Will it work?

[BabyDubsEverywhere]

I am expecting DC3 in July, I start Uni in September....

Will i be able to breast feed? I will be away from the baby for a maximum of 6 hours 3 times a week, but it will only be 2 and a half months old when i start. I am clueless with how much/often BF babies feed, my first two DC were formula fed from the go but I dont think I will be able to afford the formula this time tbh. :(

You've got July and August to establish it, and your college should haveaspace for you to pump, so sounds doable

Will BF be established in two month?
Feel a bit of a dork for being so clueless about it all tbh so thankyou for answering me :)
Roughly how often will a 3 month old be feeding if its breast feeding? FF would be around 4 hourly feeds by then (from memory of course) so would only be missing one feed for which I would express ideally.
Will I be able to express that soon?
Ill just go o the loo's to do that, and theres those little cool bag backs Ive seen, or are they not good enough?7
TIA

hi babydubs
anything is possible if you are determined!

you will want to express while you are at uni. I would feed baby before you leave, express once ot twice while you are there, then feed directly on return.

as to how often baby will be feeding, it's a bit of a how long is a piece of string question. every 2 hours would be about normal, but there are plenty of bf babies who would be feeding more frequently than that, or going longer!

expressing will be fine at 8 weeks, so don't worry about that, and you will want to do it for your own comfort as much as to keep your supply going and feed baby.

well done btw, it's a big thing to do with a tiny baby!

Hi babydubs
Unfortunately I think all bf babies are different so it is hard to gauge in advance how frequently your DC will be feeding. At two-three months my DD generally went about two hours between feeds, and sometimes wanted feeding more frequently. But I did have friends whose babies were closer to a three hourly schedule.

I would have thought expressing at 2.5-3 months shoud be fine. I don't think there's any big issue with expressing in the loo except it's not the cleanest place and may not be the nicest for you. Some women need to feel relaxed to express and you may not be able to relax in the toilet? I should think a cool bag would be ok for storage for such a short period of time, one of the ones you put ice packs in.

If you did decide you wanted somewhere other than the loo to express I'm sure your uni/college will provide somewhere. I know employers are obliged to provide facilities, not sure about educational establishments but would assume the same applies. Maybe somebody else can confirm.

I know someone who expressed for her 4 mo baby when a student; the college provided her with a key to a small cupboard room with a chair and footstool, tiny fridge and kettle! She used to take in her Medela Swing pump (from eBay, apparently good secondhand Market as some women buy and then dint get n with expressing), and look at pics of her DD other phone to get her milk flowing. Said she did try to work when pumping but couldn't get in the zone and cooing over pics (she had about 800 pics on her phone!) worked.

As to how often, I feed my DS on demand so not sure about how many feeds per hour he was doing at that age but am sure you can juggle it so your baby feeds before you go and as soon as you are back and if you have him in a sling a lot he might be able to feed while you get stuff done? I think you are encouraged to get babies using bottles at about six weeks or some go onto bottle refusers, mine never took to a bottle despite me trying all sorts of differing teats.

Good luck anyway

I believe in the US, due to shorter maternity leave, it's not that unusual for the mother to be back at work around 6 weeks, but many still continue to give their babies breastmilk, so it can certainly be done.

Probably worth making the enquiry about facilities from college now rather than on first day of term though!