You need not feel like failing with breastfeeding if all you get is less than 2 ounces both sides for each time you pump. How much milk you can collect is not an indicator of how much milk your body produces or if your baby is getting enough.

If you nurse your baby more often than using the pump, chances are you don't get that much when pumping. Why? because your body could react completely different to the pump than to the breast, especially if you are more of a "nurser" than a "pumper".

You need to pay careful attention to find out if your breasts have any "let-down" (milk ejection reflaex) during pumping. This might sometimes go unnoticeable since most pumps can be somewhat pimchy with a little pain, causing your nipples sore and it's more difficult for you to recognize let-down. However, let-down is important in both pumping and nursing a baby. Without it, milk can't be released from the milk ducts down to the sinus and out to the nipple opening.

Let-down usually occurs 1 to 3 minutes for real-life nursing and 2 to 5 (or more) minutes for pumping. If you can't feel the let-down during pumping, try to watch for milk flow pattern. After about 2 minutes and longer, if you notice there is a sudden heavy flow of milk down to the collecting bolltes and your breasts feel "lighter" then your breasts experience let-down.

When you nurse, you baby will change his or her suckling pattern to slower, heavier draw when let down comes and you can sometime hear deep swallow.

If you nurse your baby more often than you pump, you might sometimes encounter problem with let-down when you pump, thus there will not be as much milk collected. That is why your baby gets enoug milk but you can't collect a decent amount when pumping. Best indicator of your baby getting enough is still back to the basic that your perdiatrician says: if he or she has 6 to 8 wet diapers a day, the baby is getting enough.

Now, back to pump. If you can't get enough milk while pumping, there is a few things that you can do:

1- Pump more often so your body can become used to it (this might results in sore nipples, so, get some Lasinoh cream ready!)

2- Try to be as relaxed as you can when pumping. Keep a warm cup of herbal tea, hot chocolate or any favorite drink that would sooth you. Put a warm cloth or heat pad (not too hot!) on each breast to soften breast tissues.

3- Get in a hot shower, let hot water stimulate your breasts, down from the shoulders for about 10 minutes right before pumping.

4- Gentle massage from shoulders down to your breasts, under armpits to the breasts in circular motions right before pumping.

5- Have your baby's picture to look at when pumping.

6- Renting a Medela hospital grade pump Symphony. This pump get very high tech. You can program it's sucking rythm mimicking your baby's nursing style. However, please keep in mind that most of the milk-release problem is controlled by your brain. If your brain can registered (or be deceived) that the pump is the baby, then it will signal your breasts to realease milk.

Once you master the art of breastpumping, you will be surprised how much milk your body can produce! many women have their freezers full of breastmilk that they can even make milo for their husbands out of those bags and bottles of stored breastmilk!