Can someone convince me not to pump with my next baby? Breastfeeding has me all sorts of touched out. My daughter is 10 months old and I'm so ready to wean at a year. I'm set on wanting to strictly pump and I've heard so many cons about EP.

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Can I ask why you feel that EP is a bad thing? I started out with breastfeeding and whilst my boy had a great latch, he was a snacker. He would wake up every hour at night demanding a feed but every feed would only last 5mins. Even during the day, only 5 mins on the boob. I tried so hard for 4 months and when I pumped I got nothing. I ate all the right things to increase supply and saw a lactation consultant. It wasn’t only exhausting but it weighed heavily on my mind that I couldn’t even feed my child properly. So I switched to formula around 4.5 months. I struggled for a few weeks with this but the more I saw how happy he was and sleeping better than ever, it helped me get passed the sadness of my failures. Now I see that fed is best. You do what works for your family, whether its BF, EP or formula. What ever you choose to do is best for you and the baby.

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Pumping gives a little bit of freedom, and a chance for you and baby to be separate for a while and let others feed. I work 4 days a week so I express milk on those days ready for the next day she needs it and she still breast feeds when around me which seems to be working well. 
Only have to pump once a day now on both sides now that she's eating more solids and not having as much milk in the day and it really doesn't take much time out of the day - no cons from me!

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I exclusively pumped for almost 7 months because my son couldn't transfer milk from me when I attempted breastfeeding (by the time he figured out how to transfer the milk be had no interest in breastfeeding and we were in such a groove with bottle I didn't try very hard to get him back on the breast). I know breastmilk is best for baby from a nutritional standpoint, but the main reason I wanted my son to only be on breastmilk was for financial reasons. I live in Canada where we can take up to 18 months for mat leave....but the income in very limited so you have to budget where you can. I know formula can be quite costly.
To make a long story longer, pumping was exhausting. My supply never regulated so i was engorged right up until I weaned. Suffered from clogged ducts a few times (I was one of the lucky ones...some women in the exclusive pumping forums ended up with clogs all the time...or even mastitis). I always felt like I was washing pump parts (I tried the placing parts in the fridge and washing them at the end of the day but I felt like the parts were grimey). Once my son was moving around, I found it harder and harder to pump on a consist schedule. Weaning from an oversupply is a very long process (it took me 2 months to wean).
I did not enjoy exclusively pumping but at the same time, I was fortunate enough to be able to store up enough of a frozen stash that will take my baby to over a year old (we're coming up to the end of frozen stash). It was easy to do this time because he's my first child and I had no idea what it would be like. If we have another child, i probably would do it again...but we most likely won't be having another child.

Can someone convince me not to pump with my next baby? Breastfeeding has me all sorts of touched out. My daughter is 10 months old and I'm so ready to wean at a year. I'm set on wanting to strictly pump and I've heard so many cons about EP.

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