Middle of the night pumps…yay or nay?? I want to drop mine kinda

So I’m debating on moving my MOTN pump to basically morning haha! I was originally pumping at 2am for WEEKS but what I found was after like 5-6 weeks I was soooo exhausted I was missing alarms so I moved it to 5am. But then I took over overnights 100% from my husband and since it matches my pump schedule anyways. Well baby doesn’t go to bed until 12:30ish or sometimes as late as 1am so it’s still only about 4-5 hours of sleep. I eventually then pushed it off until 6am but last night he didn’t go to bed until 1:30am like i kept trying but he just kept waking back up for over an hour. Now I’m truly debating on moving my pump to just 7/8am and waking up for the day instead. (Usually i would go back to bed for 1-2 hours after my toddler was at daycare and was sleeping until 10am. Baby wakes around 11/11:30am. Do you have any issue skipping your middle of the night pump? Once i went 9 hours without pumping and got the worst most painful clog ever. But honestly i just can’t do this anymore. I’m sooo tired all the time and its affecting my mental health just by being too tired to do anything with baby during the day so i end up sitting around all day. My husband encouraged a gym membership so im paying so much for Pilates but i can never go cause im way too tired. I can’t keep waking to pump every 4-5 hours. I NEED 7-8 hours of sleep. Especially when baby is sleeping 8-10 hours as of lately. I feel so dumb saying how exhausted I am when baby is sleeping like 1am - 11am. He use to wake at 6am so that made sense but now that he’s sleeping with 0 wake ups i just can’t. I’m just so scared to get a clog or mastitis. What is the longest you go without pumping (or feeding) and how did it go?! Did you end up losing your supply? (For reference I’m 10 week pp, already regulated and make 22 oz a day on average so I’m supplementing anyways so i don’t make enough as he’s eating ~32 oz a day)

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If you cut night pumping all together, it will hurt your supply. You have to decide if that's worth getting some extra sleep. Maybe it is! An alternative is that your husband takes back over night tasks while you pump so you can suffer together 😅

Unfortunately overnight pumps are pretty important for your supply because of the hormone cycle. If you're not overly worried about keeping a supply then id say go for it, you deserve sleep too mama!

I had the same issue and was told by infant feeding team it’s ok to drop it as my supply is established. The window between 2-5 is important for prolactin etc I know, but our bodies are meant to respond to our baby’s needs, right? If they’re sleeping through the night the way I look at it is they don’t need that feed and so it should in theory be ok to lose as well.. I say this as someone who is definitely not an expert but who has set alarms in the middle of the night to pump for weeks and sat there thinking whyyy! I’m sure loads of people will say do it and but I do know how you feel. My boy doesn’t sleep through so I still breastfeed him in the night-small feeds though not a full one like the pump. If you’re really worried, what about reducing the length of time you pump in the night. If it’s 15mins reduce to 10 for a few nights and then to 5 and then stop and it won’t shock your body. That’s what I was told to do for the pump sessions I wanted to drop when I was excl pumping

I should say for what it’s worth - for my opinion there will be 10 people likely saying I’m wrong. And maybe they’re right! I just know how you feel and this is my thought process of ^ we didn’t have breast pumps years ago and I don’t think supply just withered away once a baby slept through the night.. but maybe I’m wrong. I do know that you / we deserve to sleep too and if my boy doesn’t wake for a feed I am not pumping anymore unless very engorged !

10 weeks pp as well. Just my personal experience- definitely not an expert as a FTM. My baby has been sleeping through the night for about a month now. I haven’t done any middle of the night pumps and my supply is enough to feed her still. I do have a Haakaa that I use to empty the pressure first thing in the morning and before bed if I stay up after baby goes down. I store the 1-2oz I get at a time from these sessions. This lets me keep a bottles worth in the fridge and a decent freezer stock.

I’ve never pumped overnight, even when baby has slept through. Unless you have a problem with low supply, I really wouldn’t bother and I’d get the sleep. I wake with full boobs sometimes but never had an issue and baby is now 9 months and still breastfed

I would suggest pumping right before you go bed for 30 minutes then pumping again at 7/8 for another 30 minutes

Also, I’ve noticed that pumping in the night is talked about a lot more in the US. I’m in the UK and it doesn’t seem to be pushed as much here, they more just recommend feeding baby on demand

@Lauren Yeah I know my supply is established too so thinking I am going to try to do 7 hours at least. I know I will never be an over supplier and probably not even “just enough” so we do use formula because I just can’t keep up with how much he eats during the day but yeah I can’t keep going and functioning and especially can’t do them when I go back to work in a few months. I guess I could look into pumping for less time if i happen to wake up but not sure i want to set an alarm. Usually I’ll use my wearable for my middle of the night pump just in case baby does wake up but it never empties as well so I started having to pump for like 40-50 mins whereas I can go about 30 only with my spectra. I did try doing 11pm - 6:30am last night (husband did last night tho since he does night/bedtime on weekends) and I already can tell I feel way better this morning with the extra sleep!!

@Jess yup I usually always try to either pump right before bed OR I will just nurse him to top him off after a bottle before I put him down to “reset the clock” so to speak lol! I ended up pumping last night around 10:30-11pm and then went to sleep and got to sleep until 6:30am so that was nice! I woke up super full but that’s ok! Going to keep trying to do around 7 hours and see what my supply does! The extra sleep made me feel lots better today :)

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