Frozen milk supply question?

Question

I keep hearing things about women having a frozen back up supply of 100-300 oz, my question is 'how do you manage to pump that much extra. I'm lucky if I have 20 oz in my freezer

Answer 1

Why would you want a "just in case" stash that large?

I could easily pump that much if I wanted to pump 3-4 times per day and go back to having an oversupply?  But to what benefit? You would have to be pumping that much extra each month, milk changes a lot over tiem.

I can't envision anything that would cause me to discontniue breastfeeding for 4-12 days?  Nothing.  There are safe drugs for almost every medical condition, there is no need to wean if you have emergency surgery etc.

Answer 2

Some women just have a better pumping output than others. Are you using a double electric pump with a high rating, like a Medela Pump in Style or an Ameda Purely Yours? A good pump makes a difference. You can also try pumping one side while your baby nurses on the other to take advantage of your body's natural letdown. Another tip is to pump every time your baby takes a nap. Soon you'll have a big stash, too!

Answer 3

i personally dont understand that either because in order to pump that much you would have to do it in between your childs feedings and you would not only feel like a cow but your body would think you had triplets or something and then you would get engorged any time you went anywhere for an extended amount of time.

Answer 4

It takes a bit of work to get there. I always pumped first thing in the morning and sometimes before bed. I only used the milk very rarely. bag it in small increments, so when you do use it none gets wasted. After you have been pumping for a week or so, your body will naturally produce more milk, so the pumping will become easier.  

Answer 5

Some people are really good about getting up early, before the baby wakes up and when milk supply is high, to pump.  Another way that people can accumulate a lot of milk is that they may be pumping multiple times a day, but the infant is doing some reverse cycling, that is, drinking less during the day (while at child care) and more when at home in the evening with Mom.  With my son doing this, I managed to pump about 1 bottle a day more than he drank - I had about 15 4-5 oz bags in the freezer at one time.  But I never approached having 300 oz at a time.  Having 50 oz or more is enough for me to have gotten extremely worried the few times we had power outages this summer!