Quote:
Originally Posted by jennylou
For occasional outings, pump after you've nursed. Set the pump up and when you have nursed the baby, put the pump on after you've settled the baby down. If he wakes and wants to nurse more, turn the pump off and feed the baby. Honestly, he's five weeks right now and he's about to go through a six week growth spurt which will seem like constant cluster feeding for a day or two. You probably won't get much pumping in during that time. Don't beat yourself up over it, just try to fit it in as you can. The baby is way more efficient than the pump is and the baby only takes about 85% of the available milk, so you'll still have some left for the baby if he does decide he needs to nurse after you've already started pumping.
I totally agree with this advice. I don't think I pumped a single ounce in the 5-6 week age because he was eating so frequently! I pump occasionally as well, and I donate my frozen breastmilk to a local family with a baby who is a week younger than mine. Get through this next growth spurt, and then when you're ready to pump, do it right after your baby eats, or maybe an hour into what you know will be a long stretch of sleep. Don't confuse your milk supply though, pumping too much extra will trick your body into making extra milk on purpose. Personally, I don't mind. It may be cheating, but hey, it's calories burned. Although I only pump once every few days, I just don't have time, so really the difference is negligible.
I use LoseIt.com to track my calories, and I just let it set my goal and then manually adjusted it to add another 250 calories. I'm finding right now that I just can't eat that much at the end of the day, especially when I exercise. Tonight, for example, I was 6 calories under my goal (and that's after eating 4 chips ahoy cookies for a grand total of 300 calories just to reach it!) and then I did 30 minutes of exercise. It's almost midnight, I'm not going to eat now... so I guess I'll just listen to my body!
I think it's better to do something than nothing though, ya know? Even tracking your calories gives you a better idea of what you're eating. Baby does need you to take in some extra calories to produce milk, but you have to realize that those need to come from healthy veggies and lean proteins, not cookies or ice cream (which are my weaknesses!)