My Pumping Schedule

Boring but informative.  If you are thinking about exclusively pumping or are already, this is what my pumping schedule has been thus far.

When I started it looked like this:
6am
8am
10am
12noon
2pm
4pm
6pm
8pm
10pm
midnight
and one middle of the night pump (motn)

That would be 11 pumping session in 24 hours.  I started pumping for 15 minutes a session and then increased to 20 minutes for a total of 220 minutes of pumping a day.  I did this for the first 12-weeks to establish my supply.

After the 12-week mark my schedule looked like this:

6am
9am
12noon
2pm
5pm
8pm
10pm
12midnight
motn

This is 9 sessions a day.  I pumped 24 minutes each session so it still equaled 220 minutes of total pumping time.

I quickly decided to drop the motn pump since my babes were sleeping through the night.  I know the exclusively pumping 'experts' will tell you not to, but I didn't listen.  I figured if my babies were sleeping through the night then so should I.  When I dropped the motn pump I increased each session to 27 minutes.

My schedule now looks like this:

6am
9am
12noon
3pm
6pm
9pm
11pm

I chose this schedule because it was close to the times I was doing before but more because it works around my families schedule.  And I am sure you've figured out the math by now, but in case you don't want to, I now pump for 31 minutes per session.

My production hasn't decreased at all with the changed, but I still make sure to check it once in a while. 

If my production stays up then this is what my schedule will be come May 27th:

6am
9am
12pm
3pm
6pm
10pm

These will be, you guessed it, 36 minute long sessions.  This is where I will stay until June 27th when my babes will be 6-months-old.  After that I will decide how much longer I want to keep pumping.  My 1st goal in the whole journey was to make it to 12-weeks and I did that.  Then I made a goal of 6-months.  As of 4/13/2010 I had a freezer stash of 1,659 ounces of breast milk and I plan on using that to help shorten my pumping life :)  That 1,659 ounces of breast milk will give me a one month supply.