Jay, I think I know what you mean - when the baby is nursing whenever he
needs to, how do you figure out when to pump?  What is "before a feeding"
when you aren't sure when the next "feeding" is?

My suggestion for starters for this mom would be to pump at the first a.m.
feeding after those longer night time stretches.  Most moms feel confident
that there's *plenty* of milk at that point and there is no need to worry
about pumping and not having enough "left" for the baby.  My personal
favorite is to pump on one side while baby is nursing on the other.  It's
easy, once you get the hang of it, and you take advantage of the
naturally-induced MER.  Lotsa milk that way!

If the mom feels she's got plenty of milk she can do this sort of one-sided
pumping pretty much any time she nurses the baby.  If she really goes crazy
pumping all the time then she might see the baby ask to nurse more
frequently, but she probably won't notice any behavioral difference if she
does it just a few times a day.

She sounds like an intuitive mom and she's getting good guidance from you,
so she can try out the idea and see what happens with it...

Mary Renard
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