working and breastfeeding

[kianurse]

Ladies for those of you who work outside of the home how do you go about building up the supply for storage while you are away. DS will take a bottle of breastmilk without difficulty but I am having trouble getting a stored supply of breastmilk and will be returning to work the middle of september for about six months. Any suggestions or tips would be greatly appreciated.

[suzyp119]

Will you be pumping at work? I used my stored supply more for emergancies than to be used for daily feedings. My stored supply gradually built up. I would occassionally pump if I felt engorged and saved it, even if it was just an oz or so. It adds up after a while and gave me peace of mind that if I didn't pump enough at work I could use some of that. Once I started work (DS was 4 months) I never added to my storage, only took from on occassion. I pumped 2-3 times a day at work and used what I pumped as the feedings for the next day. It worked out pretty well.

Good Luck.

[Melanie]

Just keep pumping. Just keep pumping. I stored as much as I could before I went back to work (when she was 8 weeks old) and I pumped once every day after returning to work. I ran out of stock shortly before she weaned. There wasn't anything I could do but give her formula at daycare, then. That wasn't for too long, though. Will you be able to pump at work? Our hospital had a pumping room, but at that point, I was already doing home health, so I pumped in my car!

[ElizabethN]

Pump after feeds as much as you can. It's hard when you don't have a way to hand the baby off, and especially hard if you have other children to take care of, but try. If he has a reliable long sleep at night, be sure to pump after you put him down - you'll have plenty of time to build up enough for his first night feeding, but you can accumulate a couple of ounces a day that way. If you have another adult around on occasion, have that person give him a bottle and pump for at least 15 minutes while he's eating - try to totally drain the breasts.

You probably won't build up stores much while you're at work, but you may be able to get a little bit ahead, especially in the first couple of months.

How often will you be able to pump at work? If you can only pump once a day, it will be much harder to produce enough. Ideally, you want to pump a couple hours after you feed him in the morning, and then every three hours until you see him again. I think some people have luck with adding an extra pumping session right after feeding in the morning, too, before you go to work.

Hedra has a great list of tips for getting more milk when you're pumping at work.

[hedra]

Also, I realized that I was trying to get a full week's supply stored before going back to work, and found that what I needed was about a day and a half's worth - I kept assuming that I would get as much pumping at work as I did at home, forgetting that at work, I wasn't ALSO nursing the child in question! (Seriously, I did this same thought process every blessed time... gah!)

At home while also nursing, I'd get 1/4 oz, 1/2 oz. MAYBE an ounce at most at a good session. YIKES. It took me for.ever. to get enough for a day and a half or so, and as work loomed closer and closer, I'd stress more and get less... ARGH. But I'd just say, 'okay, so maybe I'll top up with formula if I must while I get my pumping supply going those first two weeks...' and every time, I pumped the first day and had enough for the second, and the second day and had enough for the third and so forth, and still pumped a bit on weekends for a bit to build up a little freezer stash, and then found I was pumping a little more than my kids took at daycare, so could quit the extra pumping...

Not everyone gets that much at work - BUT, remember that you'll be adding more from your at-work pumping than you are getting now.

And yes, read the article - pumping earlier, pumping one breast while feeding the other, pumping after nursing, etc., all worth trying. What works best for you may not be what worked best for me. Good luck!

[Patti]

I pumped at work 3x a day until my body got used to it. When I returned to work with Vi I only had one days worth of stash. I got my stash by occassionally pumping one side while feeding on the other or pumping immediately before nursing. The baby is so good at getting the milk out that it really won't hurt what your baby gets to do this. It will actually stimulate more supply. I took fenugreek and that seemed to help too.

[kianurse]

Thank you ladies for the advice. i will definately try the pumping post feeds or while feeding and see how that goes.

[CodeNameMom]

Learning to manuver the pump on one side while he nurses the other has been my life line. But I just pump in the morning when I am full and at night. my shifts are much much shorter than average *and I don't leave baby yet so I am still building a storage*

[Debra]

I never had a "back supply" of frozen pumped milk. Ru wouldn't drink it if it had been frozen anyway. So, the first day I was back she took some formula and a little bit of milk. After that she took whatever I had pumped the day before at work. If she was still hungry she had a little formula, but she usually chose to wait.

I would agree with hedra. You only need about a day and half suppy if he will drink thawed breastmilk.

Currently Ru drinks regular milk or water all day when I am gone (she is 19 months) she only nurses in the evenings and mornings. She's been doing that since she was about 11 months old, since she stopped drinking formula (she just decided no more and it was about at the end of a jar -- so we stopped buying it) and I decided not to pump anymore at work. I had forgotten to bring the milk home a couple of days and she had done fine -- so I thought, why not stop pumping and see how it goes? Worked out great.

[kianurse]

I am using the onesided pump while feeding method and that seems to working. I know I am definately getting better let down that is for sure. I filled a bottle yesterday. Ricky is a good nurser and I only have issues first thing in the morning when i am here alone and have to get older two dressed and off to school. His am feed seems to run right into that schedule and at 400 when the older two are wanting to eat. I am sure it will all work out eventually. Thanks again for the ideas and suggestions.