Pumping and going out and about

[redvelvet7]

hello! I have a newborn and am exclusively pumping. Can anyone with experience tell me how to make this easier whilst going out? I use the fridge hack at the moment with the pump so only clean and sterilise once a day. Would a cool bag achieve a similar objective? I bought a portable milk cooler. Some questions floating in my brain - do you feed your baby cold milk if out and not warm it? Or do you pump and keep it in a bottle as you can have it 4 hours at room temp so can wait for baby to be hungry? My pump is visible and you can see I’ve got something in my bra - any good covers someone can recommend so it doesn’t look so pointy? Pumping feels like dead time to me, would you ever go on a walk with it on? I know this will get easier over winter when I can wear a coat and cover up!

thanks

If you don't have a fridge, you need to rinse the parts every time. They don't need a full wash though. For such a tiny baby, I would wash the parts fully every 12 hours because despite breast milk being anti bacterial, you can still get some quite nasty things growing. Depending what pump you have, it might not be that expensive to by a second set of breast parts to save washing. You will need to replace the membranes and duck bills regularly anyway with that much use. I would be surprised if you could walk without the milk leaking out.

For the baby, mine won't drink cold milk. We take an insulated cup of boiling water and stand the bottle in it.

I'm sure you've got a good reason, but why are you exclusively pumping? Feeding directly from the breast is one hell of a lot easier. Older babies can learn even if they didn't take to it at first

You can get pump wipes but to be honest, if I was going to be out a long time I had a second set of parts. We also did the fridge hack, quite generously with our timings though. Considering expressed milk can be kept in the fridge for up to 8 days why is it so vastly different for parts..

I reallllly recommend the ceres milk chiller it’s absolutely brilliant and really made a difference to my milk storage (used it for a trip away from baby and it kept the milk ‘refrigerated’ for 24 hours + with the option to extend that if you have access to ice).

I just wore loose clothes when I had my pump in or an open jacket/shacket/shirt so you couldn’t see it really from the side.

Our DD will drink almost any temp milk but would try & keep it room temp if possible as it’s nicer than chilled going into winter!

I did it for 9 months. I used to just feed what I had pumped for baby’s next feed. Kept it out for 6 hours at room temp. The guidelines for this vary but some reliable ones said 6hours was ok even up to 8 hours. Baby just drank it at room temp. I followed this majority of time and put in fridge/freezer any excess. I never bothered with carrying cold bags or heating milk, my baby was fine with it at room temp tho wouldn’t have drank it straight from fridge.

I tried to pump in car rather than totally out and about. As it was easier tho at times I did do it out and about.

I had 3 sets of my pump to make washing easier. If you have any questions feel free to PM me. You are doing amazing!!