Returning to work...not sure how to feed...

[tryanythingONCE]

Hi,
My dd is 3 months old and bf. I'm returning to work in sep and not sure what to do!
I work as a rep and cover a large territory which involves stay aways...will be spending some weeks at home, in the midlands and others working out of my mums in yorkshire. I definately want to continue bf morning and eve/night but thinking of introducing formula for day feeds to make life easier...I've never got on with expressing and think transporting milk up and down the m6 might prove tricky..keeping it cool etc..would this mixed feeding work? should I start introducing it slowly throughout aug so its established for sep? any thoughts appreciated. x

I breast fed mine and none of them would take a bottle,i returned to work after the last one a 6 months and she refused everything whilst i was away from. luckily i only worked very part time. But on my evening shift i had to get my dh to bring her to work so i could feed her on my break. I had an understanding employer. If I were you i would introduce bottle feeds ASAP if you want to do both as otherwise she may reject them. Your work sounds exhausting by the way, can you not take a longer Mat leave? You will get very tired believe me.

Oh gosh that sounds tricky! I would take longer but our savings have run out and we need the money!
I will go buy bottles today..!was it the bottle or formula your little one's refused?

TAO, you say you've never gotten on with expressing but just wanted to say, that I would find it hard to get anything much with a pump when I'm with the baby but I get loads if he skips a feed so it might not be as bad as you think. Transporting the milk is not so bad either, you just need either a cool bag with those blue ice-packs or a mini-fridge that plugs into the cigarette lighter of the car. I have always expressed in work with each baby because I felt better about working when they were still getting breastmilk.

The downsides were having 3 lots of washing and sterilising to do every evening when ff mums only had one lot, finding somewhere to express, which sounds like it could be an issue for you and you could end up expressing in the car, andn finding the time during the day, it could be difficult for me if my time with a patient ran over.

Would the easiest thing be to try mix feeding(as lo would have to get used to bottle anyway) and then express while away just to keep up your supply but not to worry too much about keeping + transporting the milk. Then you would not have to have all that extra sterilising to do. Friend of mine did this as she had to travel loads for her job + seemed to work okay.

It is horrible pouring EBM down the sink though!

They refused both breast and formula from a bottle, i even tried every teat going.

I tried dd with a bottle yesterday and she was ok so that's bit of a relief. Not sure what I would have done if she was like your lo loriycs...
thanks chipmonkey the mini fridge is a good idea! not sure how I would get on with expressing in the day though...hiding in the back of my car in a corner of a car park is not appealing!
If I stopped the day feeds and continued the morning and Evening would my supply continue to be ok for those times?

I've expressed in the car quite a number of times - if you do it under a wrap, its really quite discreet. I've always done a lot of travelling, and went back to work when DS was 4.5 months, so have expressed in airport toilets, plane toilets, lots of hotel rooms etc, and it did all work out.

If you are prepared to give some formula, then why not express when you can, save what you can, and aim to give as many direct feeds as you can, and just see how it goes. Lots of people do morning/evening/weekend feeds only and keep up a good supply.

Have you got a really good pump ? I used a Lacataline and you can run it on batteries or a car adaptor as well as mains, and it is so fast you can do a full expression in 15 mins.

My DS had been given a bottle by his dad every night from when he was born, and I breast fed the rest of the time.

I started to give my DS another Bottle during the day at about 4 months as I wanted to get him ready for when I went back to work (when he was 7 months) and thought I probably need to introduce more bottles slowly. (mainly expressed milk but also some formula)

This then became much easier when I started to wean him as every time I introduced a new meal time I gave him a bottle afterwards.

I did intend to still be breast feeding him morning and night and be on the bottle during the day but actually he started to refuse me in the evenings so I got down to just a morning feed, but then at 6 and a half months he got his first teeth and bit my nipple so hard i bled so stopped breast feeding altogether before going back to work,

which also meant that I had a little bit of time for my breasts to calm down. as my breasts were always very full and would leek/squirt everywhere unless i expressed regularly so was glad I had this sorted before returning to work.

Thanks for the pump recommendation I will check it out Cmotdibbler.
Leeky breast are a big worry for me too ten10..it's all so complicated!
How much do your LO have in a feed? How many feeds do they have in a day? I'm not even sure what my dd has at the moment as she is fed on demand currently and sometimes has a big feed, which only ever takes about 5 mins and others just a quick top up..I feel a bit daughted by trying to figure this all out in a month!

When I went back to work (16 weeks) DS had 3 bottles between 8 and 5.30, 120ml of EBM per feed. The nursery staff fed him on demand, and had some milk in their freezer just in case he needed extra. With time, he then dropped feeds until he didn't have any bottles in the day by 14 months, but still bf morning/evening/night or other times at the weekends until he was 23 months old and self weaned,

Before I went back he only had a bottle once a week or so, and never from me. Once I was at work he only had a bottle at home if I was away.