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@HappyBaker: the LC brought me a hospital grade pump and I pumped in this hospital when a baby would eat--every 2-3 hours. My LO had high jaundice numbers, so they'd taken her to be under the lights and were "pushing fluids" (which meant formula after however much I could pump/BF). I was really surprised at how much colostrum I got by pumping on that schedule and I'm fully convinced that's how my supply came in "early" and was a really strong supply.

Just like with BFing, if you want to EP, you have to pump early and often. I didn't sleep through the night at the hospital--I set my alarm for every 2.5 hours and got up and pumped and took my colostrum down to the nursery by hour 3 because they were feeding LO every 3 hours. I was pumping what looked to me like a small amount of colostrum, but since a baby's tummy is the size of a marble it totally filled her up and she usually wouldn't take any formula after =) =)

Good luck! EPing is so hard for the first few months.

Not an EPer but I had to pump for DD the 1st few days and I got a ton of colostrum! I would imagine you would pump and feed her that until your milk comes in

My LO was in the nicu so I was basically ep until he got out. Same advice as others, pump every 2 hours even if nothing really comes out. I got a lot more with hand expression at first, which the LC can show you how to do. It was a little weird at first but it was worth it for the little guy to get colostrum in those early nicu days!

I was essentially EP'ing in the hospital because of poor/no latch. Like the others, I pumped religiously every 2 hours to establish my supply and syringe fed him the colostrum. He ended up needing a little bit of formula b/c his sugar was low and he had a bit of jaundice... but don't skip the early pumping! That colostrum is liquid gold for babies, even if it seems like you're pumping for an absurd amount of time for the tiny bit you produce.

I personally would hate EPing, but if that was my goal I would probably start out with hand expressing colostrum in the hospital. I think colostrum is too thick to work well with a pump, and you need to feed it to your baby anyway unless you decide to use formula until your milk comes in.

@Espion: at the beginning I would pump about 20 minutes every 2-3 hours. But once my milk came in, I realized that my body is SO slow at producing milk. I had read that you stop pumping when you don't produce milk for one or two minutes. Well, I would produce slow and steady milk for like 45 mins. Argh. So I eventually moved to 45 mins every 3-4 hours and then every 4-5 hours. It took so much freakin time. Blah. So I don't think I did it right either