To make pumping exclusively work for you, you must initially dedicate yourself to pumping every three hours, with some possible variation at night. During the first week or two, sticking to the schedule is very important. Which should be easy, because you're probably on maternity leave and everyone's still helping you out around the house, so you have a chance to stick to the schedule. After the first couple of weeks you can vary the number of times you pump in the day and still get a pretty good amount of milk for your supply and your back up supply. This is a guide based on my day and my supply, all results may vary but I hope this can help someone.
What you'll need:
Fridge milk storage bottles (4-6 and may vary later)
Freeze milk storage bags (hundreds, lol)
Enough bottles for 12 hours of feedings (this varies)
Step one: the first time you get your milk to come down, take that milk and put it into baby feeding bottles. Usually the first bottles are about 2-3 ounces max. Keep pumping every 3 hours and filling feeding bottles until you have filled enough bottles to last you 12 hours. I have 5 bottles on deck for every 12 hours.
Step two: after you have filled all the bottles you will need for 12 hours of feedings, you can start filling your fridge storage bottles. I recommend enough fridge storage for an entire 24 hour day of feedings. Depending on how much your baby eats, this can initially be about 4-6, 5-6 ounce storage bottles. This number may grow as the baby grows, but if you pump regularly and drink plenty of water, your supply will also grow and the increase will not be intimidating. I keep about 36 ounces of fridge storage on deck.
Step three: when all bottles have been filled for the day and all fridge storage has been filled, I move on to freezer storage. I aim to fill at least one 6 ounce bag per day for the deep freezer.
The system: here is a sample of my day to see how it all works in motion.
9am - pump 9 ounces, put 3 ounces in each feeding bottle, place in fridge
12pm- pump 9 ounces, put 3 ounces in remaining feeding bottles, put 3 ounces in fridge storage bottle, place all in fridge
3pm-pump 9 ounces, put all in fridge storage bottles, place in fridge
6pm-pump 9 ounces, put all in fridge storage bottles, place in fridge
9pm- pump 9 ounces, use this time to evaluate the feeding bottles, use the fridge storage milk to make sure there are 5 full bottles to go into the night feedings, any fresh milk pumped at this time is bagged and frozen
12am- pump 9 ounces, refill any fridge storage bottles used earlier (9pm) to create feeding bottles
I get really lazy about late night pumping, I MAY get one in between midnight and 9am, but essentially my day ends here. I hope this helps!
