Those of you who expressed when at work. Where did you keep the milk?

[NoMansAnIsland]

In the regular fridge where people kept their food? Or did your workplace produce another fridge.

I have an AIBU? But I don't know if I have the balls to say it.
I feel like I need to scope out what other women have done first.

I'm not a troll, just a recent name changer. I don't need lactation details, just storage.

I'm still on mat leave but it's just milk. As long as it's in a container that won't leak I don't see the problem. People put stinky food in microwaves and fridges all the time at work and you are forced to inhale tuna or something else with a strong aroma. I'd be really pissed off if someone chucked it. If someone was bothered by it not being in an opaque bag or similar they could have asked their manager to ask you to do that.

This is probably a silly question but why do you express at work? Is it for comfort? I'm not being goady, genuinely looking for an answer! I started back at work a couple of months ago and haven't needed to express after the first few weeks, once my body got used to not feeding during the day. I feel like I'm missing something!

When I told work I would still be breast feeding I was told that work have to provide me with my own fridge for my expressed milk, the same with my SIL

I work for the London Fire Brigade and my SIL works for the police

@BirdIsland

This is probably a silly question but why do you express at work? Is it for comfort? I'm not being goady, genuinely looking for an answer! I started back at work a couple of months ago and haven't needed to express after the first few weeks, once my body got used to not feeding during the day. I feel like I'm missing something!

How old was your baby when you went back to work, though? The later you go back the more easily your supply adjusts IME.

It’s partly for comfort and partly so that your baby can be fed the milk while you are at work the next day.

I had a fridge provided for me,
It was a small tabletop fridge. Years ago a colleague stored expressed milk in the communal fridge but people complained and since then anyone expressing at work gets their own fridge.

I toók freezer blocks with me each morning, inside a small coolbag. Rotated a couple each day.

But tbh it was a nightmare. Privacy, space, power socket issues. UK companies I've worked in don't cater well to this, unlike the UK.

And I was fortunate in that 3 days a week I'm office based, travelling 40% of the Time. Try finding power sockets, privacy, and somewhere to store your milk when you're doing site inspections in a male dominated field, it just isn't built into employee processes at all to pump on your lunch break.

So: my suggestion is get a decent coolbag, I would have used the work fridge in a labelled bag with my name on if I was still in an environment where I had access to it.

My biggest regret of returning from mat leave was not making a fuss, HR are still bleating on about lack of top leadership female engineering talent and every time I hear about one of their ignorant initiatives about being soooo supportive of mothers / working parents (mums, never anything aimed at dads) I think how shitty my experience was. It was one of the biggest things that I wish I'd made a few polite suggestions on to make it easier for other women. But I didn't, because I did not want to put my head above the parapet.

Unlike the USA I mean. It's the 1 area my USA colleagues seem to have it better...

@Clevs

I had a fridge provided for me, It was a small tabletop fridge. Years ago a colleague stored expressed milk in the communal fridge but people complained and since then anyone expressing at work gets their own fridge.

People complained? WTF? Why?

I hope that complainants would get short shrift nowadays, and be hauled up for sex-based discrimination, but perhaps I’m being too optimistic.

It’s better in the USA because maternity leave is pitiful and women are commonly back at work by 12 weeks, sometimes 6.

In the work fridge, in a bottle labelled with my name.

@ThanksItHasPockets my baby was 10 months, so maybe my supply adjusted reasonably quickly. Thanks for your reply, I'm a first time Mum so always feel like I'm doing things wrong!

In the communal fridge in a cool bag with an iceblock inside it.

Would be RAGING if someone threw out my milk. Wtf?!

And can highly recommend the Elvie pump to solve the power socket/privacy etc issues. Sometimes I pumped at my desk in open plan and no one was the wiser. And amazing if travelling for meetings etc. Win!

In the kitchen fridge, after making sure everyone new not to put it in their coffee.

if anyone had thrown out my milk, the wrath of God would have descended upon them in terms of HR grievances and alerts to other staff members. Unless not clearly marked, that's absolutely not ok.

I say this as an underproducer for whom 2x daily pumping sessions usually led to having about 25ml to offer ("not worth it" to some but to me important in the first few months).

I would have gone batshit if anyone had thrown out a labelled bag of mine - I hope you raised it ?!?

Did you just have the bottles on the communal fridge shelf, or within your own cooler bag? I can understand some people not being happy about it being on display.

This time of year, our work cleaners always put up a sign saying that anything left in the fridge on X date would be binned as they did a deep clean each year. Could this be the case?

I've worked in several companies and organisations in and around London. I generally only found large, private banking/finance companies had a dedicated breastfeeding room and fridge. Other companies might have had a 1st aid room to use, but rarely a dedicated fridge.

@gimletchugger, because there is zero entitlement to paid maternity leave, mothers have to leave their newborn infants to go to work, so not as progressive as it looks unfortunately

We have a room for Nursing Mothers which has a fridge in it.

I got to use the first aid room (lucky me) and the fridge in there, but people were still super complacent about it. One of the board members liked to lock himself in there to take phone calls and I once came in to find the whole room, and the fridge, filled with booze for a company party. I spoke to the head of HR and she made catsbum face at me (although the booze did get shifted). It was fairly symptomatic of the complacent sexist culture in that place. Fortunately I was stroppy enough by then to make a stink in the hopes of making things better for the future. They told me I was the first person to pump at work; I knew I was not, it was just that no one else had ever told them.

Would have killed for an Elvie but I couldn't afford one. Always had to be tied to the power socket.

They got me a fridge. In the canteen in full view. Above the general fridge. Labelled HUMAN MILK DO NOT TOUCH. Which was nice everytime I put anything in there. Ooooohhh that's who needs that fridge...m

I am raging!! Absolute fucker who chucked your milk out. Unless they emptied the entire fridge I would be on the HR pronto!! And why is it 'grim' to keep human milk in a fridge but fine for bovine milk???

I said I was happy to use the regular fridge but they got me a mini fridge with a coded lock, they also out a lock on one of the small meeting rooms and a bind on the door window. I also had a DSE assessment to ensure I was safe and comfortable expressing, or felt a bit much tbh but was much appreciated once I was back and in the swing of things

In a cool bag. I had a Medela pump and they did a pump bag + cool bag set with a really good shaped ice block.

I'm nhs, got a lovely lockable (with loo) room, provided with hospital grade pump, and lockable fridge. Also had a kettle! Was very well looked after!

shop.medela.co.uk/products/accessories/cooler-bag/?gclid=CjwKCAiArIH_BRB2EiwALfbH1IPZCFDmELI2jpUc_ZNWRn_rwdKlbZwJSJQT4pi7VoZdosw5ABKyEBoC3X0QAvD_BwE

^ cool bag