit came with the right size for me. If not, amazon has great deals on all types of pump brands. I did try to use the manual pump but it just wasn’t for me so I actually got a free electric pump through my insurance.

Once I was all set up, I was going to do both at the same time but since it was my first time doing this and wasn’t really sure what I was doing I started with one. I started with the lowest suction and speed even though the manual does recommend the highest at first and then decrease once you have a flow going but, I was a chicken. Lol.

I then increased little by little and at first it felt uncomfortable but once I felt like my engorgement breast was going down I felt such a relief.

I was having trouble juggling when to pump since I was also breastfeeding and that took most of my time when it came to my milk. I pretty much pumped when they were huge which I saw that I was only hurting myself by doing that.

Why? I got a very small scarring next to my left nipple and I know the reason for it was that I was overworking my breast to expressed and I was getting up at 3 or 4am in the morning and to be honest I was half asleep.

I would just plug in my pump and placed the flange without looking if it was positioned properly and due to that, I develop that scarring. It didn’t hurt but it bothered me that it was there and all I did to help it heal was to apply some ointment and ice. I also didn’t have the suction way up just very little so I wouldn’t irritate it more.

What finally worked for me was pump an hour after I was breastfeeding. I will start with the breast that he didn’t latch and go from there. As time went by, it became such an easy task to do and it was actually considered as me time.

I would sit on the couch, plugged that baby up and placed both flange and express as much as I could.

Yes, by week four I was comfortable enough to be hands free and actually catch up on social media. I was even washing the dishes and watching Shameless on Netflix.

One thing that I began to love about my pump was that I was able to expressed so much milk and not only that but my husband got the chance to also feed our baby boy because let’s face it we moms get all the snuggles then dads do.

He might not have milk coming out of his nipples lol but I did want him to also experienced those snuggles I adore so much with him.

You would think it would be easy but in my case it was just a tough cookie who I ended up thanking for helping me with engorgement breast and it also gave me some me time because me time didn’t exist anymore in those first four weeks.

It reminded me that my body was making liquid gold and I was one proud mommy to achieve another task as a first time mom.