Pumping & Feeding Schedule: 1-3 Months

By one month in, I realized I was going to be an exclusive pumper [EP]. I still tried to nurse on occasion (and wish I tried a bit harder for the later months when we were able to leave the house).

Funny picture I grabbed while trying to nurse - must have been a sign that she was over it too:

I made an effort to fit pumping in when it worked with my schedule, but tried not to exceed 4 hours between sessions. My goal was to be pump 7-8 times per day, but I never set an alarm or timer. I wanted to make sure I was able to spend time with my babies, recharge myself, and not feel like I was always connected to a pump. I also tried to follow the mantra to pump whenever my babies ate to help establish a schedule.

We quickly set a daily wake time of 7:30-8AM. I tried to wake up just before that and catch a quick shower and bite to eat - which made all the difference! I was fortunate to have my husband home to help for the first 6 weeks (thanks to CA Baby Bonding), followed by my family visiting for the holidays, but by the time they were 2 months old, I was on my own most of the day.

I was so worried about keeping up with the milk for them, I pumped before they ate, with the goal being to pump what they were going to consume so they were getting it fresh, and supplement with formula when there was no more breast milk. As you can see from the picture below - I never let pumping stop me; I rarely sat while I pumped (unless it was the middle of the night).

I also invested in an Elvie Breast Pump to help with pumping on-the-go. While I loved the product in theory, I was never able to make it work for me. I found the suction of the Spectra to be far superior and when I got more comfortable pumping, I would just connect my Spectra in the car or while I was cooking, etc.

Once I learned how much milk/formula the babies needed to consume every 24 hours, it made it easier to "fill them up" during the day and help push for longer stretches of sleep at night. By 2.5-3 months old, they were consistently sleeping through the night.

Our days consistently looked like this:

7:15am: Mom wake up, shower, pump, eat

8am: Twin wake up and eat

9am: Sleep

10:30am: Wake & eat

11:30am: Sleep

12:45pm: Up

1:30pm: Nurse

2pm: Nap

4:30pm: Up and nurse

5:30-6pm: Nap off and on - in bouncer

6:30pm: Nurse, then to bed

9pm: Dream feed

Feeding [Goal: 4-5oz every 4-5 hours]

2am - this went away around 2.5 months unless the girls woke up

7:30am

10am

1pm

4:30pm

7pm

9:45pm

Pumping [Yielding 36-42oz per day]

3am

6am

9am

11:30am

3pm

7pm

9:30pm [RIGHT before bed]