Question about pumping to maintain supply for BF mama’s who latch when with baby but pump so dad can bottle feed while away? My husband is a SAHD and our daughter turns 6 months old on the 26th and I always latch her when I’m home and then he bottle feeds what I pump when I’m gone at work. Now we have a ton of pumped milk in the freezer and I work at a school so starting June to August I’ll be home for the summer and likely latching her the rest of the time til she turns 1 in September. Now I’ve always consistently pumped 2-3 times a day to ensure I don’t lose my supply even though we have plenty of milk stored, I just don’t want my body to think “oh 10 am baby’s not taking milk out so we don’t need to make it at this time anymore”. I work from 6:30 am-2:30 pm and as soon as I’m home, I just latch her because it’s easier but my question is should I continue pumping 2-3 times a day to ensure I can go the full year and not lose supply or could I cut my middle of the day pump at work if I’m latching her during the weekends and off times or will my supply start to dwindle due to not being consistently taken out every day at the same time? Granted she is starting solids as well and I know breast milk in the deep freezer is only good for a year so I’m just trying to time it to where we’ll have enough to get her through May without my supply dropping because I know once it drops, it’s very hard to get it back. Any other moms go through something similar and have any advice for me? Let me know. Thanks!
You should be pumping as many times as she eats from a bottle while you’re not there to latch.
If it is not a struggle for you to pump you can always keep pumping to keep your milk up so you have it for as long as you want (i breast fed twice and as soon as I stopped/cut down pumping I lost my supply) and you can always donate the extra to babies in need. Always better to have too much than not enough!