Sorry for delay, back to school prep.
I only use the 1 pump, I use patches aswell. Before the patches I used 3 pumps of Estrogel and I tried splitting the dose but found my moods and tiredness were all over the place daily so I changed to patches. When I was doing the 3 pumps at night I was shattered by 2pm. When i split the dose to a pump in the morning and it made very little difference, just shattered by 5 or 6 pm and falling asleep.
I forgot my pump of gel the night before last and wasn't in a good mood yesterday, very irritable.
I don't think theres any right or wrong way to use the gel, it just takes time to find one that suits you. For me personally, once I'd gone up to 3 pumps, like Hurdity I was fed up with the faffing round. Stil not perfect but 18 months of trial and error, this suits me better.