Away on course for 4 days - how do I keep my milk supply going?

[ButIForgetMyself]

Got to go on a course at the end of May. I'll be out of the house from 7.30am until at the earliest 6pm, learning how to become an infant massage instructor.

DD who is currently 12 weeks old, has been BF on demand until now, and will continue to be when my course begins.

I am planning on expressing enough before then so she has enough EBM to get her through the 4 daytimes - however I'm scared that my supply will diminish by not being able to feed her/ express often in the daytime. I'll take the pump with me and will pump at lunchtime to keep supply going, but then I'll have to chuck that because I won't be able to refrigerate it.

Any tips?

So you'll feed her in the evening, overnight and in the morning ?

Then have a really good pump at lunchtime (make sure you do breast compression and hand express at the end).

If you get a coffee and tea break, nip into the loo and hand express down the loo /into a bottle in your handbag if you feel overfull.

If you have a cool bag with enough blocks, then you could get/keep the milk cold and take it home for the next day. I did that a couple of times, and all was fine.

There really shouldn't be any problem with your supply after 4 days of that

I'm not sure but I'd think that feeding evening, night and morning would be enough to keep your supply going. You might need to express so you don't leak though.

I left my exclusively bf DD2 when she was 3 months old for 4 days and 3 nights (I had built up a freezer supply for when I was away). Whilst away I pumped morning, lunchtime and evening, so 3x in each 24 hrs. At the time I was feeding her more like 5 or 6 times in 24 hrs. I had absolutely no problems at all continuing with exclusive bf on my return. I am sure that if you are still feeding her morning and evening then pumping once at lunch time should easily be sufficient to keep your milk supply going.