I find it fitting that I sit here at 4:30 in the morning writing this post.
The middle of the night pumping session is SO important for your milk supply.
It is at this time at night, and between 1 and 5 in the morning, that the hormone prolactin is at its highest. Thus, when you pump during this time, it helps engage and maintain your milk supply.
It is hard to motivate yourself to pump at nighttime. I know. I'm doing it right now, but I'm determined to get all those ounces out so that I have enough to feed my baby.
There used to have to be an alarm set for me to get up because the baby would sleep through most of the night and I was trying to get two pumpings in during the night. But now I know my body wakes up normally (and so does the baby) and so I pump once at night (unless I wake up at 1am and 6:30am or something.
This is also the time of day (night) that your milk is the fattiest. Fat equals happy healthy baby. :) Happy Healthy baby means happy momma.
There's always the challenge of when little N wakes up while I'm pumping (happened tonight). I just leave the flanges hooked up (I wear a handsfree bra) and go soothe her and help her back to sleep (and clean up spit up off my shirt).
I used to need a snack when I woke up in the middle of the night (and sometimes it's tempting to eat when I'm at my in law's house and they have a super stocked snack cabinet) but now most of the time I just drink some water (and oh I drink a lot of water), and that keeps me until morning. I also found that eating in the middle of the night made it harder for me to maintain the amount of calories that I wanted to eat during the day (because of what I accumulated during the night).
Happy pumping!
Grace
