I ep for 18 months, hard at first initially as the sessions intervals were too close. No extra pair of hands also. What I did was to switch to handsfree pump (yields better for me as well), household chores do part by part and when baby is asleep. If baby is awake, I put her in the stroller and push around with me/babywear as I do housework.
Sometimes when baby wakes up halfway thru pumping, at least with handsfree pump, I will just feed her with one hand and when she’s done just on music or talk to her.
Took me 1.5m to be able to fully feed baby bm, took sunflower lecithin and other legendairy milk boosters, spammed a lot of water. Check your flange insert to make sure it’s the correct size, also if you latch baby and pump only a little afterwards (boobs feels empty), it means baby is clearing your milk well and it’s normal.
Most importantly, don’t stress. The more you stress, the lesser you yield, I learnt that the hard way. Once I stopped worrying about it, my supply improved. Just feed whatever you have and top up with formula while you build your supply. Sip on water, use your phone or talk to baby while pumping instead of looking at the amount.
Anonymous