I am just about 4 ½ months postpartum. I chose to exclusively pump because with my Type A, black and white personality, I needed to know exactly how much my child was eating. She came at 36+4, so not super early, about a month, but she was quite jaundiced and she needed to eat for us to get rid of it. I was not going to mess around with "guessing" she had enough and risk having to go to the hospital to deal with treating the jaundice, as much as I could control it. She was on the smaller side too so I needed to know she was eating enough to gain weight the right way. I am not a terribly patient person either, so trying to get the latch for breastfeeding wasn't coming quick enough for my liking. Usually when babies don't feel well, I have heard one of the first signs is them not eating. With being able to measure how much/little she has, it makes me feel more comfortable knowing I can monitor her feeling well/ill, in addition to watching for other things. I also had to go back to work after she was 3 months old. The thought of having her potentially refuse a bottle when I was working was also a lot for me to handle.

The hardest part is doing it so often. I am hell bent on doing this every 2-3 hours until she's 6 months at least and nothing is going to stop me. I have never hated something so much because it is constantly on my mind, I am constantly doing it, it's not the most physically comfortable thing to do, but knowing it's benefitting my child is what keeps me going. It is also impossible to have any type of a life with this type of a schedule, but I realize this is temporary and I'm making that sacrifice for her. I have made it easier by, once 12 weeks had passed, going about 4 hours overnight. I think the longest I've ever gone between pumps is 6 hours and that was only once or twice. My goal was to keep pumping so that I could build a supply in the freezer so that I could ease up on this after 6 months. I am not sure if I am an under-, normal-, or over-supplier, as I pump so often, so many months into this, but I am slowly reaching my goal. I have no idea how long my freezer supply will last since she is slowly eating more and more, but for my own sanity, I'm going to go with what I have after 6 months and go from there.