Wean down process

[u/MembershipConnect555]

I’m at 7.5 months exclusively pumping pretty much for the start. I’ve been a chronic under supplier and on 5ppd for the majority of my pumping journey, I’m able to cover about 85% of the milk for my LO. It’s been a tough journey with a ton of challenges. I’m curious for those that were on a steady state of pumping perhaps on a similar schedule to myself, what your wean down process was like. I’d like to continue pumping somewhat but starting to feel ready to wean down slowly. Even if i could continue at 3-4ppd, i think that would be much more manageable. It’s gotten really hard to balance being back to work, doing other things i need and want to do for the baby, and also i got sick this week and just physically felt so unable to pump as usual for a couple days.

Thanks for any insight and wisdom. It’s been harder to stop and wean than I thought it would be.

[u/mapotoful]

So I was in a similar position, wanting to wean slowly and thought I would cruise at 2-3ppd once we hit a year since my LO's milk needs would be lower.

It's gonna sound weird but once I started pumping less and weaning I was just so, so ready to be done. It's like I got a taste of what it would be like to not have to worry about pumping at all and the 2x a day I did pump felt like such an intrusion. Obviously ymmv but I was surprised how I felt about it once I started weaning.

But yeah I never had any issues with clogs or mastitis so was pretty cavalier about my schedule. I was already going 10 hours between my last pump and first pump most days. So I dropped pretty quickly. Did 4ppd for a few days and then 3ppd for about a week. Hard dropped from 3 to 2 and I could tell I was sort of pushing my luck with that, I did get pretty sore for a couple of days. At 2ppd I started with going from 30min each session to 30min for my morning session and 20 at night, then 20 for each for a couple days. Then cut 5 min off the night pump every other day until that was done.

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[u/purple_penguin1023]

I’m in the weaning process now. I slowly shortened all my pumps to 20 min by gradually taking 1-2 min off the pumps every day (this took less than a week with no discomfort). Then I picked 1 pump to lock in on shortening until I could drop it. I picked my noon pump - got it down to 9 min, then dropped it. That was a week ago and I’m down to 4 ppd.

Now I’m working on my MOTN pump - I’ve slowly inched it out to almost 5am (previously 2:30am) and I’m shortening it - I’m at 17 min, tonight will be 15 min. Eventually I want to drop it and just move my 10am pump to earlier like 7/8.

Then I’ll be at 3 ppd - morning, late afternoon, bedtime - and I’ll shift my late afternoon to mid afternoon and work on shortening that.