hints and tips for continuing b/f and working.

[spina]

Hello. I'm grateful to anyone who's willing to share their sage-like wisdom with me.

I'm returning to work three days a week on 16th July and would like to continue to b/f ds2(who'll be 6and a half months).

i've started doing some expressing and am getting the expected measly ammounts of ebm.

my plan is to do a feed first thing and last thing(6/7pm) and any night feeds. he currently has two other feeds at 11am and 3pm and the easiest time for me to express at work will be 12 lunch.i plan to do all feeds on my days "off".

can i get away with only expressing once on my work days,sending him off to nursery with one beaker of ebm and one beaker of formula and expect my body to deal with the flucuations in demand? i bf ds1 but only am and pm and i appeared to dry up last time.

also when he drops a feed can i drop ff and will body pick up extra demand?

sorry so long.

thank yooooouuuuuuu!

Hi Spina,
I returned to work 5 days a week when dd was 7 weeks although about 3 days a week I work from home. I used to express once per day I was out and feed her on the days I was at home. Your body does get used to the changes and so will your baby - dd fed for longer at the feed when I got home as she had not had as much ebm in the day. I used to get about 6oz a day out expressing but I know it varies hugely. Also I changed pumps as could only get out 1 oz with an electric but 6 with a hand pump (?!)
DD is now 15 mo and I am still managing 3 feeds a day 7am, 5pm & 9pm

Good luck - am sure you will do fine

Well I'm doing all sorts of weird and erratic patterns and my supply seems to keep up. My LO is 11 months and I've stopped expressing when I'm at work and just put up with being a full by the end of the day. Some days I pump once I get home, other days he gets at extra bf at 5.30 and then generally has less at bedtime (but doesn't seem to mess with his bedtime). On days I'm with him all day I sometimes end up feeding him 6 or 7 times in 24hrs (instead of usual 5) just cos it's easier to get him to nap that way. I feel a bit empty but he seems perfectly happy and not hungry sooner than I'd expect so I think he's still getting enough.

So basically my experience is it's pretty flexible.

agree with ohtesr, your boobs will sort themselves out with whatever supply and demand pattern develops

I went back to work ft when my daughter was 6 months old and carried on bfding her until past her 1st birthday. I started out expressing, but it was such a faff for me I didn't stick with it, and used formula - she didn't end up having much milk durin gthe day, but was a proper guzzler just before I dropped her off at childminders, and when I picked her up

thanks for your replies. I thought it would work last time and it didn't so i'm really grateful to hear positive stories and am determined to make it to a year this time.

perhaps my body never really got into gear last time. i had to ff top up ds1 from a few days old and dropped ff after a few weeks but had issues with his wt gain. think my body really didn't know for sure what was going on.

this time we've gotton to 6mths with just bf and ebm top ups for a few early days(when ds2 followed same pattern as ds1!)