r/HumansPumpingMilk

Not sure where to post this. Im an engineering student. I have a passion for designing products that are easy to use to help someone when they really dont want a hassle. Are there any problems you come across, or even just 'it would be so great if i had this' kind of thought. One thing I'm looking into designing are portable and discrete breast pumps (with things in the design that others dont have). Im used to designing prosthetics but this has honestly been on my mind for years, i want to make life with a baby as easy as possible for you guys (who knows how far ill get🤷🏽‍♀️ but i want to try)

Anything, even just a small thing that might help, id love to make it easier in any way i can. Doesn't have to be pumps, just anything really. Lid types? Volume? Shape? Something completely different? Something for prams/strollers? Something for meals, changing tables, something i havent even considered youd need (im not a parent)

Im not a mother, just a student, so if im way off and this all sounds a bit stupid and a bit too much, I'll take the hint👍🏽 this is not limited to just breastfeeding, anything, go for it, id love to hear

I exclusively pump for my 5 mo old baby. Unfortunately, I frequently get clogged ducts. I have been taking Advil for my clogged ducts, in addition to icing my breasts and taking sunflower lecithin and probiotics. But I have started to develop stomach pain due to taking Advil so frequently. So, I stopped taking Advil. What are anti-inflammatory drugs that are easier on the stomach? Has anyone used Celebrex instead?

I’m not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I wanted to ask all the mums who have used a breast pump, which one would you recommend that is good but affordable? I’d prefer to buy the hands free ones.
Also, which baby changing bag would you recommend that is again good but affordable.
Thank you!

Hello! I’m 9.5 months postpartum and usually only pump a few times a week at work if I’m not at home to directly nurse my baby.

Today if had to pump 3 times at work since I would be gone for a full 8 hour day.

I was really looking forward to pumping actually Because I had just replaced the parts on my Rudy wearables, so new duckbills and new diaphragms.

First pump I did with the spectra and it was lower than I thought, but no big deal, I usually get better output on the eufys.

Threw them on for my next two pumps and I’m so pissed. I think I got a total of 2 ounces from both breasts and both pumps. TOTAL.

I got these parts directly from Eufy so I don’t know what’s going on. I noticed the duckbills were different than the last time I ordered them. (My original and first box of replacements were all clear, and this set of replacements was like an opaque pink color) I’ll need to go home and see the diaphragms too, because these new ones don’t look like they properly fill out the space they are supposed to.

Has this happened to anyone else? I already get a pretty bad supply dip on my period but this is something else? Any parts that actually work?

(The spectra having a lower output than expected makes sense. I switched from legendairy to maymoms duckbills to save a few bucks and I will no longer be using these. They do not work for me at all)

I would like to know any advice on getting multiple letdowns. I have the spectra s1 and am currently doing hands on pumping, pretty confident in my flange size, use nipple butter and have tried the lansinoh heating pads. I really only get one let down, unless I pump until that one has slowed and then stop pumping for about 10 mins and pump again. This obviously makes pumping take forever and I sometimes only get the initial letdown still. Just relaxing and looking at pics or smelling my baby's clothes has also not helped. I feel like not getting multiple letdowns is my biggest hurdle right now. Currently making 1-2.5 oz per session, 8ppd, and 7 weeks pp

My sessions usually play out like this:

• First letdown at 2 mins on stimulation lvl 3

• express cycle 56 lvl 5 (I noticed the milk flowed more steadily for me at this lvl), for around 5-8 mins while hand compressing

• shut off and pause for 10 mins

• resume on stimulation at lvl 2, then bump back up to 3 and maybe get a letdown within the first 10 mins, usually no later than that.

I have tried massaging with my hands in stimulation after the first letdown, but it simply does not work. I feel relatively calm when i pump so I'm not sure what needs to be done so please can anyone share ANY tips.

Hey y’all! I go back to work in like 3 weeks, as of now my LO has almost exclusively nursed, and only gotten a bottle as needed. Given this… I am struggling HARD to figure out a pumping schedule for when I return to work. Im a teacher so I can’t just pump whenever, I have to get coverage if it’s during classes. I try tracking her sessions and when she roughly eats but she changes almost daily… so any suggestions??

Hi all,

If you are planning on buying mom cozy breast pumps, I would suggest you to rethink about it. I recently bought momcozy M5( 2 weeks ago) but one of my pump has stopped working.

I tried to contact with their customer support but they have not responded. Don’t fall over hype and do your research before you buy it.

Hi! Thought I would post here because I couldn’t quite find the answer…I am 11 weeks post partum and have been exclusively pumping with the medela symphony…going to try to use baby Buddha to help me more mobile throughout the day.

I am having a hard time figuring out which settings to use to best replicate the medela symphony. Any help would be appreciated. TIA.

Returning to work part time in a few weeks and wondering what are your must haves in your pump bag? What kind of bag do you use to contain everything? What’s your recommended way of storing milk while there? I was looking at the chill bottles but I only live 10 minutes from work so not sure I need one. Thanks in advance!

Our LO was born at 30w1d and is 3w2d corrected today (3 mo!!). I had planned to exclusively breast-feed and pump when I got back to work, but due to her early arrival, we lived in the Nicu for seven weeks. She was clearly small and has been on breastmilk fortified to 24 cal which is why we are using these bottles. She did well with the doc brown bottles in the nicu, but the narrow nipple made it difficult for her to latch on my rather large breasts. We moved to the Nuk perfect match whenever she was able to tolerate a flow faster than the preemie flow, but now it seems like the zero month Nuk flow is too slow, but the med flow is waterboarding her. Does anyone else have this issue with these bottles? It takes her almost half an hour to finish a bottle with The slow flow, and she gets a ton of gas because of how many times she has to pull, and the first couple of times she tried the medium flow, She finished the bottle in less than 15 minutes and had very little gas. However, last night and this morning she got choked up on the medium and/or it was spilling out of both sides of her mouth. Is there a in-between nipple option that I don’t know about? Is there a better bottle we can use? Or is there a nipple we can use that’s compatible with these bottles that might be better? She breast-feeds so much better using this perfect match nipple when she’s bottle feeding so I don’t want to switch to something that will make her more frustrated. Going back to the breast.
Sorry this post is kind of all over the place. Postpartum brain. Y’all get it.🩷

Hello, apologies if this is a dumb question but my wife and I are running out of freezer space in our apt, so I was planning on purchasing a smallish deep freezer exclusively for the milk stash. Just wondering for anyone who purchased a freezer for this, how did you know what size is good? Currently looking at ones that are 2.0 CU, 2.7, and 3.0.

I’m not sure we have room for anything much larger, curious if anyone has a way of knowing about how much that would hold?

She’s currently pumping about 8-10oz more per day than our 2.5month old consumes.

Looking for recommendations of pumping bras that have molded cups/ lined cups with built in padding for extra support and to hid nipples through shirt.

I'm pregnant with my second now and I want to get rid of all my kindred bravely bras from my first pregnancy. I didn't realize this until I went back to work, but they all show my nipples even with those flimsy loose pads. I hated them so much. Why are there no pumping bras that feel like actual bras!

Edit to add: when I say pumping bras, I mean pumping bras! Nursing and pumping bras are not interchangeable. I am referring to pumping bras that support flanges.

Hello! FTM here, very grateful to have found this community to help me through my breastfeeding journey. We are traveling soon, our first flight with our LO who will be 4 months old, and I'm trying to figure out a solid pumping and feeding plan for our vacation. Any advice or recommendations would be appreciated.

Background: LO will be 4 months old when we travel. Currently LO feeds up to 8x/day, total ~25-30 oz/day, and is combo fed (breastmilk during the day, formula overnight). I pump 6x/day, every 4-5 hours.

Travel Plans: We are traveling from Southern California to Hawaii

• Estimated transit time one-way: ~8.5 hours (20 mins to airport, 1 hour airport wait, ~6 hour flight, ~1 hour from airport to hotel)
• Total stay: 5 nights

On the plane/in transit:

• Pumping:
  • Likely to pump 2-3x total
  • Pump with Eufy, store milk in Ceres Chill
  • Use pump wipes to clean Eufy between pumps, store parts in cooler (Yeti Hooper 8)
• Feeding:
  • Likely to feed 4-5x total (counting takeoff and landing)
  • Pack ready-to-feed formula for these feeds, keep sealed at room temp
  • Pack 5-6 bottles for these feeds
  • Store any half opened formula bottles in cooler

Daily feeds:

• Bottles
  • Bring 8 (?) bottles to minimize washing
• Pumping:
  • Pump with Spectra when in hotel room, store in milk storage bags
  • Pump with Eufy when on the go, store in Ceres then transfer when back at hotel
  • Store bags in hotel fridge (need to confirm fridge availability/temp); backup - store in cooler and refill ice
• Feeding:
  • Place pickup order for ready-to-feed formula at local Target
  • Feed pumped breastmilk during the day
  • Prep bottles using pumped breastmilk
  • Bring prepped bottles in Yeti when we leave the hotel, heat with Papabalic bottle warmer (bring portable charger to help keep it charged), bring pump wipes (?) to wipe down bottle warmer between feeds

Bottle washing:

• Probably where I have the most questions. We went on a staycation and I hand washed our Pigeon bottles with a Momcozy travel bottle washing kit and Dapple soap. This went badly, the bottles had a lot of milk fat leftover on them and took forever to air dry on the small drying rack.
• How should I change this setup? Should I instead soak all bottle parts in a basin or ziploc, scrub w/brush, rinse, and dry on a mat? Should I use a regular bottle brush with bristles instead of the silicone brushes in the Momcozy kit? Would love any product recommendations here.

Questions:

• Should I bring any frozen breastmilk on this trip just in case? I have a freezer stash and I'm wondering if I should bring any backup in case my pump volume decreases for any reason.
• Did I miss anything? Anything I should confirm with the hotel/flight?

Thanks!

I have been exclusively pumping for 6.5 months now. I wanted to make it 1 year, baby wouldn’t latch but original goal was to EBF for one year, but we obviously had to pivot.

Then my supply dipped and I haven’t been able to make enough for my baby, so after all the trials we finally found a formula he could tolerate and he’s been combo fed ever since.

Anyways, I’m so over it. I’ve constantly gotten clogs and mastitis- I recently hit a peak on milk supply and thought I had things figured out and was looking forward to the last 6 months of our pumping journey because it was looking up.

Wellllll, now baby is crawling and climbing all over me and way more mobile and I’m home alone so it makes pumping nearly impossible. I’ve had more clogs and another dip in supply in the last 2 weeks since he’s started crawling than ever before.

I wanted so badly to provide my milk for my baby for a year but I’m so tired of pumping and feel I’m losing out on precious time with him each day as well as I feel locked to my couch, wearables don’t work for me unfortunately.

Now all this being said, I know I can just wean and hang up the pump and that it’s okay. But why am I so sad about it and why am I having such a hard time actually doing it? I like refuse to quit even though I know it might be best and baby is fine on formula.

Ugh idk what I’m looking for here, maybe some reassurance and solidarity I guess.

If you read this far, thank you :) just needed to rant I guess.

Hi Mommas, I need some advice. I am back to work as a restaurant server and at my work, we don’t have a breaker. In short, it’s really hard to find time to pump. I work 5-7 hrs shifts and pump right away when I can. I know we are allowed by law to take a break and pump but I really do not want to miss out on tables/money. I only work 3 days a week. When I’m at home, my LO is constantly feeding from my breast and I even sometimes pump after feeding her even though I only get a little bit. I have noticed a decrease in my milk supply when I pump after work (from 8-9oz to 3-5oz) and not sure if this will be my regular supply. My LO eats so much and I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep up with her.