Exclusive Pumping for a Nine Month Old Baby

There are many reasons that you might be exclusively pumping for a nine month old baby. Your baby may never have latched on, and you don’t want to give formula. Or maybe your baby has gotten teeth and nursing has become uncomfortable. Whatever the reason, there are several things to consider when exclusively pumping for a nine month old baby.

You may be concerned about your supply and whether you are pumping enough milk for your baby. One good thing about exclusively pumping for an older baby is that they are eating solid food, which takes a bit of the pressure off of you as their sole food source. However, if supply is still a concern, you need to assess how often you are pumping and for how long.

The general guideline that should be followed is a total of two hours of pumping every day. This can be spread out from anywhere from one pump per day to ten pumps per day. However, with a nine month old baby, most women see the best results with somewhere between three and six pumps per day.

Ideally, these pumps would happen at times that would allow you to get a full night’s sleep without interruptions. However, if you are struggling with low milk supply, you may see better results if you pump between 1 and 5am, as prolactin levels are highest during this time.

As mentioned above, when you are exclusively pumping, you should be pumping for two hours per day. So, the amount of time that you spend pumping depends on how many pumps per day you do. If you pump three times per day, each session should be about 40 minutes. If you pump six times per day, each session should be about 20 minutes, and so on.

One difficult thing about exclusively pumping with a nine month old baby is that they are mobile! When you are alone with your baby, and you need to pump, there are a couple of tricks that you can use. The first is to use a hands-free bra to hold the pump in place so that your hands are free to tend to your baby. However, some babies want to grab and play with the equipment, which makes things difficult. One solution to this is to put your baby in his highchair and sit next to him while you pump and read him a book or play with small toys.