My grandparents were dairy farmers, my aunt and uncle were dairy farmers, so when I was growing up I spent a bit of time in a dairy. I’ve put the cups on the cows teats and have seen the milk flow, suctioned by vacuum and fill up the refrigerated vat. So I guess I’m a little surprised that the same doesn’t hold true for me. I have a type of cup, a pump that delivers a vacuum, so why doesn’t the milk flow??
I want to learn how to express milk so that I don’t have to give up breastfeeding when I start work. It is still a couple of months away, but I like to be prepared. The problem is that it doesn’t work! I get one squirt, then drop after precious drop and then nothing. I reposition and try again and I get some more drops. I turn the vacuum up, I change the number of suctions per minute, I look at photos or video of Nathan, or even Nathan himself, I try ignoring the pump and concentrating on reading or playing on the computer, I try expressing before Nathan feeds, after Nathan feeds, even during a feed, and nothing works. I probably collect an average of about 10 ml of milk in a session, with my maximum around 20 ml. At this rate it takes me days to express enough for 1 feed for Nathan!!
After 3 weeks of trying to express, I have little to show for my efforts besides tender nipples and about 200 ml of milk in the freezer. I’m coming to the heartbreaking conclusion that unless it all clicks soon, returning to work will mean weaning Nathan.
You know it gets easier the more you do it… but if you are interested I can email a huge big long list of tips and ideas… when I first started expressing I couldn’t even fill a 5ml syringe… it took me weeks and weeks to be able to fill a specimen jar.. but the more you do it the better at it you get.
Plus even if the expressing thing doesn’t work out you don’t have to wean entirely to go back to work… email me if you want some more info 🙂