Yes, manually pumping your breast milk is like milking a cow, no joke and if you feel like one, join the club. But, it does works as well as breast pumps. I brought the pump with me to Palm Springs, but forgot the power cord of all things. Ugh.
Since my daughter is still breastfeeding, I didn’t know how much she drinks. It’s not as frequent as a newborn her feeding schedule is 3 times a day. Usually feeds on demand, but generally it’s morning, noon, and before bed.
FYI MOST HEALTH INSURANCE PAY FOR BREAST PUMPS
Lets just say that it is a real pain manually pumping your breast milk. You will feel like a big fat cow, no offense, I speak from recent personal experience. And no, the video is not a tutorial on manually pumping your breast milk. In other words, I’m not in front of the camera doing the deed. Ha ha ha. I will reserve to not further humiliate myself for forgetting the power cord to the Medela Breast Pump. FYI most health insurance will pay for a breast pump and ship one to you. Things might be changing with the new administration, but I’m hoping breast pumps are still paid by insurance.
Here’s some simple instructions on Manually Pumping Your Breast Milk 
- Get a container where you will be manually pumping your breast milk in. I just used the Medela bottle.
- Make sure your hands are clean and that you are comfortable, where you have privacy.
- Make a C cup with your hand and cup your breast. I like to start with the fullest part, more towards the base of the breasts.
- Stroke down towards the nipple, I don’t mean to use the milking cow analogy again but it’s pretty similar.
- You want to stroke towards the nipple, manually pumping your breast milk from the most engorged area, then continue towards the nipple. Don’t forget to squeeze the areola to extract the maximum amount of breast milk.
What’s the Point of Manually Pumping Your Breast Milk?
If you forget to bring your breast pump, you need to extract the milk. You might think you’re fine not manually pumping your breast milk. But, if you don’t pump you can get sick. I’ve had mastitis twice and it sucks, some symptoms: cold chills all over the body, fever, painful ultra hard breasts.
It’s extremely uncomfortable having engorged breasts and not pumping the breast milk. Manual extraction also is said to help make your milk come in more and increase your supply. So in a pinch, manually pumping your breast milk is an alternative to breast pumps.
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