Transcript:
Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to the Milk Minute Podcast. Oh, hey, we’re back in our little cozy studio with a cork floor. We just can’t stop talking about it. It’s very like, I, I’m, I try not to like, Let myself like stroke it with my feet while we’re talking, cuz I know you can like, hear that stuff on the mic, but I just really wanna like run my feet over it, you know?
It’s, it’s so very smooth and quirky. You love it? Yeah. How you been dear? I’ve been okay. I’m pregnant. Yes. So that’s happening. And it’s happening quickly. And you know, the joke is like, thank God pregnancy takes a while because there’s so much to get ready. Just like limitless. You could just get ready forever.
It’s crazy. Yeah. And so I, I’m more of a procrastinator with this kind of stuff, and so I’ve been putting it off and putting it off. And now as time is ticking away, I’m like, oh, you’re like, I’m mom. Almost, almost halfway through. Oh no. Yeah. And the neighbor kids who we’re very close with Yeah. Have convinced me to do a gender reveal party.
But they are planning the whole thing. Oh, that’ll lead you. The children are, and so I am participating. Zero. They said that they are, as long as they don’t burn down a forest, I think they’ll be okay. Yeah. Yes. So I think I will take a video of it. We’re gonna release it on Patreon for our subscribers.
That’s fun. And we will, we will let people who subscribe to Beyond the Boob know about it. So if you are dying to know mm-hmm. If there’s a penis in me or a vagina, You can, you can subscribe and find out. I don’t know, it just feels kind of weird to like, put it out to the whole world. No, I, I, I agree. I, I have lots of mixed feelings about gender reveal parties because really we’re not, I don’t care, but one, like, yeah, I don’t really care.
I. And I think that actually it really sucks when you see videos of them and one parent or both have very obvious gender disappointment and you’re like, oh, that’s forever now. Are you gonna show your kid that? Yeah. Well, and it, it’s kind of funny because people have said to me like, Don’t you wanna find out so you can prepare and I’m like prepare.
Prepare what? Yeah. Like I already painted the room and it’s white with a hint of purple. Yeah. You know why? Cuz I’ve never met a baby before that has a color preference. It’s about me. Well it is. And the reality is we’re not revealing gender, we’re revealing genitals, which makes it weirder. We’re having a genital reveal party.
I kind of wish we’d just call it that though. And just like, Just, just be honest, you know? Oh my God. What I also don’t like is the weird, like things people decide to represent those genitals when they’re like, you know, bows or bow ties. Like, you know, or they’ll be like, have like a tutu or a soccer ball and you’re like, what are you doing?
Like, what is ha like, that’d be very funny if like Mia Ham’s mom. Posted a video of her gender reveal for, for a boy it was a soccer ball and a girl. It was a tutu. And Mia Ham’s like meanwhile back at a World Cup. Yeah, I mean I that, so I think it’s really great to celebrate your baby and to celebrate information you get about them.
It’s like, you know, this cool thing that we can kind of find out. It’s neat, but I think gender binary is stupid and the way that people think about that is really weird sometimes. And also to be fair, to be fair, when I was pregnant with. My first, yeah. I needed to know. Totally. I needed to know it’s okay.
Like, that’s different. I needed to know so I could wrap my head around the pregnancy. Mm-hmm. And I just felt deep in my soul that I needed to know. I, I felt like that the first time too. I was like, I can’t, I, I need all the information I can get. Like, I don’t feel prepared. I just, like, I needed to decide on a circumcision.
Now I know what I would decide, you know? Mm-hmm. Like, there’s less to figure out as far as what kind of mom I’m gonna be. Yeah. And like what decisions I’m gonna make. So whatever pops out, I’m kind of down with, and I, I’ve had enough, I don’t know, I’ve heard people say like, I’ve got enough surprises in my life.
I don’t need that to be a surprise too. I get it. Yeah. So like if, so that’s kind of where I was with, with my surprise pregnancy, my first one. This one, I’m just kind of like, well, you’re coming no matter what. So, Yeah, and see when you get here, and I think, you know, for the most part, parenting is not gender reliant.
You know, like they’re, your kids are all gonna be different and whether or not the sex hormones they have influenced that, they probably will. But in the way you predict, probably not. You know, and, and so like, I don’t know. When I thought about it like that, I was like, oh, it doesn’t really matter. Well, and also by the, by the time you have your second kid, you realize that they’re going to shut up their back through every single cute outfit.
So it almost makes more sense to just keep ’em in a white onesie with a zip up. Just keep the ones with poop stains already on them. Oh my God. Yeah. You’re, the minute you put them in like the cute pink dress with the, in the car seat. Mm-hmm. In the car seat with the bow, it’s gonna be destroyed. And so it’s like we can’t have nice things.
You guys, what are you planning for? No, and I mean, with my son, I made the choice to not. To one, not have only gender neutral clothes and two, not have gender, not have a preference for gender specific clothes. I was like, whatever. I didn’t tell a lot of people about the gender cause I didn’t want boy clothes.
I was like, just give me your hand downs. And they were like, oh, what if it’s a girl or boy? I’m like, I don’t care. Heels. Still wear whatever he wants or she’ll still wear, you know, it’s like, it doesn’t matter. Be naked a baby. So I don’t think they care if it has a unicorn on it. You know? It’s just like I, I was like, just gimme your clothes cuz the baby can’t be naked all the time.
And so my son grew up having, you know, mostly kind of neutral. Could be boy or girl clothes, some that were very boyish, some dresses and skirts cuz they’re fun to dress up in, you know? Well, and also, have you seen the Victorian babies in any of those pictures? Oh, they’re all in white dresses. Every one of ’em.
A friend of mine who’s like my parents’ age gave me some of her old baby clothes because she like wasn’t having any more grandchildren. And they were just like, yeah, these like long white dresses, you know? And she’s like, these are great, because they just poop. No matter what you put ’em in, you can bleach ’em.
That’s what I’m saying. Yeah. And, and like, I, I don’t know, I always just thought too, like, Gender expression’s really unique and kids don’t have a preference for that for a while. And when they do, I just wanted my kid to be able to look at their clothes and be like, what do I wanna wear today? Yeah. You know, I don’t know.
I just, I, I’m a little bit lazy also. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Make those kids plan your party Well. The, so the funniest thing is Lila, who wants to play in the party more than anything. Her dad hates gender reveal parties. I am not surprised you’ve met him. And he is, he cannot stop rolling his eyes. And so I said to, I said to Lila, I think he and I probably have.
Pretty similar opinions. Yeah. I was like, what if we just did like a light, you know, like your dad has all those lights mm-hmm. Wrapped around a tree and he has them like hooked to an app. I was like, we could just do like a light reveal and that way we can have a normal colored cake. And she goes, no, I want to make cupcakes with either pink or blue ice.
And I was like, okay, whatever your call, whatever you wanna do. So I’m backing out. I really love when people choose like different colors. I don’t know. I went to a gender reveal party that was, I think they did green and orange and everybody was like, which is which. And they like didn’t really make it clear.
And I thought it was so funny the whole time because everybody was like excited to be there. Also a little confused. And they were like, wait, but which is what if they’re all white balloons, but it comes out in a balloon animal, so it’s just like a penis shape that comes out of a box or a vulva shape.
See, I feel like this is an, A market that the like bachelor and bachelorette party, like supply people Yeah. Could really expand into, we’re gonna do it like penis confetti coming out of a balloon. Hell yeah. That’s what I’m here for. Yes, a genital reveal party. I want this fetus to be so embarrassed by the time it gets here, it’s got a podcast dedicated to it.
This will make a fast birth. It’ll be like, mom, I can’t be in here anymore. I can’t wait to get out here so I can slap you with my little wet baby hand. Can I tell you, my two-year-old is acting like a teenager recently, so you know, my seven-year-olds gave me the point where he’s like, oh. Mom, you know? And so now Lyra says that too.
Like, I’ll, I’ll give her kisses that when she doesn’t want it. And she goes, mom, Heidi goes fine. Eye roll. Yeah. That’s funny. Well, anyway, that’s what I’ve got going on over here. Excited. Are you gonna invite me? Yeah, yeah. You don’t have to come. Well, if you don’t want to, honestly though, like. If you’re actually gonna have penis or bva confetti, I will be there.
Or if you want me to bring that, you’ll be there with balls on maybe, I mean, bells on May. Okay. I could make ice cubes though, like sh in the sh, you know. Ah, that would be really cool. Come get your ice cubes.
Okay, so today we’re talking about power pumping. We are, I swore we already did an episode on this, but I couldn’t find it, so if we did let us know.
Yeah, we looked. It’s so many at this point that honestly, if we did, we’re just gonna do it again. Yeah, you need to hear it. People don’t do this correctly and they don’t know why they’re doing it, and then they don’t get the result that they want. Mm-hmm. Because they’re not, they don’t understand the assignment.
Yeah. And frankly, it’s not a heavily evidence-based thing either, so it can be a little bit hard to figure out. Yeah. So it, we’re, we’re, we’re gonna talk about it, but first, today’s question comes from, A member of our Facebook group, Sky B, and Sky says, how do I start to produce enough milk to get a freezer stash and breastfeed?
Right now I breastfeed my son, but I can’t get enough to freeze or even store in the fridge for a bottle. I would like his dad to feed him sometimes or be able to leave for more than an hour. Sad emoji. Any tips or tricks would be helpful. This can be really tricky for exclusive breastfeeders, so I’m gonna give you my best tips.
They might not work for you though. We might sometimes, like people come to me for consults. We have to get really creative, but essentially we have to find a time to express milk. That’s not when baby’s eating. So we can either do it on the opposite breast from when they’re eating. And some people are nervous to do this if your, if your baby’s a tube boober.
But just taking like a half ounce or something is not gonna be harmful. Right? So you can use a haka or you can use an electric pump for that, especially if your baby only drinks from one side or an LB curve or an LB curve. I don’t like them, but other people do. I like them more for older kids so they don’t get kicked off.
That’s true. Anyway, so you can use some kind of milk collection system while baby is eating, or you can pick a time when they go a long period without eating, say a really good nap. Yeah, that’s what I used to do. I’d be like, this is the three hour nap, so we’re gonna pump halfway through. Yes, they’re gonna wake up while you’re pumping.
Sometimes it’s also okay, you can just feed them, right? Not every feed has to be a full meal. You know, some feeds are snacks, it’s not a big deal. But yeah, fitting in a pump that way. Or if they sleep through the night, maybe staying up like an extra hour after them to pump. Don’t wake up at 2:00 AM No, that’s dumb.
But yeah, just staying up a little bit later than them pumping and then going to sleep and pool the milk that you’re collecting throughout the day. So if you’re using the haka and you’re like, oh, I only get 10 milliliters each time, use it 10 times, then you have a hundred milliliters. Right, right.
That’s over three ounces. Yeah. So, you know, think, think of it that way. And all you have to do to leave the first time. Is get enough milk for that one trip. Then when you’re gone, you’ll pump milk and bring it home for the next one. Right. And also I like to recommend that people use the haka or the LV curve at the same time every day.
Yeah. So it’s gonna be a lot more effective over time if your body can make it a little bit predictable. And so that way your body will have extra milk at the time that you request it. So if you always do it during your morning feed at like six or seven in the morning, your body will adjust to that and then it’ll always have that extra ounce above and beyond what baby wants.
So it shouldn’t take away from baby. Most people are gonna be more successful in the morning too. Right, because a lot of people in the evening just don’t have extra volume. Totally. Okay, so good luck to you. I think you can do this. Just expect that any new routine is gonna take a couple of days for your body to adjust to.
So don’t be discouraged if the first day or two that you do this, you’re not seeing a lot more milk. And also if you happen to be in the first three weeks postpartum, you don’t need to really stress about this right now. Yeah, I would say just start working towards it now and usually I don’t even recommend starting a bottle until four weeks.
Depending on the situation, but you know, cone a friend. Absolutely. Well, I wanna thank some patrons. Before we jump into content, because I’m super thankful for them. Yeah, me too. You guys are making our world go around right now and you are making it possible for us to continue this passion project and make sure everyone in the world who knows English has access to free breastfeeding information, which is just incredible.
And you guys are really the MVPs. Thank you so much. Yeah. So this week I’d like to thank Stephanie Kosydar, Ashley P, Emily Campbell, Amanda Oborski, Julia Forrester, Jessica H, Molly, and Cindy Kelly. And also we have two patrons that have increased their pledges so they can access the Beyond the Boob content on our Patreon.
So shout out to Chrissy Rodeheaver and Susan who boosted their pledge amount so they could listen to our new podcast Beyond the Boob, which is available on our Patreon at patreon.com/milkman podcast. Or on Apple subscription. Yes, and on Patreon, if you want to join that way, you need to join at $5 per month or more to access Beyond the Boob.
Have you guys ever been listening to our show and thought to yourself, man, I really wanna work one-on-one with Maureen. I do every day that I sit here. Podcasting across from you. Well, lucky for you and everybody at home. I offer both in-person and virtual support through my business and in my business.
High land birth support. I’m dedicated to mentoring you guys through your childbearing year. So that could start with fertility all the way through pregnancy, childbirth. Postpartum. I offer home birth, midwifery services, doula services, lactation support, herbal support, anything you guys need. You even do miscarriage support.
Absolutely. I do. That’s one of the biggest things that is so hard to find, and I think that your people that are local to you are so incredibly lucky to have this service. Thank you. And I just feel really happy to serve everybody and I’m so happy I can expand my services virtually as well. Yeah, telehealth for lactation has been really important through the pandemic, and I think we just about got it perfected at this point.
So if you guys wanna work with me, head over to highland birth support.com and check out what I can offer you. That’s H I G H L A N D, birth support.com. Okay. Power pump, pump, pump, pump. Come on, let’s pump it up. So what, why power pumping? What is it? So l power pumping is well, let me back up. Any pumping is meant to simulate breastfeeding.
Okay, so what power pumping is simulating is a cluster feed, essentially. And when your baby cluster feeds, it’ll look like they feed, and then five minutes later they do something else and then they go back and they want more food. And you’re like, I just fed you little Timmy and Timmy’s like, I don’t care.
I want to eat again. And you’re like, what the heck? And then your partner gets home at the end of the day and you’re like, I fed Timmy 47 times today, and you’re like, okay, how’s that gonna work out for you later? And people start panicking. Yeah. And then guess what happens if you lean into it after a few days?
Your milk supply increases to what Timmy has requested and Timmy chills out a little bit. Yep. And they take a big four hour nap and you’re like, what happened? Yeah. You’re like, Timmy, I was about to throw you out with the bath water and thanks for pulling it together last minute. Right. Yeah. So we can use the information that we’ve gathered from observing cluster feeds to help folks who are either ex.
Exclusively pumping or pumping a lot of the time, or even who wanna just increase their supply when they’re mostly breastfeeding. So typically we’re gonna use power pumps for an isolated amount of time. We’re gonna like, prescribe ’em to you, okay? Because cluster feeding is not every day, all day. Some babies do have a period of time every day where they kind of do that, and you can use pumping to mimic it.
But most of the time we’re gonna see this for about two or three days. Okay. So if you need to dramatically increase your supply, usually what Heather and I are gonna say are, Hey, we need you to find two or three days where you can really, three or four. You’re gonna do three or four. I’m gonna do three or four.
Because day four is the linchpin. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But where you need a couple days where you can dedicate time to this. Okay. Because each power pumping session takes one hour. Yes. And yes. And your body is not a robot. Yeah, and thank God it does not fluctuate easily. Okay. So on one hand people get upset, like, why does it take this many days to Right.
See any improvement? And it’s like, if it didn’t, and if your body responded and fluctuated with every tiny little change that your baby made, we would never have enough milk for anything. Yeah. Or we’d have way too much all the time, or it, it would just be wild. Right. So your body really needs to make sure, yeah.
That this is what you want by sending your body the same consistent message over and over again. Mm-hmm. So it understands the assignment. Yep. Yeah, so what power pumping is very simple. We’re gonna have a normal pump, which is about 20 minutes for most people. A, a regular breastfeed, right? Both boobs, right?
You can sub for a breastfeed. Then we’re gonna wait 10 minutes. Can I say my recommendation? Mm-hmm. In the first 10 minute break, I usually recommend doing this in the morning. Yeah. For people. Same seas. So during that first 10 minute break, I recommend you go eat your breakfast. Mm-hmm. And ideally, you or your partner have made you some delicious overnight oats for four days of this.
So the breakfasts are already planned out. Yes. So you’ve got steel cut or rolled oats with almond milk, with chai seeds, nice dent nutrients. Lovely. So already pre-made cuz you only got 10 minutes. Mm-hmm. So go and eat your breakfast, drink a cup of coffee, and then you’re gonna go back and do your other 10 minutes.
Yep. Pumping. You’re gonna pump for 10 minutes and then you’re gonna stop again. And then during that second 10 minute break, you’re gonna move your body in some way. Mm-hmm. So you are going to do some gentle stretching, some downward dogs, 10 minute walk around the neighborhood listening to an audiobook.
Anything that’s gonna calm you down. Mindfulness meditation. Mm-hmm. 10 minutes guys. Do it for you. Poop. Yeah. I mean, go take a poop, right? And reducing stress is gonna help your letdowns, okay? Mm-hmm. So it’s gonna make this more effective. Then you’re gonna do your last pumping session for 10 minutes, and then your power pumping is done.
Now, often people come to me and they’re like, how am I supposed to do that? I don’t have time. I get it when I power pumped. I usually did it in the car with wearable pumps, and I would just keep the pump on. And I would set a timer and I’d turn it on, turn off, turn it on, turn it off, whatever, do my thing.
Or I would use like my LV strides while I was out on a walk. Or while I was at work and I was like, I have to chart for two hours. I’ll just power pump while I do that. That’s okay. And you can keep the LV strides on. Mm-hmm. Like, you don’t have to take them off during the breaks. You keep any pump on as long as you think it’s appropriate for your setting.
Right. Like I, I literally would just sit there and chart with my Spectras on and be like, whatever. Just turn it off. Or I know people that’ll just bring their spectra into the bathroom. Yeah. Plug it in while they’re doing their hair and makeup. Mm-hmm. On their way to work. Mm-hmm. Like you have an hour, you can multitask, you’re getting ready for work, and it takes practice.
Yeah. And people are so afraid to mess it up that they don’t do any of it. Right. If you did half of it. Mm-hmm. That is still better than nothing. Exactly. In this case, some is better than none. Yeah. Okay. And so I try to remind people of that too, when they’re in this whole. Power pumping, like let’s spend a few days to increase supply.
It doesn’t have to be isolated. Just to the times we tell you to power pump. You could, every time you have a spare minute, you could sit there and hand express. Mm-hmm. You don’t have to save that milk, whatever. It doesn’t matter. But that stimulation on your breasts is gonna be one more message. To your brain to make more milk.
Well, not just make more milk. What you’re actually saying is, I need more milk making cells. Mm-hmm. So every milk making cell that you currently have is already working at capacity. They’re already at a hundred percent. And so what we’re actually doing when we are power pumping is we are telling your body, please recruit and mature more lactoses or milk making cells.
So we can do that. And it takes, that’s why it takes four days, right? Because I mean, that’s not an overnight thing. Your body’s like takes one day to be like, are you sure? And day two to be like, all right, let me get the shit together. And day three, it’s like, all right, here’s some immature lactose ies in day four.
They’re like, I’m doing it. So also, please don’t expect to see any milk come out. Yes. Really. When you’re power pumping. And I think it’s really good to set these expectations that power pumping is not about getting more volume right now. It’s a message. Okay. It’s like when you really want that super cute person to talk to you and you’re kind of creepy sending a lot of texts, like, that’s what we’re doing.
We’re like, Hey, hey. I had a really good time last night. Do you think we can hang out again? Are you there? Oh, you must be busy. Okay. That’s so weird. I just ran into you randomly. I didn’t plan that at all. Right. We’re stocking your, your endocrine system right now. We’re hijacking your brain. We need some more hormones.
And, and it’s really effective. Now, I’m curious, Heather, in your practice, how many times per day do you recommend the power pump in that period? One. Okay. Because people start losing their minds, right? I try to get people to do it two times a day and I say, let’s feel it out on the first day and then gimme a call.
Mm-hmm. You know and let me know. But I, I think it’s much more doable if we have those wearable pumps. Mm-hmm. Especially for the second one that people can do at work or something. Yeah. Well, and also if we start with one for four days and we see no increase Yeah. At all, then I kind of know like, all right, so we could keep doing this.
Mm-hmm. We could change the time of day and see if your hormones respond better during a different time of day. Or we could call it what it is. If this power pumping was too stressful for you because anything else to boost your supply is gonna look a lot like this. Yes. So if you hated every second of it, if you don’t want to do it, then we need to be having different conversations.
Yes. But I know a lot of people, a lot of patients in my practice are like, I will do anything. Sure. And so if they’re like, pumping doesn’t bother me. I’ve got time, I’ve got the desire, I’ve got the goals. Sure. I’m not gonna hold you back. I am going to prevent you from having a mental health crisis over milk supply, but if you’re good, go ahead.
Yeah. Now, What I see clinically is that this is really effective. But I have to say, we don’t have like a bunch of studies that tell us this, right? This is expert opinion, this is physiology that we’re kind of hijacking, but it’s not like, oh, yes, in a randomized systemic review of blah, blah, blah, you know, 10,000 out of 20,000 people.
No, none of that is happening. However, I, I think this is a good thing you can try and I think it’s really easy to be responsive to what’s happening in your body, right? You. It’s not a medication you’re taking that you can’t take back. You know, you can try it and if it’s not working, you can do something else.
Yeah, you can try other things, but also you know who it works the best for I’ve found is people that had a good supply. Yeah. And then had a stomach virus. Oh yeah. Or had some crazy surgery that happened. Right, right. But like they previously had the milk. They clearly have the glandular tissue, but they lost the cells.
Or the cells shrank and killed themselves for some reason.
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Now I have another use for this. Mm-hmm. That’s kind of personal because this is what I did and, and it’s something I occasionally recommend, but it’s kind of a specific circumstance. But for folks who say they’re at work in a 12 hour shift and they just consistently don’t quite bring enough home a lot of the time what we see is those folks have low storage capacity.
They have a hard time getting like a second letdown during a pumping session. But if we turn one of their normal pumping sessions into a power pump, They get letdowns during the subsequent pumps. Hmm. Especially like later in the day when our volume is just smaller. Right. You mean they get letdowns in the other pumps?
Mm-hmm. In the power pump? Yes. Or like overall you usage? No, like during the power pump. Okay. And it’s not a lot, but you know, so what would happen to me is like my 4:00 PM pump would go from two and a half ounces to like three quarters of an ounce, you know, and that’s the one where if it was just a full pump, I would bring home enough to feed Vira.
Mm-hmm. So I would turn that last pump on the drive home into a power pump. And then each little extra 10 minute session, I’d get another half ounce, you know? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Which is not a lot, but at the end it was like a regular full pump. Well, and also if you’re using the LV stride mm-hmm. It doesn’t, and all wearable pumps, pretty much.
Yeah. They just don’t have the suction power to remove all the milk. And sometimes they have just enough stimulation to get an ejection reflex or a letdown. Exactly. Where you can have that internal squeeze. So if you don’t have access to a big, like. Spectra, plug into the wall. Suck your boobies. Yeah, like really good.
And you just have like a weaker, hands free, this is probably the move. Yeah. Well you might have to do that. You might. And, and what I found when I first started pumping, while like traveling for work, I’d wear a wearable pump. It would take 40 minutes of pumping. To get an equal to like a 20 minute pump of the spectra.
Mm-hmm. But I found if I power pumped instead and took those breaks, I got more out of that session. And what is the difference between sitting there for 40 minutes or 60, like it wasn’t really that different, especially for my work schedule, especially with the wearable pumps. And so I was like, okay, if I can get an extra ounce this way, and it’s like less.
Wear on my nipples here. Like, awesome. Yeah. And I do try to recommend that people either use the baby or a spectra or like whatever big pump you have, like the motif Luna, the, the good one. For the first initial 20 minute. Yeah. You know, because we really need that first initial removal of milk in order to hit that imaginary button at the back of the boob that says we’re empty and we need more.
Yeah. You know, that’s what we’re continuously doing. Yeah. But if you never really fully remove it the first time mm-hmm. We just don’t get as much bang for our buck. Yeah. And I think it can be really great for people who just don’t, when they’re like, I just can’t fit in a full power pump for like, okay, do your regular pump or feed with baby or your workhorse pump.
And then put on the wearables for the next bit. Okay. You know, like you can do that while you’re busy. It’s gonna be fine. There’s just, I, I guess like, what I really wanna let you guys know is there’s a lot of ways to make it work and it doesn’t have to be perfect. No, there is no such thing. You perfect.
Wait 15 minutes and then pump for five. You can wait five minutes and pump for 15. Like, the, the recipe for a power pump doesn’t have to be exact. Well, the only way I would say that you’re gonna like, mess it up mm-hmm. Is if you do it as a one-off all the time. Yeah. Because your body is gonna have no idea what you want.
It’s gonna be like what? That was weird. Yeah. The big thing is that if you really wanna like increase your supply dramatically, consistency over time is key. Right? And then people always wanna know, how long do I have to do this? You know? So if I have low supply and I need to power pump to boost it, mm-hmm.
Is this something I’m going to have to do forever? No power pumping is to push you to the next level. And then once you get those milk making cells, The, the ones you’ve recruited, they will then work at a hundred percent. Mm-hmm. And you should be able to maintain that. Yeah. With a normal feeding schedule of like eight to 10 times a day or whatever the heck it is.
Right. And then if you find yourself in a situation where you need more, you do another round of power pumping. Mm-hmm. To get you to the next level. Yeah. And I, I think too, like if you’re observant during some power pumping sessions to kind of see what’s going on and you realize. That say your body’s like mine, and when you wait, you know, a little while and then pump for a short amount of time, you just get better letdowns.
You can be like, oh, I can adjust my pumping schedule then, and my whole pumping schedule instead of every two and a half hours, can be every hour and a half, but only for eight minutes. You know, like you have the freedom to choose. They’re your boobs. You do what you want. They are, and you should be responsive to like your body’s individual stuff, you know?
Mm-hmm. We don’t all have the same storage capacity, the same responsiveness to pumps, the same letdown, reflex, et cetera. And we understand that it is, it is a time commitment and oftentimes people spend a lot of money on this. Mm-hmm. Because you want to make sure you’re pumping with good equipment.
Yeah. That is correctly sized. And so we do have a flange sizing episode. We’ll link in the show notes because we wanna make sure if you are. Going to be pumping for that length of time. You are using a flange that’s comfortable. Mm-hmm. If you can barely make it through one. 15 minute pumping session without being in pain, you aren’t going to be able to keep up a power pump schedule for three to four days.
Yeah. So let’s have a chat about why it hurts. Phone a friend. Fine. Your flange size. Or turn down the suction. Or Turn down the suction. Friends, if you’re at a 12, ask yourself. Why am I outta a 12? Am I really that extra? Am I that extra that I need outta 12 to 11 tap? Oh goodness. Well, I think that’s most of what I have to say.
I’m power pumping. I, I mean really, like this is a tool you can use. And it’s a tool you can adapt to a number of situations. Oh, and if you’re going to use galactic OGs, like herbal stuff mm-hmm. It’s a good time to use that during power pumping. Yes. So, you know, stronger together. So if you are trying to boost your supply, Herbs are a tool.
Power pumping is a tool and it’s better to combine forces and your body is gonna then have the nutrients it needs floating through your bloodstream. Your blood sugar’s gonna be stable from the overnight, right? Nutrition is a tool you should pair with it cuz you’re asking a lot from your body and a little bit of sleep.
If you can get a four hour REM cycle at least once every 24 hours, that would be great. We try. If you are very stressed out and anxious and you need some. Medication do that also. Good because you know, we can link that in our show notes as well. Sometimes a happy accident or side effect of SSRIs is increase in milk supply.
True that. So, yeah. Well, folks, I think that I’m ready to like boost somebody up, give an award and say goodnight. Put that in your pump and suck it.
Oh dear.
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All right, today we have a nomination from one of our patrons, Sarah. She says, I want to nominate my friend Brittany. She recently gave birth to her second son and is amazing. She and I got close when we worked together in 2021 and had our first sons three weeks apart. She shared that the transition from one to two has been tough, but I want her to know that she is an amazingly fierce mama who’s doing a great job.
Don’t worry. I’ll tell her that too. But it would be awesome if she could get a word from you too. Oh, of course she can’t. Yeah. What about the leveled up activist? I love that. Yeah, that’s perfect. You went from one to two. Yeah. You’re freaking crushing it. Your friends are supportive, which is honestly Job Brittany, half the battle.
Good job creating a community around yourself. That’s great. We’re super proud of you. Super proud. Awesome. Well thanks Sarah. That was great. And I’m just, you know, I’m happy for all of you out there. I think you’re all kicking ass. Me too. This really makes my day and I love that you guys are nominating each other now.
Hey, that’s really cute. That’s really awesome. Well, thank you guys for listening to another episode of The Milk Minute, and if you wanna catch us on our new show Beyond the Boob, you can get exclusive access to every single episode we put out on Apple Podcast subscriptions or on our Patreon at patreon.com/milk minute podcast.
All right, happy pumping everyone. Bye bye bye.
