How To Build Milk Stash While Exclusively Breastfeeding

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Are you looking to build your milk stash? If so, you're in luck! This guide will teach you lot everything you lot need to know nigh how to get the most milk out of your pumping sessions. Follow these tips and before yous know it, you lot'll have a dainty stockpile of milk saved up!

It can be difficult to stockpile enough breast milk while breastfeeding or exclusively pumping. While a stockpile is not necessary for near moms, many mothers desire to have some actress milk in the freezer.

You may want to have a stockpile of chest milk ready for when your maternity leave ends. Or maybe you had a rough mean solar day pumping and don't want to have to do it again the adjacent solar day or you only want some actress milk "just in case"

Follow these tips to help y'all build a milk stash and avoid any potential stress down the route.

When to Kickoff Pumping for Storage
Do you demand a milk stash?
How to Build a Chest Milk Stash While Breastfeeding Full-Time

Use a Passive Collector
Apply a Silicone Suction Pump
Pump Afterward Feeding
Prioritize Morning time Collection
Fictitious Feed at Night
Hand Express
Apply What You Need
Add in massage and compressions

How to Build a Breast Milk Stash While Exclusively Pumping

Add in an Extra Pump Session
Increment your supply
Use Formula

Storing Your Chest Milk Stash
More Breastfeeding Manufactures Y'all Might Enjoy:

When to Start Pumping for Storage

This reply will be different for everyone, only in general, I would recommend pumping for storage when:

Breastfeeding is going well
Your supply has started to regulate
You feel confident in your ability to produce enough milk for your babe to consume during the day
If you're going back to piece of work – a month before yous become dorsum is a bully fourth dimension to start getting a niggling scrap of extra milk in the fridge

Many mothers have an backlog of milk in the first few weeks afterward giving birth, and then it tin be tempting to endeavour and collect all of that extra milk while yous have it.

However, this is not something I would recommend doing unless you absolutely have to, as information technology can pb to creating an oversupply, which isn't ideal. There are some ways that yous tin can collect some of this milk without touch on your supply, which I'll talk near in the next section.

Do you need a milk stash?

This is the question I always get – practice I NEED a milk stash?

And honestly – no, virtually moms don't demand a huge freezer stash, and the expectation to practice leads to unneeded stress, overpumping, and often, information technology causes moms to end breastfeeding birthday because they feel they volition never accept "enough".

Here are a few situations where a milk stash would be helpful:

When you are going dorsum to work – even in this situation, I don't recommend trying to accept a HUGE freezer stash. Ideally, you'll pump fresh milk for your baby. If you are going back to work, I would recommend getting enough for your showtime twenty-four hour period back, and then a 2-3 solar day emergency supply if you lot need it. Be sure to apply our expressed milk calculator!
If you lot programme to exit your baby at some betoken with a bottle and don't want to pump.
Emergencies – whenever I talk most freezer stashes, I take a mom or two that say, "I didn't know that I would need a freezer stash, but then an emergency happened, and I'one thousand so glad I had information technology!". These situations do happen, though they are ordinarily rare. If you are someone who wants to be prepared "just in case", trying to get a little bit of extra milk in the freezer is a good idea.
If you lot are trying to stop pumping at a certain point, information technology tin can be helpful to go a good amount of milk in the freezer so yous can terminate.

How to Build a Chest Milk Stash While Breastfeeding Total-Time

When y'all are nursing from the breast full-time, it tin be tricky to know how and when you lot can collect actress milk.

1 thing to proceed in mind is that minor amounts build upwardly over time. Even if you are simply getting an ounce (or less!) from these efforts, you tin store them in a fridge (or a Ceres Breast Milk Chiller) then pool them all together when you are set to freeze them. Yous can likewise use something like the Ceres Arctic Milkstache, which is a nifty way to store milk in smaller amounts.

Hither are a few tips for building a chest milk stash:

Use a Passive Collector

Passive collectors are designed to sit in your bra throughout the day and collect baste milk. These are fantastic for the early days of breastfeeding when you might be leaking more.

Brand sure you empty these frequently to ensure leaner doesn't abound

Here are a few options:

Milkies Milk-Saver
Elvie Catch
Haakaa Lady Bug

Use a Silicone Suction Pump

This is one of the most popular ways for moms to collect actress milk. The most commonly recommended brand is Haakaa.

This suctions to the contrary breast from where you are nursing. It collects baste milk, also as stimulates the chest to collect a piddling flake of extra milk throughout a feeding.

Many moms say that this is how they built upwardly a nice freezer stash in the early on weeks and months of breastfeeding.

Here are a few things to keep in heed:

Continue in mind that these DO stimulate the chest, and they sometimes tin induce an oversupply – use with caution.
Prioritize your baby eating first. Put this on the opposite chest after you've already nursed on it

Here is a neat commodity nearly the Haakaa.

Pump Later on Feeding

This is 1 of the most classic ways to go a picayune bit of extra milk – pump later a feeding. I generally recommend waiting about 15-20 minutes.

While your breasts are never truly empty, sometimes when y'all pump too close when your baby wants to breastfeed once again, it can make your period a piffling slower which babies don't always dearest.

You may not get a lot of milk from pumping later a feed, merely information technology

⭐️ Pro Tip – employ a hands-free breast pump to make this procedure a picayune easier. At the very to the lowest degree, invest in a good hands-gratuitous pumping bra.

Prioritize Forenoon Collection

The morning hours are when your supply will typically be at its highest – so make your prioritize your extra pumping during this time.

Fictitious Feed at Nighttime

If your baby sleeps for a longer menstruation of time at night, you may want to consider calculation in a "fictitious feed". This is where you lot pump at the aforementioned time every nighttime

Hand Express

Mitt expression is a great tool, and information technology can help yous get a little extra milk afterwards nursing OR pumping. I always recommend doing a lilliputian chip of hand expression to get actress milk. Hither is more data!

Use What Yous Need

If you are pumping a lot of milk, it doesn't mean you need to use all of it! Breastfed babies need well-nigh 24-30 ounces in 24 hours, which ends upward being about ane-ane.5 ounces per hour. Store whatsoever your babe doesn't need – start with a smaller bottle and add more than if needed (rather than feeding all that yous pumped and having to discard the rest).

Add in massage and compressions

Massage and compressions are And then benign for helping with milk output. By adding these into your routine, yous might exist able to get a picayune bit of actress milk to store.

Your easily are always your best tool, but if you want a trivial flake of help, here are a few helpful tools:

Lavie – employ TBM10 for x% off
Nurture – this is a hands-free, massaging pumping bra. So helpful!

How to Build a Breast Milk Stash While Exclusively Pumping

Building a milk stash while you lot are exclusively pumping can be tricky, since often you are pumping milk for the feed y'all are about to feed. All the same, if you programme ahead, you can make it work.

You can apply several of the tips I mentioned above, merely here are a couple of additional ones:

Many pumping moms terminate upwards with a pretty reliable routine of pumping. If you notice you are making "but enough", you could try and add in an boosted pump session.

Increase your supply

I know, this is easier said than washed. However, if you lot are able to increase your supply merely past a marginal amount, you might be able to store a little bit extra from each pump session. Here are some tips for increasing milk supply.

Use Formula

Some moms would rather stretch out the length of fourth dimension they offering chest milk – even if they combine it with formula – than simply feed breast milk for as long as possible.

If yous fall in this camp, you could try offering formula for 1-ii feeds during the day and shop the milk that y'all pump during that time for another time.

Storing Your Breast Milk Stash

In one case y'all've pumped enough milk to embrace your baby's needs while you lot're abroad, you'll need to store it properly. Here are a few tips:

Store breast milk in the dorsum of the freezer. This is the coldest role, exposes it to less warm air when opening and endmost the freezer, and it volition help proceed it fresher for longer.
Label each container with the appointment. This will help you keep track of the milk'due south freshness and allow you to rotate through it more frequently.
Freeze in two-iv ounce increments. This will assist you to minimize waste material and keep your stash for longer.
Freeze your milk apartment in the freezer
Breast milk can exist stored in the freezer for up to 12 months, though six months is ideal.

Hither are a couple of posts on storage you might find helpful:

11 Best Chest Milk Storage Bags – Mom-Approved
The All-time Breastmilk Freezer Storage Ideas All New Parents Need to Know!
Breast Milk Storage Guidelines: Tips and Tricks for Success
How Long Is Warmed Breastmilk Practiced For?

Building a milk stash can be tricky if you're exclusively pumping. Still, by post-obit these tips, it'due south possible to build up your stockpile of breast milk with ease and experience more than confident returning to work while knowing that your baby will have enough food while you're away. If all this seems like as well much work or you demand help figuring out how

How To Build Milk Stash While Exclusively Breastfeeding

When to Start Pumping for Storage

Do you need a milk stash?