Hi everyone, just looking for some advice/wisdom from other pumping mamas. My baby is 4 months old and I have been EP since she was a couple of weeks old because she wouldn’t attach. I have been pumping 7 times a day most days (6 if I got busy or slept through an alarm). I haven’t seen any significant changes to my daily output for a while now, maybe the last month or so.

I’m heading back to work tomorrow and I’d previously planned out a pumping schedule. I was so proud - I was able to fit in my 7 pumps by having one longer sleep overnight rather than 2 or 3 shorter sleeps. Last night I put it on paper and then added in when my baby is going to feed, work commute etc. and realised that in the evening I’ll be able to fit in the pumps, the feeds after baby and I are home from daycare and dinner - great! Then I realised I’d also need time to wash and prepare the next day’s bottles and pump kit. I haven’t even figured out when I’m going to find time to shower... 🤔😂😓

So my question is once your milk supply is well and truly regulated would dropping one or even two pumps a day have a significant impact on supply? I’d love to hear what others have experienced because I’ve spent the last 4 months being paranoid about my supply and scheduling my entire life around pumping and I’m finding it hard to let go. I always said I’d put in the hard yards until I go back to work and then I would accept whatever happened when I went back to work but I’ve worked so hard to increase my supply from nearly nothing and to maintain it the last 4 months. I had hoped I’d be able to push through till the end of the year when my baby is 6 months but right now I’m wondering how I’ll make it to the end of the week (apparently by not taking a shower haha 😂).

Also, I have never on purpose gone longer than 4 hours between pumps except last night (doing a trial run of my new schedule today) or when I have overslept. What do you guys think the longest amount of time between pumps should be? I’m too scared to go any longer than 6 hours!

Thanks for the help 🙂