Hi. My dd was two months premature; born in November 2006. I have fed her expressed breastmilk since that time and am going to switch over to formula beginning mid-February. I am concerned about engorgement and effects from stopping the bf'ing, and was wondering if anyone who recently stopped bf'ing had advice on how they went about doing it. I've heard that I should pump less, but am not sure how to do this. For example, I pump 6x a day right now. How many sessions should I cut back to at first, and for how long? Then, how many do I cut back again until I stop completely? I hope this makes sense, and thanks so much for any help.

First off, congrats on expressing for 3 months! I've been expressing for almost 7 so I know what you are going through. I too am just starting to wean from the pump. There are 2 methods that I'm aware of.

Pick the feed you most want to get rid of and reduce the length of time you pump by 5 minutes and do that for 3 - 4 days, then reduce by another 5 miutes and do that for 3 - 4 days and so on until that pump is gone. Then pick the next pump and start all over again.

Or if you normally pump at 5 a and want to merge it with your 7a pump, then instead of pumping at 5, pump at 5:15 or 5:30 (whichever you can take) and keep the 7a pump, and keep backing up the 5 a pump until it is at the same time was the 7 a pump again with the pumping at the same time for 3 - 4 days so your body can get used to it.

There is lots of info over at kelly mom...about the engorgement...when ds was 5 months old my breasts almost went back to feeling normal again, I never get engorgement anymore. I have had some mornings feeling really full lately since I've started cutting back on the evening pump, but not painful like it used to be.

You might find it you wish to continue that you can drop a pump and pump a little longer at another pump and get just as much milk. (before I started to wean, I pumped 2x a day for an hour and got about 40oz). That helped me alot going back to work because I could pump at 5:30 a and 5:30 p and hubby could hang with ds. Good luck!!

Hi! My DS#3 was a 24-weeker, and I pumped exclusively for 6 months. When I was ready to stop, I first started out by not pumping over-night. After a week or so, I dropped down to only pumping 2 or three times a day, for about 10 minutes each time. My milk dried up pretty quickly after that, I don't remember ever becoming engorged. Good luck, and congratulations on your little miracle!

Ladies, thank you so much for your words of encouragement and for the great advice! One quick question: when you pumped for shorter time periods, did you feed the milk to your baby or did you throw it away? I ask because I was told to pump for 20 minutes at each session in order to get the hindmilk.

LisaFaith, my heart goes out to you--I hope your ds born at 24 weeks is doing well! Whenever we tell someone we had a preemie, we usually get a really heartwarming story back about someone who also had a preemie, and the child is doing well. It was a rough birth for both dd and me, but thank God she is doing well now. I was planning all along to bottlefeed her, but when she arrived so early I knew she needed me even more, so I got the pump and here we are today--she's about 9 1/2 pounds and 21 inches. :)

I'm feeding ds what gets pumped regardless of the amount of time spent on the pump. If I remember right the hindmilk is the really fatty part of the milk so there is no reason to not give what you pump from the begining of the session. Good luck:D

LisaFaith, my heart goes out to you--I hope your ds born at 24 weeks is doing well! Whenever we tell someone we had a preemie, we usually get a really heartwarming story back about someone who also had a preemie, and the child is doing well. It was a rough birth for both dd and me, but thank God she is doing well now. I was planning all along to bottlefeed her, but when she arrived so early I knew she needed me even more, so I got the pump and here we are today--she's about 9 1/2 pounds and 21 inches. :)

Thanks, and Zackary is doing wonderfully. He just turned 2 years old, and weighs 24 pounds and is 34 inches tall. Do you belong to an online preemie community? Preemie Magazine has a good one that I use.

I pumped for 7 months with my first...not a preemie...just a pain to feed and never able to latch due to stress at birth etc. Congrats on pumping this long...sure beats the price of formula!!! I assume you are returning to work and want to stop pumping for that reason???
Anyway, like other posters I have my own methods of how to prevent engorgment. I did some research and discovered that as long as you are pumping every 6 hours your supply won't change. So in saying that, you won't see a difference in the amount your are or aren't pumping unless you go longer than this between pumping sessions. The problem in shortening the amount of time you pump is that you leave milk behind and could still end up engorged. I would suggest getting yourself to this time between pumpings first. Then start increasing the amount between pumps from there. Once you are at 8 hours apart you will have in essence dropped one feed a day. Then move up to 10 hours, then 12. Do this over time. You will notice a huge difference in how much you pump. Then once you've been pumping twice a day for a week or more drop to once a day.

yellowrose--thanks for the response...I figured I should still feed the milk to dd but wasn't sure. Jordyn, thanks for the advice as well...yes, I am going back to work in a month. I work in a hospital, but run around offsite a lot so pumping at work is not an option, so that's why I'm starting to wean now. It will give me a month to dry up.

LisaFaith, I didn't know about the online communities for preemies--thanks for the suggestion! Will definitely check it out and am so glad your son is doing so well. :)