Breast feeding but need to go back to work, any advice welcome please!

[madmarj]

Hi. I have a dd who is 6 months old and I am still breast feeding her. I have started going back to work and am really struggling with expressing during the day, mainly due to lack of time available to me. I know I should be given enough time, but in reality it is not happening.

I am thinking of weaning her off me during the day, but continuing the early morning, evening and overnight feeds. Is this practical or possible? Would my supply work like this? I would be starting her on formula during the day instead. I would be grateful for any advice on this.
Thankyou

This works well for many friends of mine. They even feed full time at weekends/days off with no supply problems.

If going to Formula I suggest going straight to a cup rather than a bottle, it takes a while but they soon get the hang of it.

I am back at work, although I work part-time, and ds2 has a feed before we go, then if he wants milk during the day he has formula, and I feed him once we're home again. Weekends I feed him full-time.

He has stopped taking milk during the day at Nursery though, will refuse it and only takes water.

That is good to hear! I have been worrying that it will wreck my supply and cause me to give up bf altogether, which I dont really want to do. Thanks

OK, I did this with DD and she also refused the formula at nursery - she started feeding a lot overnight, to stock up. It was awful for me - I could barely function at work, which made going back seem a bit pointless! The nursery recommended using one of those bottles with transitional teats (like a spout, Mothercare stock them) and it did work a bit better - she'd been taking cups for tiny amounts until then. Eventually she got the hang of the formula/nursery and she did sleep through eventually - but it took 4 months. I'd recommend trying to prevent what the NCT lady called 'reverse-cycle feeding', perhaps by introducing a bottle of ebm or formula in the night (night-time feeding will make your boobs explode in the day, btw, so you may find expressing much easier, esp early/mid morning). HTH

I was worried about getting too full in the day, and certainly dont want to be feeding her even more during the night! Dd tends to have one or maybe two feeds overnight, as well as her pre bed feed and early morning one. I do still feed her through the day at the moment but was hoping that maybe I could slowly stop feeding her in the day, and just do night. Expressing is just difficult to find time for when at work. Am amazed that I have got this far as bf just didnt work out when I had my ds a few years ago. Never thought I would have this as a problem!!

Your employer does have a responsibilty to provide you with the time and space to express though marj - I was doing 12 hour shifts after DS1 was born and expressed usually 3 times a day (managing a nursing home so pretty busy) It doesn't take long if you can find a quiet place and I found it helped to have a picture of DS to look at(helps let down for some)
You need to discuss it with your boss - after all if you were a smoker you'd get fag breaks, no?
Lisa X