Power Pumping

My supply has decreased significantly and I am wondering if power pumping will help increase my supply? A little back story: I have never produced a lot and am only breast feeding at night into the early morning. So now exclusively pumping during the day.
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Legendairy Milk replied:
Power pumping is a way to boost milk supply by replicating what babies do when they are “cluster feeding” (such as during growth spurts). Since after the first few weeks milk supply is determined by supply and demand, the idea is that more rapidly emptying the breasts will signal your body to make more milk!

It’s important to remember that power pumping is meant to be used as a temporary boost to milk supply (think cluster feeding due to growth spurts) and not a long term solution. If we use power pumps multiple times per day, or daily for long periods of time, our body can become used to it and rely on a power pump in order to produce! Email us at info@legendairymilk.com and our team will be happy to help provide more tips!

What time of day works best for this? Is it best to do it earlier in the day when you’re more likely to have a greater amount of milk? Or the afternoon/ evening when supply naturally dips?
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Legendairy Milk replied:
Great question! It depends on whether you are exclusively pumping, or pumping and nursing.

If you are exclusively pumping, you’ll want to find an hour in the day when you can pump uninterrupted, ideally early in the morning prolactin (the milk-making hormone) is typically at its peak/highest from 1-5 a.m. so doing a power pump within that window really gets a good boost.

If the goal is to pump while also nursing to create a stash or increase supply, the best time to pump is AFTER nursing in the morning. Even though prolactin is at its highest from 1-5 a.m., some increased prolactin is still there if you pump in the later morning hours.

Will my milk supply dip back down after I stop power pumping? Been working 4+ weeks to up my supply and I’d hate to finally get it up just for it to disappear again 😩
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Legendairy Milk replied:
Everyone responds different, and this depends on how long you have been power pumping. If you have been power pumping daily for 4 weeks, then your body may have become reliant on the power pump for production.

If so, you will likely see a dip in supply initially while you body regulates without the power pump, but after consulting with our IBCLC, this is encouraged. Power Pumping should be done 1 time per day for no longer than 7 days, and no more often than once per month.

For more information please email our team of Certified Breastfeeding Specialists at info@legendairymilk.com.

Does power pumping 3-4x a day help with increasing? How many times is it recommended a day?
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Legendairy Milk replied:
Great question. Power Pumping is typically only done once a day, but some parents do choose to do it twice a day. Power pumps are meant to be used as a temporary boost to milk supply (think cluster feeding due to growth spurts) and not a long term solution. If we use power pumps multiple times per day, or daily for long periods of time, our body can become used to it and rely on a power pump in order to produce.

With a Spectra, I change the settings every time to mimic what the baby does. So I try with the first shorter massage mode, then switch to the longer expression mode after 2-3 minutes or when I see a good let-down. (Sometimes I do the Baby Buddha method on the Spectra, switching back & forth every 30s or so for the first few minutes until you get a letdown. Baby Buddha has 12 short pulses, then one long very strong pull in its massage mode and cycles through that until you switch to expression mode.)
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Legendairy Milk replied:
Hi! Thank you for sharing what works best for you!