Nursing or Pumping at Night
One of the most startling things about becoming a parent, in my opinion, is the level of exhaustion. I specifically remember thinking, “Oh THIS is what everyone is talking about” because you truly have no idea how what it feels like until you’re experiencing it!
In this sleep-deprived state, it is extremely tempting to sleep through feedings and have your partner give a bottle. In fact, many well-intentioned partners offer to do this, not realizing that it is not supportive of helping you create a great milk supply.
But why is it so important to remove milk (by baby or pump) at night? To understand the importance of nighttime milk removal, we must first understand how milk supply works.
How Your Body Makes Milk
By now you have probably heard about how milk supply is based on a supply and demand principle. Meaning, the more you demand (the more you nurse or pump) the more milk you will make. Overall milk supply depends on the milk removed over 24 hours, meaning, skipping nursing or pumping at one time of day will affect your supply at another time of day.
When your breasts are full, your body gets a signal to decrease milk supply. This is believed to be caused by a component in your milk called FIL (Feedback Inhibitor of Lactation). When FIL accumulates, it’s like telling your body “Whoah, there is already too much milk in here that is not being used. Slow down the milk production.” In contrast, the more frequently you remove milk from the breasts, the more milk your body will make because your breasts are like a factory. The more frequently they are emptied, the more your body knows “wow this milk is flying off the shelves, we need to make more of it.”
Therefore, when we go long stretches without nursing or pumping and allow our breasts to get very full (like if you sleep all night) that will decrease your supply.
If your baby sleeps all night…
The next question I usually get is “what if my baby sleeps all night? Am I supposed to wake up and pump?” The answer is- maybe. Sorry, not helpful!!
I cannot tell you exactly how many hours you can go without nursing or pumping because everyone has a different storage capacity. Storage capacity is the amount of milk you can hold in your breasts at one time. Some people get fuller more quickly, which would tell their body to stop making milk sooner than someone who could hold more milk.
So the answer to if you need to pump at night kind of depends. I will tell you that MOST people really benefit from some kind of milk removal at night. Whether that is sleeping for a good chunk of time then waking up and pumping, doing a quick pump session before you go to sleep (if you go to sleep later than your baby does), or doing a dream feeding, this can help to create an insurance policy for your milk supply.
As far as my personal experience as a mom goes, my third baby would sleep from 8 pm until around 4 am from about 2 months old until 4 months old. That is a long time to go without nursing or pumping, and in addition to not wanting to be uncomfortable, I wanted to help protect my milk supply. So I would do a quick pump session with my manual pump before I went to bed- usually around 11 pm- and that worked really well for me.
Let me know- what does your nighttime feeding routine look like?? As always, if you have questions about any of this and need some personalized help, please reach out!