Away from baby for 6 days - will my milk be OK?

[smileymummy]

Hi

I am new to this site so hello to everyone! :)

I have 2 boys - one of 2yrs and a 15 week old, Louis.

I am breastfeeding Louis - i feed him at 7.30am and 5.30pm on one breast. I also express at those times off the other breast and that gives Louis 2 bottles of breastmilk for 11am and 3pm, whilst I am at work. He has a small dreamfeed at 10pm.

So all is going well, but now i have to go away next week for work. Financially I have to do this. My mum will be helping with the boys, with my husband, and the nanny who works whilst i do.

I intend to pump whilst away but will my milk be Ok.? I expect that my supply will go down, and that is fine, i will put Louis to my breast 6/7 times a day when i return to get the supply back up again.

But I am worried that my supply will dry up totally. Or worse, L will reject me when i get back :(

He has had aptimil twice last week in anticipation, and I have left a freezer full of milk too.

Any tips on what I can do?

Thanks!

The only thing I can suggest is that you pump while away to keep up your supply. No ideas on the rest of it sorry

You will be fine I went away for a week and pumped every day to keep supply up - no rejection issues and DD just fed a bit more to get the supply up to her level. ( I also used aptamil for top ups).

Smiley, I think you're right to be a bit concerned about this.

At the moment, you're feeding 3 x in 24 hours. That's not a lot at 15 weeks and while you and the baby are doing ok, a further break of 6 days might have quite an impact. I suggest you make an extra effort to pump, but probably more than the twice a day you are doing at the moment - that should keep a milk supply present. When you return experience suggests that most babies do go back on the breast just fine, though some do not. You may need to give Louis lots of reassuring skin to skin contact and your sugggestion of putting him to the breast often is a good one. I would say make it even more than 6-7 times if he looks as if he might be at all puzzled/rejecting/impatient.

Good luck!

Thanks!

I will also feed him from my boob for every feed from tomorrow (dont work fridays ) until I go on Monday.

I thought I should pump at 7am ish, lunchtime break and at 7pm ish and again before bed - does that sound OK?

I think that should be ok.....you can always pump more if you have the chance :)

I thought I'd let you know that everything was fine.

I pumped 3x a day, and was getting less off each boob by the end of the week.

However, when I got home, Louis gave me the biggest smile ever when he saw my boob

For the 1st few days back I topped him up with frozen EBM after each feed, and by day 4 we were fine. Now it is all boob/ EBM again.

I hope that this helps anyone else who is ging to be away from their baby - you dont have to give up!

Hayley x

Ooooh I've just read this, and what a wonderful story! My, weren't you organised at 15 wks! Well done for making such an effort!