How Breast Pumping Can Help

How Breast Pumping Can Help

For many parents keen to offer their baby the long-term benefits that breastfeeding provides, effective breast-pumping is an important practice in establishing and maintaining breastfeeding. The NHS recommends that babies nutritional needs are met exclusively from breastmilk in the first 26-weeks of a baby’s life. For many working Mums and Mums keen to establish milk supply, effective breast-pumping is a fantastic tool supporting breastfeeding. Of course, seeking advice from a baby sleep consultant will provide you with tailored advice relating to your baby’s routine, including breast-pumping options. Here, we take some expert tips for effective breast-pumping that supports you and your baby.  

What Are Your Reasons For Breast-Pumping.

There are many reasons why parents choose breast-pumping.  Having a sense of what you are hoping to achieve can help you to decide how and when to breast-pump.  Knowing your “why” is helpful in establishing effective breast-pumping.  These might include:

  • Allow dad or other family member or a maternity nurse or a night nurse to feed the baby

  • To provide breastmilk for a premature baby who cannot feed yet directly from Mum.

  • To provide your baby with breastmilk whilst Mum is away from baby due to work or other commitments.

  • To offer relief from engorged, sore breasts.

  • To provide sufficient breast milk or a baby that is bottle fed due to issues with latching on to the breast.

  • To establish and/or boost your milk supply.

  • To maintain supply at a time when your baby is transitioning between sleep routines at night.

  • To produce breastmilk that can be used as an ingredient in your weaning baby’s porridge or other foods.

  • To donate breast milk for premature babies via a milk bank.

Once you have a sense of why you plan to breast-pump, you can make decisions about the best times and methods for pumping.

Best Tips For Breast-Pumping

maternity nurse advising mum on how to breast pump

1. Stay Calm And Relaxed For Effective Breast-Pumping

  • Once you have decided to breast-pump, it can help to stay calm whilst pumping or expressing the milk.  Find a quiet, comfortable place to sit and ensure you have a drink and snack as needed.  Looking at your baby or a photo of them can help.  The more relaxed and comfortable you are, the better your milk will flow

pumped breast milk in the bottle

2. How Do You Store Breast Milk After Expressing

  • It is vital that you are prepared for safe and hygienic storage of pumped milk. Wash your hands with soap and water before pumping.  Any bottles or containers used to store the milk should be sterilised in line with manufacturer’s instructions.   Store the milk in small quantities to avoid wastage.

Your breast milk can then be kept:

    • At home at room temperature up to 6h, pampers.co.uk

    • At the back of the fridge, not the door, for up to 8 days (at 4°C or lower)

    • In the freezer for up to 6 months.

    • use a cooler bag to keep in your room at night

    • Defrost by leaving it in the fridge to thaw out completely and never re-freeze.

breast milk stored in the fridge

3. How Do You Establish Milk Supply?

  • Breast-milk production operates on a supply and demand basis.  The more milk required, the more your body produces.  The hormones that govern this process are most effective with night feeds.  Therefore, if you are breast-pumping to establish supply in the early days, aim to pump regularly and accept that it is normal to produce very small quantities of milk initially.  Persevere, and in time your body will produce more milk.  For efficiency, you can always consider double pumping.

  • To increase supply, aim to pump regularly, but ensure you pump during the night to make the most of your body’s natural milk-producing hormones.

    mum pumping breast milk holding her baby

    4. How To Stop Breastfeeding And/Or Pumping Breast Milk At Night?

    This supply and demand concept is also worth bearing in mind if you plan to pump to ease the discomfort of engorged breasts. The more milk you pump from engorged breasts, the more your body will produce. So, if your baby is beginning to reduce their breastmilk intake once they wean or start sleeping longer at night, aim to pump just enough to offer your sore breasts relief, without continuing to over stimulate supply. This can be done by hand-expressing a small amount of milk.

    blog photos with alt text 1

    5. When Is It Best To Pump Breast Milk When Breastfeeding

      6. How Does Breast Pumping Work With A Maternity Nurse Or Night Nurse?

      • If you are wanting to use a maternity nurse, night nurse or a baby sleep coach, you can still breastfeed! A lot of new mothers find they can sleep better and more peacefully despite being woken to feed if they can rest in the safe knowledge that a professional is caring for their baby and they are getting a well-deserved rest.
      • Once breastfeeding is established, if mum breast pumps in advance or throughout the night, she can also take it in turns with the baby nurse to feed the baby (once on bottle and once at the breast, for instance) or once a supply has been built, the nurse can take over the night-time routine altogether.

      • If you’re considering using a night nurse for your little one, ensure you make your wishes for the night time feeds and routine known in advance, so that you can work together to ensure your preferences are met.

      By implementing these tips, you can easily be on your way to effective breast-pumping.  Like anything, breast-pumping is a skill that gets easier with practice.  And, if you need support or advice, do contact your Midwife of Health Visitor and / or a baby-consultant.  Happy pumping!   

      Have you downloaded your freebie yet? Top 10 Baby Sleep Coach Tips To Help Your Baby Sleep Better Guide! If not, then make sure to click here.

      For more advice on how to help your baby sleep and find a baby sleep solution that works for you and your family, you can check out our  1 : 1 consultation services or our new baby sleep guides which come with free access to my Sleepy Village Facebook community for easy access to get your questions answered.

      Will My Baby Sleep Better If I Feed them Every 4 Hours?

      Will My Baby Sleep Better If I Feed them Every 4 Hours?

      Should You Only Feed The Baby Every 4 Hours?

      I am sure you have heard this before: “If You Feed Your Baby Every 4 Hours, They Will Learn How To Sleep Better.” 

      This comes from the idea that babies only wake up due to hunger and making sure they are ‘not just feeding for comfort’, will make them sleep better.

      There are a couple of reasons why people might think why this would work is

      • The baby is feeding for comfort, and this is unnecessary.

      • The baby must be taught to only feed when they are actually hungry.

      If the baby is actually waking up hungry, then feeding them less isn’t simply going to work. They will initially just cry for the whole time until they get fed.  (Yes this will stop at some point, they will give up on crying – they will give up letting you know their needs). When it comes to feeding your baby, they are going to be exhausted from crying, and they might not even finish their feed. They will ‘crash out’, their cortisol levels (stress hormone) will be very high and they will most probably struggle to stay asleep past their first sleep cycle.

      If they not hungry and feeding for comfort, then we will need to figure out other ways to comfort them, because the need for comfort isn’t just going to go away if we start feeding them every 4 hours.

      Yes, you could ignore their need, but that might not be such a good idea later on. This is why:

      Some babies have a very small appetite and if you feed them less often, you risk them not being able to get enough calories during a 24h period. You are risking them getting dehydrated and getting sick very quickly.

      If the baby is bottle-fed this might stretch their tummies, which might impact their appetite regulations later on.

      If the baby is breastfed, this strategy is risky because it assumes that:

      • The breast always makes the same amount of milk each time, which they DON’T.

      • You can control how much milk a baby drinks in one feed, which you CAN’T.

      • The mother can store larger amounts of milk necessary for less frequent feeds, which is not always possible.

      asian baby girl sitting on gras drinking her formula milk from a bottle

      To summarise this, babies feed frequently for many reasons.

      Just because they might settle better after the feed doesn’t mean that hunger was why it was appropriate to feed them. Feeding and hunger are not always the same thing. We’ve come to think about this with an adult mentality of equating comfort-feeding with over-eating. But while eating too much food isn’t a good idea, it’s not really a principle that can be applied to long breastfed infants, as there are many complex mechanisms to regulate and control milk intake and appetite in a breastfed baby.

      It is more possible to over-feed a formula-fed baby, but as long as you keep an eye on the total daily volume, you still don’t need to worry about it too much.

      This theory is really old fashioned, so please feed your baby if they hungry, don’t let them wait for 4 hours. You can still keep you baby in a lovely relaxed routine without too much interruption to their natural needs. If you stuck or confused, book a free call with me, I will surely help you to work out the right routine for your baby.

      references: Lets talk about your new family’s sleep, Lindsey Hookway, 2020

      So To Answer Your Question Is NO, Your Will Not Necessarily Teach Your Baby To Sleep Better, If You Feed Them Every 4 Hours, This Will Not Solve Your Baby’s Sleep Problems.

      Have you downloaded your freebie yet? Top 10 Baby Sleep Coach Tips To Help Your Baby Sleep Better Guide! If not, then make sure to click here.


      For more advice on how to help your baby sleep and find a baby sleep solution that works for you and your family, you can check out our
       1 : 1 consultation services or our new baby sleep guides which come with free access to my Sleepy Village Facebook community for easy access to get your questions answered.