Returning to full time work, still breastfeeding, not expressing. Is this common?

[gaelicsheep]

I am just wondering about this in the light of the many many threads about breastfeeding and returning to work. I am doing what it says in the thread title (went back to work when DD was 7.5 months), basically accepting reverse cycling, co-sleeping with DD and feeding through the night.

I hated the idea of expressing at work and I get the impression that a lot of people are put off by this and choose to move to formula, either in the daytime or as a permanent switch.

I guess I'm just wondering if DD and I are quite unusual, or if it is something that's commonly done. I am finding it works really really well and I actually enjoy the fact that she still nurses full time as she always did, even if that does mean lots of night feeding. The following quote sums it up really well: "Once you give up the idea that you must have 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep at night, and view these nighttime interactions with your child as precious and fleeting, you get used to them very quickly."

If someone had suggested this to me a few months back I would have been horrified, and I would have assumed I would be too knackered to function. But I really feel we've adjusted and crucially I don't feel nearly so guilty leaving DD every day as I did with DS.

Thoughts?

reallytired Thu 10-Mar-11 20:45:53

I went back to work at 9 months and dd did reserse cycling. DD refused point blank to have formula. Cosleeping is the only way to cope.

Caz10 Thu 10-Mar-11 20:48:27

I did exactly the same! DD was 9mths, and she did have the odd bottle of formula, but quite often whoever had her would report that she hadn't wanted it. Moved into my bed pretty much full time after I went back, it was actually fine and I felt much less guilty about being at work! She still fed about 8-10 times in 24hrs, just none of them between c.8:30 and 5!

I can still remember feeling fairly blissed out at stupid o'clock after she'd had a feed and a wee giggle and then back to sleep..it was lovely. Less lovely was her trying to feed in 2 bfs before work, 5:30 and 8am as I remember, but again, all worth it.

Just stopped feeding her after she turned 3!

What surprised me most was how flexible she was - at weekends and in school hols she went back to "normal" feeding mode.

Ditto Caz10. DD seems to be quite happy to take it whenever it's on offer.

reallytired - notionally I also did this because DD wouldn't take milk from a bottle or cup, be it EBM or formula. But if I'm honest I didn't try very hard as this suits me much better.

When I see all the threads with mums wanting to give up breastfeeding because they're returning to work, I really really want to say they might not have to. But then I'm scared of being seen as judgmental and I'm really not. But the accepted solutions seem to be expressing or formula, both of which seemed like a nightmare from my pov.

I did this at 6 months and will do it again at 8 months this time. I was lucky to manage a lunchtime BF, and I did express a few oz most evenings to be given in a cup during the day. To be honest I was blessed with such an appalling sleeper I barely noticed the difference at night - latched on all the time anyway!

Both of mine have been firm bottle refusers. Even if they hadn't been I think I'd still have continued BFing because expressing at work was totally impractical and I'm really bloody-minded

BTW, the posts by others are copied over from a duplicate thread (crappy internet connection) which I asked to be deleted .

[Sensing I've lost the battle with this one.]

am about to being doing this for the 3rd time in about 6 weeks, when dc3 will be 9mo. Fortunately ive not had to go back to co-sleeping (ive co-slept with all them for the first 6months- but once they go in their own cot in their own room, they never sleep properly with me in the bed again- their choice ). Despite this, i still manage to get in about 4/5 feeds per day, basically i do 1 in the morning and then all the rest in the evening. It has always worked for me and ive never felt the need to express as well. Fortunately for me all of mine have absolutely loved their food once i started weaning and will take water from sippy cup. Don't think it's odd at all, but i do know some people at work have raised the odd eyebrow at me in the past when it's come up in conversation ( which it rarely does, obviously).

Thanks doricpatter.

Hi gaelic - I started one of the threads on expressing just beore I went back to work p/t - now been f/t for a two weeks but thought I would let you know where I am up to with my big plans to express...DD now has huuuuge feed at 5am in bed when she comes into bed with me, sometimes light 'snack' at 8am just before we get up, then a bottle of my milk (never more than about 6ozs) between 9am and 5pm, then huge feed at 5.30pm and a bedtime one. Increasingly though she has been dropping the bottle at nursery and just enjoying her feeds from me. She is doing brilliantly on her solids and weight/ health is great. I can't believe what I put I put myself through with DS (forced onto formula when I went back to work when he was 6mths) when I could have just done it this way.

BTW I can express at work (work and live in same place) but TBH hardly ever get around to it so may stop entirely if things carry on the way they are...and I know what you mean about relishing feeds. THe first feed after I pick pick her up is my 'reconnection' with her when we are as one again (icky I know but that's how much I love it!!!).

Good luck and enjoy those feeds .

Oh yes I remember that bedtime feed when I got in from work - dark room, big armchair, first sit down I'd had for hours on end and the only sounds were the odd slurp and gorgeous contented baby sighs. The oxytocin hit was immense!

All very interesting. I just wonder whether all the talk of a right to express, expressing breaks, private rooms etc. just makes people think it's really hard to go back to work and keep breastfeeding. I certainly found the thought of having to express at work very daunting - I couldn't face the hassle and tbh I like to keep work separate from anything "baby" or I think I'd miss her even more. I really can't imagine being at work and trying to express in my non-existent breaks. It would be sooo stressful. I am so relieved it's worked out how it has.

Like others here, I am lucky in that
a) DD eats really well and takes water happily
b) she has never slept well (has always woken at least every 3 hours) so I haven't noticed any difference

I am surprised how well I am coping though - my job is most certainly not a walk in the park!

I did this too and tbh it was easy and I never really thought about it.

This is interesting for me as I am trying to work out when to go back to work. I don't want to give formula. I am assuming then that you don't become uncomfortable during the day?

Not at all. I cut down on daytime feeding very gradually, starting about a month before I returned to work, so I think my supply had naturally adjusted by the time I went back. I'm usually starting to feel a bit full come 5pm, but not uncomfortably so.

Really interested to read this, thanks for posting gaelicsheep (and everyone). Can I ask (sorry if you've mentioned already, bit vague this morning due to night-feeding ) - what is your DD's daytime pattern like? Does she feed morning, when you pick her up from childcare, bedtime? And what happens on weekends - does she feed more frequently during the day or is it a similar pattern to weekdays? Does she drink any other milk during the days when you're at work?

Sorry for all the questions. Just really interested in how it all works at age 7 months-ish as mine were older when I went back to work.

How many times a night does your dd feed gaelic? I am back at work next month and wondering how to go about it. DS sleeps so badly I may not notice any difference

DD is 7 months old, i've been back at work full time for a month and a half and still exclusively breastfeed, but I work from home so don't have to express. I have never expressed with DD. Tried it with DS but hated it.

It's been a bit of a revelation, actually. With DS it was constantly drummed into me that, ' you need to get them to take a bottle, you need to get them to take a bottle', etc, etc, ad Infinitum.

I took a year's maternity leave with DS - why did I have to get him to take a bottle?

I continued to breastfeed him until he was 13 months, suplementing with formula ONLY because 'I had to get him to take a bottle'. In hindsight, it was for no other reason. I wasn't working, so could easily have fed him myself that whole time. The only reason I introduced formula was because of the incessant, 'you have to get them to take a bottle' brigade.

So, with DD I am doing things differently. Will beast feed for as long as I/she want/s to - at least a year. I am introducing a cup now that she is on solids, and then once she is one, I will start to introduce cow's milk in a cup. No need for a bottle at all.

I realise I'm in a position that not everyone can replicate, in that I work from home and so can incorporate b/feeding into my day. But I truly wished I had questioned the whole 'you have to get them to take a bottle' thing more with DS...

I'm really interested in this thread. I'm going back to work in about six weeks time, four days a week.

I've been trying to reduce daytime feeds and now DD feeds at 10am and 3pm (ish) and the rest is bedtime/overnight.

I'm hoping when I go to work we'll manage a snack feed at 8am before work, then probably about 5.15 then 7.30 bedtime.
I have some expressed milk in the freezer which I'll send with her at first and if she takes it I might express for her. I could also at a push get to her nursery at lunchtime and feed her. But I'm hoping that with solids and water from a sippy cup, plus all the distractions at nursery, she'll be happy to wait for me.

I've had to do this - went back FT when DS was 6 months. I'm not as happy about it as some on here, as I've never enjoyed BFing, but DS is a ferocious bottle refuser and when it came to the crunch we couldn't face starving him out to make him take one. I get up with DS at 6.30, feed him, make myself coffee and get ready for work, then offer him a second feed before I leave. At work all day, get home about 6, feed him straight away, bathe him, feed him again before bed. He normally wakes for one feed between 9 and 10 and another one just after midnight, then DH has him till the morning so that I get some uninterrupted sleep. It helps that weaning has gone well and DS loves his food (and will take water from a cup, though it has to be an open cup as he sees sippy cups as bottles by stealth). It also helps that I can bring work home: leaving work at 5.15 isn't sustainable in the long run, but I can manage it short-term by working in the evenings after DS has gone to bed.

I wouldn't even have considered expressing once I went back to work - if DS had taken a bottle, we'd have switched him to formula at that point. Work's demanding enough without trying to make time to express milk, find somewhere to store it, get it home safely etc.

Ieattomuchcake - that is pretty much exactly where we were when I returned to work. Then effectively we dropped the 10am feed and delayed the 3pm one.

Cosmosis - that is exactly it, I haven't really noticed a difference! We began co-sleeping when she was 5 months and I was away from home without DH. It was the only way I could cope with the nights and since then she hasn't returned to her cot (unless it is used as a bedside cot and I'm right there in bed beside her).
I can't really say how many times she feeds overnight. She feeds on and off all evening, again at midnightish when we finally get to bed. Then maybe 3am ish. Then perhaps on and off from 5 ish through to the alarm going off at 7. I then feed her again before getting up and that's her until I return from work.
It sounds really horrendous but she did this anyway, and I tend to doze off as I'm feeding her. I am functioning much better than I thought I would tbh. I have a pretty complex job and my brain's functioning just fine (I think!).

Indelible - our pattern is as follows - read ish at the end of all times:

7.30 am - breastfeed DD(often she's not that bothered having fed all night)
8.45 am - leave house
10 am - after returning from dropping me at work and DS at school, DH gives DD breakfast (usually Weetabix or Readybrek) made with cows milk
1 pm - DD lunch, usually followed by yoghurt and fruit - water to drink
5 pm - DH picks me up from work - usually don't need to feed DD right away
5.30 pm - arrive home, breastfeed DD
6.30 pm - DD tea
7 pm onwards - holding and feeding DD on and off all evening
12 am - go to bed. Holding and feeding DD on and off through night.

But you know, like the quote I posted earlier I have now learned to view this time as being precious, all the more so since I'm at work during the day. With DS I went back when he was 6 months, he was on formula by then, in his own room and sleeping through. I felt like I hardly saw him and I felt tons more guilty about working than I do now.

Gaelic that's really interesting. Do you mind if I ask, were your boobs ok with you neither expressing nor feeding all day? I feel like mine will be fine but am anxious about turning into dolly Parton half way through my first day back at work!

Our toilets have toilet cubicles then communal hand basins so hand expressing for relief isn't really an option unless I do it into the loo!!

How old is your DD now? Mine is 10 months old but is BLW and although she's making a good stab at solids I don't think she's consuming as much as her spoon fed contemporaries and I think she'll be fairly reliant on bm for a while yet.

Yes they are fine. I gradually cut down on daytime feeds for about a month beforehand so my boobs had chance to adjust.

DD is nearly 9 months and I returned to work about 6 weeks ago. She has some spoon feeding and lots of finger food so she does take plenty of solids in the day, plus water as I said.

At 7 months DD was on 3oz at lunchtime, so not nothing but not a lot. We stopped that feed at about 9.5 months. She's also largely BLW but I figure if she feeds from me at least 4 times in 24 hours, I don't need to worry.

I had had enough of expressing by that stage.

I'm the same in that DD was/is an awful sleeper, so she couldn't really reverse cycle as she had always woken every 2 hours anyway

I also have a brain intensive job and find myself amazed at what I do well on. Before DD I needed 9 hours sleep a night.