Reducing Supply

Not like a lot of ya'll need this tip but i'm just sharing my Breastfeeding/Pumping journey.

All my plans after I found out I was preggers had to be postponed and now that bb is here and I feel well, I can resume my travel plans. The dearie said we're going to Japan first to check something out probably next week and when I was told that, first thing which came to my mind was...THEN MY BREASTFEEDING HOW?!

If you don't already know, I am an exclusive pumping mum. It sure is WAY more troublesome because the pump and bottles have to be washed and sterilized everytime it's used. So in the beginning, that's like every 2-3 hours round the clock. It made no sense to everyone why I'm an exclusive pumping mum because I'm with baby all the time!

When I was in the hospital, I had way more milk than most people can produce. He could latch on one boob but the other boob just wasn't made for breastfeeding??? No matter how hard I tried, even with the help of the LC, the nipple just won't come out. Lol. I had soooo much milk and was seriously engorged on both sides by day 2. The engorgement was so bad it went up to my armpits I found it hard to put down my arms cus there was like a huge clogged duct as big as an egg in my arm pit. Thinking about it still scares me till today. My case was so so rare the hospital staff were all shocked. My baby was always choking when I latched him on. So in the hospital they would ask me to latch on one side and after that pump the balance milk out. And for the other boob which he can't latch on, pump the milk out. I was pumping 2-3 hours round the clock since his birth and hardly slept. I did it for almost 2 months and I am now finally glad to be able to get sleep. 

My milk is regulated now, and I have managed to successfully reduced my pumping sessions after my dearie informed me of our upcoming travel plans.

How did I reduce it?
Every 3 days I stretch from pumping every 3 hours to 4 hours. I felt horrible in the process! The last hour feels like 28472012 hours...the time would pass soooo slowly and i'd be in so much pain. I did suffer from fever from the engorgement too! :( Panadol was on standby all the time. There was this day it was sooo bad my fever went up to 39.5! I was so so cold despite not turning the aircon on and shivering under the sheets. But but good news is now I can go 7-8 hours not pumping! Woohoo! ALL THAT SUFFERING....NO MORE! Happy! Which means, I can sleep in peace and also I can travel now! 

So little sessions means my baby won't have enough milk? Not at all!! 

Slightly thankful for an oversupply because I have a deep freezer with over 150 packets of milk I stored. When I'm away, my baby can still be exclusively fed breast milk. The lack of sleep and hard work pumping were worth it. In the 2 months I was storing 5-6 packets of 160ml milk everyday. That's on top of the milk Elroy is being fed so can you imagine how much I produced in a day? Haha. Let me calculate that for you. Elroy 100ml-120ml/session so say 100ml + 160ml = 260ml I pump 8x so almost 2litres a day! Still no fight with Singapore's Human Cow (article here) but hey, way more than the average for sure! I'm really like the Human Cow leh. Pump pump pump 24/7 until my dearie and friends always complain hahaha  

So when I'm away, you'd think I would no longer be breastfeeding. Not true! I don't intend to completely stop so I am still going to pump my boobies 2-3 times a day so my boobies won't stop milk production! I guess I'll be pumping and dumping when I'm away. Probably use the milk to bathe in. Haha. But ya, that's my plan! I don't want to stop expressing milk because if I don't express milk, then my body will not produce milk forever. Until the next baby. But if I reduce the supply and express a lil, increasing the supply when I'm back will still be possible! 

It is possible to increase your supply with Power Pumping!

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