Disclaimer: As the title indicates, I’m an OVERSUPPLIER, so my experience is not typical. If you don’t like to hear about those experiences, don’t read further. 

Post-pump 6am thoughts and reflections. I overslept and went 8 hours in between my last pump overnight. The sleep and relief of getting out 23 ounces of milk felt great, the anxiety about potential complications did not. I’m going to do ibuprofen and cold compresses as a preventative for clogs and mastitis, even though I don’t feel a lump right now. 

My daily average pumped ounces is typically over 80 ounces and baby drinks 24-30 ounces. I was an oversupplier with my previous child as well. I think it’s just genetics (my sisters were the same) and consistency in pumping. I do not take any supplements for it. I in fact even avoid some natural things I love (oats, coconut water, etc.) that allegedly promote more milk development, because I don’t want that. 

I am 2 months postpartum today and per my Baby Tracker app data (minus the first 1.5 weeks because I didn’t track anything), I have pumped 292 times, for 205 hours, making 4413.69 ounces (1520.25 fed, the rest stored). My full size deep freezer is pretty much full and now I have to figure out what I’ll be doing with the excess milk going forward. I didn’t feel like donating to a milk bank again (it was a bit of work and the payments became a hassle come tax time), but I may have no choice anyway. 

I feel proud of myself. Especially given my previous breastfeeding trauma. With my firstborn at 6 weeks postpartum, a lack of knowledge and bad luck led to a clogged duct, turned severe mastitis with a MRSA breast abscess (over 150 cc/ml of pus taken out with needle aspiration), then emergency breast surgery because the infection was turning septic. I really could have lost my life from “simply” breastfeeding (poor nursing latch, pumping, and an oversupply all contributed). That’s why I twitch when people undermine what goes into any type of breastfeeding (nursing or pumping) and what can happen. After the surgery, I still was able to continue my pumping journey and went on to provide breastmilk for 14+ months for my child and donate over 14,476 ounces in my year of exclusive pumping. If anyone wants to hear the details of what went down medically, I can make a separate post on that. 

In this current journey, I wanted to wait till around 4-6 weeks to start pumping, but my baby had jaundice and bottle feeding was needed to facilitate treatment. They had to feed like a couple servings of formula, which I didn’t love because I was capable of producing milk, so I started with a manual pump in the hospital following the recommended 2-3 hour feeding/pumping schedule. I switched to my Spectra S1 after one week at home. I have since dropped to pumping every 4-5.5ish hours now and it feels so much better. I can’t wait to be able to stretch out pump sessions more, but I’m taking it easy. 

Currently, we do about 90% expressed milk from pumping and 10% nursing as our feeding. The extremely painful latching in the first 2 weeks had me give up on nursing and change to exclusive pumping. About 2 weeks ago, I tried latching again and it was perfectly fine, no more unbearable pain. So we nurse on occasion, but primarily feed expressed milk because: 1) I have live in help with childcare from my mother and husband, so other people need to be able to feed baby, and 2) with my oversupply, I would still need to pump out the excess anyway. Not “emptying” well is how I got sick last time. 

I want to offer my baby breastmilk through at least the first year, so I’ll be continuing towards that goal. I still deal with anxiety about potential mastitis again, but so far so good. Knowing that the updated treatment recommendation for clogged ducts is reducing inflammation with ibuprofen and cold compresses, instead of heat, has made a big difference. 

2 Months Postpartum (OVERSUPPLIER) Thoughts & Reflections