How to Drop a Pump Session or Wean

A look at how to drop a pump, whether it will effect your milk supply, and how to begin weaning from the pump.

A Deeper Look:

What Does “Dropping a Pump Session” Mean?

When you drop a pump session you will pump one less time a day. For example, if you are currently pumping 7 times a day, when you drop a pump session, you will pump 6 times a day.

Why Do You Want to Drop a Pump Session?

Many mamas want to pump as few times per day as possible to allow for time to be spent on other things.

When Should You Drop a Pump?

You should wait to drop any pump sessions until after your milk supply is established (or “regulated“ as it is commonly referred to). For more information on whether your milk supply is established, click here. Once you know your milk supply is established—often this occurs by 12 weeks postpartum—you may decide it is time to drop a pump.

How Do You Drop a Pump Session?

There are a few ways to drop a pump session, but no matter which way you choose to drop a pump, you should take the amount of time you would have pumped for at the dropped session and redistribute it amongst your remaining pumps. This will help ensure you keep your milk production steady. For example, if you pump 8 times a day for 20 minutes a session and drop to 7 pumps per day, you would divide the 20 minutes from the dropped pump amongst the remaining 7 pump sessions. This means you will pump 7 times per day for 23 minutes each session.

So how do you drop a pump?

Just drop it
Push two pump sessions closer together
Decrease the amount of time you pump at one pump session
Decrease the volume of milk you pump at one pump session

With the first method, you simply stop pumping at one of your scheduled times. For example, one day you pump at 12:00, 3:00, and 6:00, the next day you don’t pump at 3:00 but continue to pump at 12:00 and 6:00. This method is best for people who are not prone to clogged ducts and/or mastitis.

With the second method, you would push two pump sessions together over the course of a few days. For example, if you usually pump at 12:00, 3:00, and 6:00, but you want to drop your 3:00 pump, you would pump at 12:00, 3:30, and 6:00 the first day, 12:00, 4:00, and 6:00, the second day, 12:00, 4:30, and 6:00 the third day, and so on until your “pushed” pump runs into your next pump session. You should adjust the amount of time you push out the pump each day based on how you feel. You can also choose to split the time on either end. For example, you would pump at 12:00, 3:15, and 5:45 the first day, and 12:00, 3:30, and 5:30, the second day, etc.

With the third method, you would reduce the amount of time you pump at one pump session until you have about 5 minutes left and then drop the pump completely. The amount of time you decrease your pump time by should be based on how you feel. Try starting by pumping 2-3 minutes less than normal, and if you find that you aren’t uncomfortable at your next pump session, maybe you can try decreasing your pump time by 4 minutes the next day.

With the fourth method, you would need to observe the amount of milk you are pumping while pumping and aim to pump a half-ounce to an ounce less each day at that pump session until you are pumping only an ounce or two, then quit pumping at that time completely.

Will Dropping a Pump Affect Your Milk Supply?

The short answer is: it may. Every mama is different, and it is hard to predict how each mama is going to react to a dropped pump. However, part of it depends on your breast storage capacity. I’ve discussed this topic in detail in my post on How Long to Pump at Each Pump Session, but I’ll give a brief overview here.

Breast storage capacity is the volume of milk available in your breasts at their fullest. Breast storage capacity matters because milk production slows for two reasons. First, the closer your breasts are to reaching your storage capacity, the slower milk is produced. Second, there is a protein in your milk known as feedback inhibitor of lactation (FIL), and when it accumulates, it sends a signal to your breasts to slow production. Basically, the fuller your breasts are, the more FIL has accumulated, and the slower milk is produced. Therefore, knowing your breast storage capacity can help you determine how frequently you need to pump to prevent your breasts from becoming too full such that milk production slows.

So what does this mean? Well, if you drop a pump and doing so means that your breasts will fill to “capacity” before you pump again, you may lose some ounces during the time that your breasts were “too full” and had signaled your body not to make more milk. For more information on determining your storage capacity, click here.

Before you decide to drop a pump, you may want to consider whether you are okay with supplementing with formula (or with more formula if you already supplement) if your supply drops below the amount your baby needs.

What Pump Session Should You Drop?

Your body’s prolactin levels are higher during the middle of the night and generally decrease throughout the day; thus, your middle of the night pump may contribute to a good amount of your total amount of pumped ounces for the day. Thus, you may not want to drop your middle of the night pump. Since your prolactin levels taper as the day goes on, you may decide to pump less at night or you can spread out your remaining pumps equally.

How Do You Wean from the Pump?

You begin weaning from the pump by dropping pump sessions one at a time. It is important to not quit pumping suddenly because that may result in inflammation (ductal narrowing, commonly referred to as “clogged or plugged ducts”) and mastitis. Weaning slowly allows for your milk supply to decrease slowly, avoiding engorgement and discomfort. You can use any of the four methods discussed above to drop a pump session, and then wait a few days while your body adjusts and then work on dropping another pump session until you have no pump sessions left. You can also decide to decrease the amount of time you pump for every session at the same time. For example, if you normally pump for 30 minutes each session, try pumping for only 27-28 minutes at each session.

Another method for weaning is to increase the amount of time between pump sessions. If you normally pump every 3.5 hours, then pump every 4 hours for a few days, then every 4.5 hours for a few days, gradually increasing the time spent not pumping.

With any method, make sure to listen to your body. If you are experiencing discomfort, work on dropping a pump more slowly, or give yourself more time between dropping pumps to allow your body time to adjust. If you feel no discomfort, perhaps you may be able to drop a pump more quickly or decrease the amount of time you pump more quickly.

The EP&Me Take:

I never liked dropping pumps. It always made me anxious. It felt like I was playing a game of chance—would I get lucky this time? Would I truly be free of the fifth pump session? Or would I experience such a dip in my milk supply that not only would I need to add back the fifth pump, but I would also have to power pump for days on end in an attempt to fix the reduction in milk production?

I was already quite obsessed with measuring and tracking my milk and whether my supply would be up or down for the day, so it’s hard to understand how I had time to fixate on my milk supply even more—and yet I did. I would even wake up in the middle of the night and think “should I go pump now? I know pumping in the middle of the night is good, and maybe if I pumped now, then it would help offset any loss that might happen from the pump session I’m working on dropping.” I also spent a lot of the day wondering if my milk supply would be less than yesterday, and if so, was the loss going to be temporary? Even if there wasn’t a decrease in my milk supply today, would there be one tomorrow? In two weeks?

Mamas, this was terribly unhealthy for me. I really wish I could go back and tell myself to relax, to remember that I was trying to drop a pump to be more present in my life and for my family. I would remind myself that my mental health was important and although I probably could stick with the “I can do it all” attitude, was that the version of me I wanted to be? Sometimes that version had less patience and less capacity for grace because things needed to be “just so” in order to keep it all moving forward. I would tell myself that if I had to use formula that it did not mean I had failed, it meant that I had worth too, and that I was still an excellent mom even if my baby was not fully breastfed.

So I’m telling you now. You are important too. If you need to drop a pump, do it. But may I suggest you prepare yourself to accept the worst and then set your worries free. If you lose ounces, you lose ounces—but what did you gain? Probably something worth a lot more.

I had a large storage capacity and was not particularly inflammation prone (what we commonly think of as “clog” prone, is actually just inflammation that narrow the ducts in your breasts) so I shouldn’t have been so concerned about dropping the first few pumps. But I was always nervous, and I knew that my body liked the regimented schedule I had, so I spent an agonizingly long time to drop every pump. I preferred the second method—to gradually push back the start time of the pump I wished to drop until it reached the next pump session. Often this would take me 2-3 weeks. But I did not lose any ounces until I dropped down to two pumps per day, so this method seemed to work for me. If nothing else, my chosen method was right for me because it helped ease my concerns by letting me go at my own pace.

There is a lot of different advice out there, and a lot of mamas basing their decision to drop a pump on someone else’s situation. In the end though, whether you can drop a pump is deeply personal to you. Every mama is different—we all have different storage capacities, pumping habits, stressors, breast gland development, and hormones. No one else can accurately tell you whether your milk supply will decrease if you drop a pump. However, if you’ve read this post, you have the tools to determine whether you want to and if it is something your are comfortable with trying. You’ve got this mama.