work trip

[LittleCheese]

Just found out that I may need to go away with work for a week when DD2 is 25 weeks old. Aside from the emotional issues on a practical level I am worried about feeding. At this point she will still be BF, I should be able to express and freeze enough milk to last her the week i am away. My worries are the effect this week away will have on my supply. Will expressing whilst I am away be enough to keep my milk established to continue to feed once im home. Or would leaving my DD be likely to mean the end of bf.

I went away for 8 days when ds was 6 months old (not work - skiing ). I'd been back at work since ds was 4.5 months old and so was used to expressing. Expressed loads in advance of me going and then again while I was away (stored it in the chalet freezer and brought it all back in a cool bag - in the middle of the foot and mouth crisis..... was just itching for someone to stop me and tell me I couldn't bring dairy products into the country! ).

Ds was fine - as was my supply.

thanks for sharing your experience nice to know it can be done, when you say you expressed a lot while you were away, was it equivalent to how often your ds fed or more or less?

LittleCheese - that's a very young age for you and your baby to be apart....is there no way you could take her?

Why would your work insist on a mother going away for a week with such a little baby?

Most women are still on maternity leave at that time!

work haven't insisted on this and i haven't yet decided if i will be going.

I am at this stage just weighing up how feasible it would be. DD1 will be 3 at this point and im pretty sure both girls will have no issue spending the week with dh and my parents I am more worried how I will cope and the practicalities of it all

What I expressed while I was away was roughly eqivelant to what ds took. As I say, I was used to expressing as I'd been back at work f/t for a couple of months. And work did involve the occasional red eye flight down to London, so almost all his feeds that day would be expressed.

I did get used to expressing in lots of strange places!

The supplies I expressed while I was awy did stand me in good stead towrds the end of his breast feeding "career", ie when he was about 1, as the amount I was able to express did start to dwindle. (Or was it that my incentive to do so wasn't as strong, now that he could also have cow's milk?

Ds was always a good sleeper, but one thing I did do in preparation for my trip away was wehn he dropped his 10pm feed, I kept it going as an "express" to build up stores.