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- My milk didn’t come in.
- My baby was never satisfied.
- He nursed all the time.
- I couldn’t pump anything out.
- My baby wasn’t gaining enough weight.
- I stopped producing milk.
- My baby didn’t want to nurse anymore.
“I could not pump anything out.” or “I could not pump a lot.”
Breastfeeding and Pumping
Comparing results of breastfeeding and pumping can be a source of confusion. What a mother can express, either with her hand or with a pump, is not a reliable indication of her milk supply. Neither method is extremely effective at removing milk from the breast, and neither will stimulate the breast like a baby can.
Many women can pump quite a bit in the early weeks, when milk production is very high, but as the weeks pass when the supply regulates, they just can’t pump as much anymore. That is normal. A better way to judge that an infant is getting adequate calories and fluids is to pay attention to his elimination quality and quantity and his weight gain.
In the first few weeks a baby should usually have a bowel movement after every feeding, and should urinate about every 20 minutes. After a couple of months bowel movements may slow down to once or twice a day, and sometimes even once every few days, and the baby may urinate every half hour to every hour or two. The urine should always be light-straw colored, although first morning urine may be a darker yellow. It should never be very dark yellow, or scant in quantity, or smelly. The baby should gain weight (the amount of weight varies from baby to baby), but should not lose weight past the first few days (which is normal after the birth while on colostrum and losing fluids accumulated during gestation).
