In March I am going away for 3 days to Budapest on a hen do. I've got a reasonable supply of breastmilk in the freezer, and there's still a couple months to add to it, but I'm worried about there being enough for my DS.
Here are my concerns:
- How much will a 4 month old typically eat (he's a big boy 91st percentile)?
- I'm not that great at pumping. I usually only get between 2-4 ounces per session which at the moment is once a day (sometimes twice if I don't get enough to make it worth bagging up). So it might take a bit of effort to build up enough milk.
- I'm not against him being topped up with formula if there isn't enough, but the last few times he's had some, it's made him sick. I don't know whether to try and get him more use to it now by gradually mixing it in with my breastmilk. (He was on formula for the first day in hospital as he wouldn't latch, so I think it's more of a consistency problem than an allergy - or at least I hope it is!)
- He's happy taking breastmilk from a bottle, but he usually still thinks he's hungry and won't settle, even after having a good 5+ ounces (this was at a month old) but if he's on the boob, he'll be asleep after only 5/10 minutes and normally have to wake him up to finish a feed.
I've seen some other threads that say you can't leave a baby that young/ take the baby with you/cancel or only go for 1 day. That's not really an option here. The trip has all been paid for so there's no chance of me cancelling (not that I want to), and I am well aware I will need to take a pump to keep up my supply and keep me comfortable. I'm going to have to have time away from him eventually, so I thought it best to just suck it up and get on with it.