Breastfeeding and Pumping At the Same Time
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Do you know you can nurse and pump at the same time to try and increase your supply? This is known as parallel pumping, and it’s just as it sounds. Parallel pumping is when you’re pumping on one side while in parallel feeding your baby on the other. This is done when you have a low milk supply and you’re trying to maximize your production while also keeping your feeds as short and sweet as possible. Check out the video above that demos the techniques that I outline below!
Tools: The equipment to make it easier
You will want to use a pump that is either a hospital grade pump or an electric pump, but if you’re trying to increase your supply, you do not want to use a manual pump or Haakaa silicone pump. The goal is to increase your supply so you need to use something that’s going to maximize stimulation and therefore maximize production.
Next, you will probably want a hands-free pumping bra. This is optional, but I will say it is highly recommended. If you are going to be doing parallel pumping, you want to make sure your baby is in a position where this doesn’t make this whole process more complicated than it needs to be and a pumping bra can help with giving you less restrictions.
Tips: The position to make this smooth sailing
When you have your pump in a hands-free pumping bra you don’t want your baby’s body in front of the pump, that’s going to make it hard with the pump tubing and bottle that’s in front of you. Because of this, I recommend not feeding your baby in a cradle or cross-cradle position. Instead you will want to have your baby on the side of you in a football hold. This is where they’re latched on while their body is hugging to the side of your body. You may also find it helpful to incorporate pillows to elevate and support your baby.
If you’re using a hands-free pumping bra, you’ll want to get your pump put on first so you have both hands available to latch your baby on the other side. Unless your baby self-latches well and you have enough support from the pillows, you are going to struggle to hold and latch your baby and then try to get your flange through the folds of the bra to secure your pump in place. So get your bra and pump on first and then get your baby latched. If needed, you can adjust the flange lines up on you with one hand after you’re situated
Tips: Timing is key
It’s know that in order to increase your production, your body is supposed to get a minimum of eight feeds a day. Here’s the mistake many make: we look at eight feeds in 24 hours and that breaks down to a feed every three hours. I’ll be honest, that’s not exactly what we want to aim for. We want this to come from your baby. Your baby should be feeding on-demand and your baby should be giving you the hunger cues to tell you when it’s time to feed because your body should fall into a rhythm that matches theirs based off their needs.
That being said, we want to make sure that your body is receiving adequate stimulation and signaling to be able to produce that. You are going to want to make sure that three-hour window of time is the maximum that you go in between feeds. It doesn’t hurt to offer your breast when your baby may not be really initiating a feed on their own if you are in-between your three-hour window.
If you are approaching the time you’ll be feeding but your baby and offer your breast but they aren’t really hungry, push it off for another half hour or an hour and offer the breast again. Something like that is totally appropriate when you’re trying to feed your baby, so that way you’re making sure that they’re feeding enough, but you’re still trying to encourage them to listen and follow their own hunger cues.
Example Schedule: How to fit it all in a day
Here is a rough outline of how to get 10 feeds in a 24-hour window because postpartum life doesn’t always fit into a schedule and those “planned” feeds don’t happen exactly how you plan for. This will give you some wiggle room and buffer if you can’t hit all 10 for some reason so that you can still hit that minimum of eight feeds. Keep in mind it’s perfectly acceptable to do more than 10 feeds in 24 hours. This template is just ensure you get the minimum feeds with a margin for error.
10 Feeds in 24 Hours:
- 12 AM
- 3 AM
- 6 AM
- 8 AM
- 10 AM
- 12 PM
- 2 PM
- 4 PM
- 7 PM
- 9 PM
These feeds are all outlined where there are no more than three hours in between each feed, but sometimes it’s looking at about two hours. You can use the outline to work with the same time windows but just shift the times around if needed. For example, instead of feeding at 8 AM, maybe feed at 9 AM and everything shifts down by an hour.
If that three-hour window is coming up, you don’t want to start prepping for it at the three hour mark. Try to start prepping for your feed once it’s been two and a half hours. By starting your feed past the three hour mark you risk pushing your minimum of eight feeds in a day back. When all of those delayed feeds add up by an extra 10-15 minutes you are risking getting 7 or less feeds in a day.
Parallel pumping can replace triple feeding
Parallel pumping is something that you can do in lieu of triple feeding because triple feeding is something that is often recommended for a mom with a low supply. This is one alternative to triple feeding so long as you supplement after each parallel pumping session. You’re combining nursing and pumping while parallel pumping so the last component to triple feeding would be supplementation. You can read about other triple feeding alternatives here.