Pumping - going back to work at 7 months

[Yellow889]

I have to go back to work at 7 months. Baby is exclusively breastfed and it's going well so I don't want to change that. He is 5 months now so thinking ahead.

Pumping so far ocasionally and it has not gone well - I have the medela, the medela hand pump and the elvie stride and they all make my nipples hurt very badly and I don't get much out of them. I do have the right flange size for all of them.

Any advice? The thought of having extremely sore nipples all day everyday makes me shudder. I wouldn't be able to cope with the kind of pain they cause.

Once I had to pump for a whole day because of a family emergency and my breasts had very sore lumps in them at the end of the day. Luckily baby cleared them after a few feeds. So I am concerned about mastitis.

I do have my own office and can pump in peace at work.

I don't live in the UK, my employer was generous in letting me stay home for 7 months as they usually only offer 12 weeks.

Have you tried a hakka? No flange involved it's like a silicone bulb shaped bottle that is v simple and uses suction to get milk out. I have good success with these and actually bought 2 for my second pregnancy to do both sides at once.

Totally sympathise, pumping with my madela gives me mastitis also

Depending on the country you are in is there a LLL / BFN or similar you could ask?

By ten months with my first baby they were eating 3 meals a day and I could just feed morning and night and they would be fine - hopefully you just have a few months to get through if it's similar for you

On Facebook there's a group called exclusively pumping - you might get some good advice on there

Oh sorry final idea, again depending on location, could you look at renting a hospital grade pump for a short while see if that helps - is it the symphony?

Hopefully you will be well into weaning by 7 mnths so daytime feeding will be reducing. Your body does adjust when you do extended bf. By the time they are 12mnths you really only need to bf in the morning and at night. If you want to pump at work to provide for bottle feeding during the day you can.
I went back to work part time and found that my body adjusted so milk was available when demanded. If I was a bit full at work I’d just express a little by hand but not spend hours pumping. On days at home it just adjusted back to feed on demand. I suspect that milk production isn’t so sensitive when you start to wean.
I successfully bf DS until 22mnths when I just had had enough.

@Alwaystired2023 I thought the hakka just gets the excess, didn't realize it could be used for pumping? I need to pump enough to feed the baby. I realize by 10-11 months he'll eat more solids but at 7 months I read food is still just play/not a lot of calories?

I think hakka is often thought of as being a collector but it is a pump, it works on suction - I get as much from the hakka as I do from the madela without the mastitis.

Tricky to know how weaning will go some babies are on three meals a day by 7months and some aren't interested at all. So much will change in the next two months but if you could find a pump that worked for you then you could start building up a supply in preparation