How much milk does your baby drink while you are at work? I pumped 3-4 times while at work and still managed about 14oz total, so your 20 is way ahead of me. You only need what your baby drinks, so I wouldn't worry too much about trying to increase further since 20oz is a lot to begin with.

You only need what your baby drinks, so I wouldn't worry too much about trying to increase further since 20oz is a lot to begin with.

I second the note "You only need what your baby drinks" tip from FitMama. It is more about the ounces your baby gets over a 24-hour period. Does your baby night-nurse or eat a bunch in the morning or evening? Mine nurses for a long while when she comes home from daycare and then at night.

I agree with what both ladies said here. I rarely pump because I'm currently a SAHM, but if I pump I get a ton first thing in the morning (like 4-6 oz). If I pump at any other time of the day, I get very little, maybe 1-2 oz, even if that's my only pumping session that day.

Your baby is more efficient than a pump at getting milk from you. So while you might pump 3 oz in a pumping session, your baby might get 4-5 oz in the same timeframe if s/he were nursing directly.

S/he may be drinking more when s/he nurses, which I assume is first thing in the morning and at bedtime. 20 oz otherwise is a lot!!! My dad is a pediatrician (in practice for 40 years this year), and he told me that it doesn't matter when he eats but that he eats a certain amount in a 24-hour period. In other words, it doesn't matter if he eats a little bit all day long or very few heavy intake feeds. So if your baby is drinking 20 oz of pumped milk during the day, s/he will nurse the remainder of what s/he needs in the morning/before bed/during the night.

If you feel the need to increase, maybe to build a freezer stash, you can do a few things:

Nurse/pump more often. I recently read on kellymom that frequent pumping/nursing sessions (even short ones) do more to increase your supply than increasing the duration of your pumping/nursing sessions. So you can add in an extra pumping session or an extra nursing session (or both), even if it's short and the output isn't very much.

Eat oatmeal. It is a galactagogue.

Eat lactation cookies. I made these and thought they were tasty. Just be careful because they are heavy on the calories: http://www.food.com/recipe/oatmeal-chocolate-chip-lactation-cookies-by-noel-trujillo-192346

Take galactagogues as supplements. You can usually find them at a Vitamin Shoppe. Fenugreek, fennel, blessed thistle, brewer's yeast, etc. Some of these are in the cookie recipe above and/or the teas below. I took supplements to save my horrendous supply after my first was born to no avail. Taking pills is easy, but I wonder if I had eaten these things in food if it would've helped more.

Drink lactation tea. I did this early on and had to stop because I had oversupply issues. The first tea is really strong, so it tastes stronger (very much like black licorice), but you don't have to drink as much. The second tea requires you to drink more but tastes like your run-of-the-mill herbal tea. I still drink this one from time to time just as an herbal tea, since it can only help my supply (which is still going string at 8 months).

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0032AM8JG/ref=oh_details_o05_s01_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0009F3POY/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I hope that helps!

I exclusively pump and get an average of 45-50 oz per day pumping 5 times per day. I eat a lot of oatmeal with flax in it, stay hydrated, and eat as much protein as I can. I pump every 4 hours or so starting at 5:30 am. I go from 9:30 pm to 5:30 am without pumping and when I do my morning pump I get 15-18 oz. You can try doing a middle of the night pump as well because a lot of people produce the most milk between the hours of 1-5 am. Don't ask me why, but it is def becoming factual.

i pump while i am at work (i am a teacher) and i get to pump 3 times (Specials, lunch and after school) I do good to get 12 ounces! my baby still only drinks 4 oz per feeding at 8 months old. So I am lucky there! Good Luck mama!!

I pump all. day. long.

To amp up my milk supply, I eat copious amounts of oatmeal (oatmeal cookies, oatmeal for breakfast, oats in a trail mix, etc.) but not so much that it is overwhelming, haha. I also took a few days before going back to work to pump after every feeding and once there was no more milk coming out, I kept going for about 5-10 minutes after so my body would think I needed to produce more for the baby. I also woke up in the middle of the night to pump which was certainly annoying but it has worked very well for me.

I also eat about 3200 calories/day and a good 120oz of water.

Now that I am back at work, here is my routine: every morning, feed the baby, pump again before going to work, pump two hours later at work, pump at lunch, pump at my last break, come home, feed the baby, pump more, feed the baby before bed and pump again afterwards, feed the baby in the middle of the night, pump again.

In between the baby's feeds and pumping, I wait about 10-15 minutes to make it seem like the baby is "eating often". Tricking my body, haha

It sounds crazy but it's worth it. I have an entire chest freezer filled with expressed milk. I generally get about 40-50oz of milk throughout the day and she eats about 15-20oz in the morning/evening/night hours (:
She eats about 20oz while I'm at work (:


ETA: While 3200 calories + all exercise calories seems like a lot, I have lost all 19lbs I gained during pregnancy plus an additional 10. I don't work out hardcore by any means (I do yoga and when it's above freezing, we go for a walk...though it's been -4239578349574908 degrees lately so we've only gone on 1 walk). My daughter will be 3months on 3/9