If you pumped at work till a year...

[litasail]

As we approach a year and I find myself dipping in to my freezer stash more and more every day, I find myself wondering...

If you pumped at work until your baby turned a year, did you manage to pump all of the milk your baby needed through that time?

It seems to me that most people end up needing to supplement (with formula, frozen milk, etc.) and that it's near impossible to keep responding to the pump well enough to make it to a whole year. Just curious how that bears out on this board.

(For the sake of the poll, don't count solids as supplementing - I'm talking about meeting your baby's demand for milk, whatever level of demand that is.)

[elcjet]

I had 500 oz of frozen milk in my fridge and I blew through it starting at 9 months. I was originally a 12 oz/day pumper, but in the end, was lucky to get 4 oz. It made me crazy. She made it to 1 completely breastfed, but I ran out of frozen stash the day after her birthday. Very stressful in the end!

[ssmjlm]

We started supplementing last week at 9.5m. I wasn't pumping enough for the last couple months, but I had a good freezer stash to fall back on. Once I realized the freezer + pump wasn't going to cut it through a year we decided to supplement.

I set rules about pumping for myself too, I didn't want to be a slave to the machine.

FWIW, supplementing has been NBD for E (me, on the other hand, lol). My kid is very easy to please food/milk wise it seems.

[ijack]

I chose to cut down on pumping so many times a day and supplemented.

[havarti]

We supplemented with WCM at about 11.25 months.

[badtzmaru22]

Oh wait, maybe I answered wrong. We never had to supplement with formula, but I did use my freezer stash occasionally. I never had a very big stash, but it was made up of what I had pumped at work. Some weeks I would pump more than needed, so that went in the freezer.

[cilantro]

Feb 18, 2014 11:18:25 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

We started supplementing last week at 9.5m. I wasn't pumping enough for the last couple months, but I had a good freezer stash to fall back on. Once I realized the freezer + pump wasn't going to cut it through a year we decided to supplement.

I set rules about pumping for myself too, I didn't want to be a slave to the machine.

FWIW, supplementing has been NBD for E (me, on the other hand, lol). My kid is very easy to please food/milk wise it seems.

We might be twinsies!  I had 500 oz and should make it a bit past nine months.  

May I ask how you are emotionally dealing with supplementing?  I feel weirdly anxious for when I have to give the first bottle.   

[mpc]

I've been "supplementing" with my freezer stash for a long time. I might've just barely made it to a year, but I had to travel for work last month and didn't have enough in the freezer to cover the days I would be gone. We decided to start giving him formula at daycare. So while I was out of town, he got BM bottles at home, formula at daycare. We've kept up the formula at daycare to make sure there's enough in the freezer for my trip next week so he can still get BM at home. I only bought one can of formula and once it's gone we'll switch to WCM. DS will be 1 in ~2.5 weeks.

I don't know how people are able to keep up with the pump through 1 year. No matter what tricks I tried my output kept falling. Now I'm getting 2oz max per session.

[ssmjlm]

Feb 18, 2014 11:27:55 GMT -5 cilantro said:

Feb 18, 2014 11:18:25 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

We started supplementing last week at 9.5m. I wasn't pumping enough for the last couple months, but I had a good freezer stash to fall back on. Once I realized the freezer + pump wasn't going to cut it through a year we decided to supplement.

I set rules about pumping for myself too, I didn't want to be a slave to the machine.

FWIW, supplementing has been NBD for E (me, on the other hand, lol). My kid is very easy to please food/milk wise it seems.

We might be twinsies!  I had 500 oz and should make it a bit past nine months.  

May I ask how you are emotionally dealing with supplementing?  I feel weirdly anxious for when I have to give the first bottle.   

The talk was 100x worse than when it happened.  I personally felt defeated even though I knew it was NBD.  I pawned the first go off on DH.  I knew I was going to miss bedtime last week, so we decided to do a mixed bottle and see how she did with it.

As for the daycare bottles that's actually been easy.  I just treat it the same as defrosting milk.

I'm very thankful that E hasn't had any issues either.  She makes that part easy at least.

[catbus]

I didn't need to supplement, but only because by the last month or two E was eating more solids during the day, and I had a freezer stash to pull from. I think by the end I "only" needed twelve ounces a day for him (down from his peak of twenty ounces), which I could pump in two sessions most of the time. I went down to one session a couple weeks before his first birthday, and at that point I had to pull from my freezer stash each day. I still have twelve ounces in the freezer. 

[sarabi]

I'm not sure I HAD to, but I got tired of being tied to the pump as much and decided I was cool with a formula bottle a day.

[moopoint17]

My supply started dropping around 10 months so I dipped into my freezer stash. That started dwindling around 11 months so we supplemented with wcm.

[cilantro]

Feb 18, 2014 11:35:43 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

Feb 18, 2014 11:27:55 GMT -5 cilantro said:

We might be twinsies!  I had 500 oz and should make it a bit past nine months.  

May I ask how you are emotionally dealing with supplementing?  I feel weirdly anxious for when I have to give the first bottle.   

The talk was 100x worse than when it happened.  I personally felt defeated even though I knew it was NBD.  I pawned the first go off on DH.  I knew I was going to miss bedtime last week, so we decided to do a mixed bottle and see how she did with it.

As for the daycare bottles that's actually been easy.  I just treat it the same as defrosting milk.

I'm very thankful that E hasn't had any issues either.  She makes that part easy at least.

I'm sorry. I have similar feelings. Like I'm going to lose my 'EBF' trophy or something if I don't make it a year without formula. And after NINE whole months of meeting needs, building a huge stash, etc. it just feels like a bit of a blow. I hate that I feel this way, cause I know it's dumb, but those feelings exist in the back of my mind if I'm honest with myself.

[Deleted]

I had to supplement for the past couple of months. I pumped at work until 11 months and then weaned of the pump by 11.5. I had a freezer stash I used to get me through. I pumped 4 times a day until 9 months and then 3 times a day month 10 and 2-3 times month 11. I started whole milk slowly at month 11 and she is fully on whole milk now at a year but I still have frozen bm so I send some of that each day.

[zarapipe]

I pumped to a year. I was very lucky that my the pump and I got along and I had a great supply.

[ssmjlm]

Feb 18, 2014 11:53:28 GMT -5 cilantro said:

I'm sorry. I have similar feelings. Like I'm going to lose my 'EBF' trophy or something if I don't make it a year without formula. And after NINE whole months of meeting needs, building a huge stash, etc. it just feels like a bit of a blow. I hate that I feel this way, cause I know it's dumb, but those feelings exist in the back of my mind if I'm honest with myself.

I feel like supplementing isn't something people talk about openly in the real world.  We talk here and another FB group I'm in, but it's not something that a lot of mom or even pedi's discuss.

One thing that sort of made me happy was I was talking to E's daycare teacher about it and that we would have to start sending formula and how to label her bottle, etc.  The teacher said that a majority of the kids are all on formula by 9m at daycare.  I don't know why, but it made me feel like well I made it this far.

For me, the best part has been getting the time back and not stressing.  I used to stress over every.single.ounce.  And I hated getting up at 5am to pump.  Just those couple things have made it so much better.

[lishie]

I was lucky and had a fairly robust supply. When we got close to a year, my production slowed down some, but DS's consumption also slowed down, and ended up meeting his demand for milk. I would have been fine supplementing with formula if needed, but I was glad to avoid the extra expense.

[mrsjrd23]

The only time I used the freezer stash was after coming back from a vacation when I hadn't been pumping and was nursing on demand. Otherwise I was able to pump enough and held very rigid to paced bottle feedings and the 1-1.25 oz rule for every hour you are away from baby. After a year, I used my frozen stash to send 2 bottles a day to daycare for 2 months and he had WCM the other times. I just ran out of freezer stash when DS turned 14 months.

[catbus]

Feb 18, 2014 12:17:32 GMT -5 @littlemoxie said:

I'm the sole SS. I pumped twice a day at work at 11 months and got enough for DS (18-20 oz). However, I brought that down to once a day, then stopped entirely at about 11.5 months. This was because I had over 1,000 oz left in the freezer, so I didn't feel the need to keep going all the way to 12 months. I think I could have kept up with him if I wanted to, as I was still pumping quite a bit when I dropped a session. I didn't notice a big decrease until I made it happen by pumping for a shorter period of time.

ETA:  He is a year today and we have yet to use formula or WCM.  I'm lazy and keep putting off the transition.

I was very by-the-book and didn't do a WCM transition until E's one-year well visit. We did try to give him a bit of WCM a time or two in the two weeks leading up to his birthday, but I was weird and wanted the official doctor's blessing before a full transition. I was definitely ready to be done pumping, but I think part of me was sad about not being an integral part of my kid's daily nutrition anymore. 

[CrazyLucky]

I answered before I read your explanation. I said I didn't supplement, but we did use frozen milk. If that milk came from me, which it did, I count that as not supplementing. I made it to a year with each kid, but I celebrated the last day of pumping.

[h]

I am an SS. I had to supplement 3-4 oz. a day for about 3 months with DS1, but made it a year without supplementing with DS2.

[djc315]

I had to supplement with frozen milk around 11 months. Then, his intake decreased as his solids increased, and I didnt have to send a bag of frozen every day. I was able to move down from 2 pumps to 1, and then stopped pumpinh at 1 year. We used the remaining freezer stash before switching to WCM.

[MamaMaui24]

Using freezer stash does not = supplementing to me.

[mie]

Yes, but I always pumped once in the evening and on the weekends to keep up.

[AmyRI]

I answered that I supplemented, since you're including freezer stash. But I'm with MamaMaui24 that I don't think using a freezer stash is supplementing - that's what I pumped it for! And with both kids, I ended the year with milk still in the freezer.

[mpc]

Feb 18, 2014 12:08:30 GMT -5 suzubell said:

I made it with Jack and might make it with Jude, but he's blown through my freezer stash to where I only have about 100 oz left. He's only just shy of 10 months, so we will see. Honestly, lots of snow days where I can BF instead of bottle feed have probably been my only saving grace. We will likely introduce WCM early, though we might have to add formula, too.

The furlough last year probably bought me an extra 6-8 weeks before I had to supplement!

[bugandbibs]

I don't consider frozen milk supplementing. Pumping worked great for me. In 2 sessions I was able to produce enough milk for 3 feedings. This gave me a great freezer stash (and a chest freezer to store it all in).

I pumped until 17 months because my BF goal was 2 years and my kiddo is lactose intolerant with a borderline dairy allergy. After that she drank frozen BM when I was gone and nursed when I was home.

[spidervain]

I made it to a year with both to first 2 (#3 is only 2 months). I had a huge stash left with #2. I always try to pump once a day on weekends to make up for any shortage that might happen throughout the week. I also recorded everything I pumped vs how much she ate each day. I really think that helped me keep perspective on how I was doing when I felt like I wasn't keeping up.

[Deleted]

With the first I pumped for a year, but was supplementing the entire time.

With my second I pumped for a year, and had enough milk in the freezer to donate 700ish ounces and keep her on BM in a dippy until the day she turned 13 months when we switched to cows milk. She nursed until 22 months.

With my third I was laid off two months after returning from maternity leave, but I pumped one day a week until he was 1 because he was at daycare and had enough to donate 500ish ounces. He also nursed till 22 months.

They are all smart, healthy kids.

[lmb5109]

I was able to pump/BF till DD was 1 year & 2 weeks. I started dropping my 3rd pumping session before bed around 11 months and it really made my supply drop which in turn I think made DD stop nursing since she wasn't getting more then 2-3 ozs on my good side at night. I blew through my freezer stash from 11-12 months when my supply started dropping.

With the next baby, I'll keep the 3 pumping sessions for the full year and hopefully be able to BF till 18 months