To be upset I may have to stop breastfeeding?

[segc94]

I’m going back to work in a couple of months, and my line of work means I won’t be able to breast feed as I get very few breaks to express.
I’m guessing that I’ll stop producing milk, or produce considerably less and not enough for my baby.
I don’t mind formula feeding, my baby is on one formula feed at night the rest is breast feeding.. but for some reason I feel extremely guilty and upset about not being able to breast feed anymore. Is this normal?
My baby will be approximately 4.5 months old when I go back to work.

Also I found my baby switched to feeding much more at night, so started cosleeping as it meant he could eat and I could sleep. I'm not sure if that would work for you, but I found it helpful.

I went back to work when dd was 8 months, she got some formula at nursery, I expressed just to ease discomfort. My supply adjusted so I stopped expressing after few weeks. Still breastfeeding now, working 4 days a week, dd is 19 months. It might be more difficult as your lo is younger so your supply may not adjust as easily?

I went back to work 3 days a week when my elder daughter was 5 months old. I started preparing for that early and expressed and froze milk. By the time I went back I had a huge supply so I gave the nursery/childminder 4 bags a day and they also kept a couple of spares in their freezer.

Initially I used to express once a day at work, and also continued to express on non working days. However, I had to stop expressing at work after 2 or 3 months as I moved location and the only place available was the disabled loo which I didn't like using.

Obviously, my freezer supplies reduced as I couldn't express enough to maintain them, but the initial 3 months worth took a while to run down and as she got older and had more solid food she needed less milk in the day. As a result, I had enough to get her to 12 months, after which I stopped expressing and she had cow's milk when I was at work. I carried on feeding her until she was 18 months when I get pregnant again.

The good news was that my supply adjusted perfectly well and, other than the first day when I didn't express or feed her myself at lunchtime, which was very uncomfortable, everything settled down very well. I could limit myself to morning/evening/night on working days but continue to feed as much as I liked on non-working days. As others have said, the body is a great thing!

As you are self employed let us leave the EU law right for employees to breastfeed which I am pretty sure I remember is part of English employment law to one side.

So you can feed just outside of work time. When my babies were ready for solids etc that is how we did it too and when I stopped expressing but I stll fed at home and they all woke through the night so were feeding then too which probably kept supplies up and I loved the holidays as we could go back to 100% direct feeding and it all seemed to work fine.

The first day you don't feed at least at lunch time you will probably feel very swollen. So do try to adjust gradually or have something at work even if just 5 minutes in the loo to get some out to relieve the discomfort even if you throw it away.