A couple weeks over the 7 month mark, but we made it! 😊

Every time my husband now nurses he is getting a constant flow of sweet milk for a good 10-13 mins. It starts flowing within seconds of him latching on, which he absolutely loves. We both look forward to our morning and bedtime sessions, and love being able to get another session in during the day sometime when he's home and not busy. We both love seeing how much my breasts react to him, and get tingly whenever it's time, or he comes near me or I look at him. ☺️

Pumping on the other than is producing nothing. I used the Pumpables pumps and liquid flanges for a good couple weeks, and ended up with skin peeling on my sensitive righty, even though the suction was low. Thankfully I was able to treat it before it got worse.

Unfortunately that brought extreme pain while suckling too. Also, at the same time, our dog ended up with stomach problems to the point we were woken up several times through the night. So between righty and our dog, we had to put a pause on our nursing sessions. ... thankfully after seeing a vet and getting meds, we were able to get our dog feeling better after a few days & are now feeling like we're almost caught up with our sleep. Righty has also fully healed in that time.

While pausing our sessions, I did continue to pump, but with the freemie pump and lots of lube, lowest suction and still with the liquid flanges. I put medication on the affected area daily that helped it heal within a couple days.

Last night we tried suckling again, and we're successful. So we decided to continue our daily sessions. Was REALLY great to wake up and have him at my breast again before we started our day. We missed that SO much.

We paused for about 5 days, and in that time, it seems my milk was starting to dry up, despite continuing to pump. My husband said that it tastes salty again, instead of sweet milk. Which is what he tasted before it switched to sweet. That leads me to think that my milk can dry up pretty fast when not being suckled at all. Though the flow was still the same, started within seconds and continued for 10-13 mins before stopping.

However, as for the pumping ... I really don't know what to do. It was the stronger motor of the Pumpables that caused the skin peeling and the pain (even on lowest suction) the more I used it consistently. I know this because I was able to use the freemie's lowest suction with the same liquid flanges while righty healed. Definitely will be sticking with the freemie pump with the liquid flanges and the freemie collection cups from here on out.

But as for not getting anything with the pump even though suckling producing a constant stream, I am at a loss. Even hand expressing brings nothing, mind you I haven't given that enough time because my arthritis acts up when I do it.

I have read that there are some women who don't respond to the pump at all ☹️, even with being in a calm place, looking a photos, using smell, etc.

We wonder if we can train my breasts to react to the pump like they do my husband. If we suckle every 4 hours for the next month, then have one of those sessions with the pump, but the rest suckling for a couple weeks & like that slowly replace all sessions but morning and evening ... we're thinking doing that might do the trick.

We would love to hear from other here ... any feedback, suggestions or advice is greatly appreciated! We're willing to try just about anything, as he'll be going back to work in a few months and we don't want to lose the momentum. Our goal is not just ANR for our marriage, but to produce enough milk to replace the little dairy milk we currently are consuming.