Gotta leave my baby - help! Almost 4 months old (breastfed)

[Belgrano]

My best friend's hen weekend is this weekend. It's Friday to Sunday so I have said I can only go on Sat as I can't bear to leave him over two nights.

Bride/hen and the others going mostly don't have children so don't understand what I am on about!

He still feeds once or twice a night and about 6 times a day. I've got 45 oz in the freezer, which I reckon is enough. I have some emergency cartons of formula just in case, and a committed DH who is taking on DD (2 1/2) and DS while I go and have fun.

Any tips to make sure he is ok and I am ok and the milk flow remains other than pumping and trying to enjoy myself while missing him dreadfully??

i left DS overnight when he was 16/17 weeks - he had a few feeds when he visited & ebm. I also did my best to express but it was a pita.
I had major supply issues afterwards, sorry to say I wouldn't go in your place Can you come home on sat evening?

Oh god, no I can't come home on Sat evening, I'm well and truly committed now. I have said I'll leave after the mid morning feed on Sat, so he'll get that from me and then come home for the afternoon feed, so he will get just over 24 hours of not feeding from me - that's roughly feeds at 1 pm, 4 pm, 7 pm on Sat, middle of night whatever happens, and 7 am, 10 am and 1 pm on Sunday all from bottles.
What's a 'pita' please?

sorry
anyway, that's just my experience - you'll probably get 5 other people telling you they did it and it was fine

Sounds like you have a good let-down and the pumping works well for you.

Only advice if you must go is pump exactly to the schedule you are normally on at home -- you don't want mastitis or supply problems!

PS: pita = pain in the a*

As long as you make sure your expressing as much milk as is possible you should be fine. There are some good tips on KellyMom. As GG said you need to pump on DS's.

I think it may well be worth hiring a double pump, it'll save you a lot of time!

You'll be fine when you actually get there, I promise! It'll be really good for you to have a break

aww thanks! I am really looking forward to it. Might phone about double pump now.
who would you hire from? La leche?

Please don't panic. I really can't imagine that you will have a supply problem as you are clearly able to express very efficiently given how much you have stored in the freezer. I left DD1 for a night (wedding) when she was 3 months. DD2 for 3 nights at 3 months (DH took me to Venice - yay!) and DS at 6 weeks (another wedding). My Mum looked after the little ones each time.

I expressed regularly as close to standard feed times as possible (although I didn't worry too much about exact timing or if I missed one expressing slot during the wedding speeches!! I just did it when I could). I had absolutely no supply issues even after the 3 day trip.

The key is to make sure that you express enough - if the milk is taken out of your breasts then your breasts are stimulated to make more, so just make sure you do it and everything will be fine.

Please go, please enjoy yourself and don't worry one bit (stress can also effect your milk supply!!)

Thanks Nelly. I have to admit the amount in the freezer has taken me about 6 weeks to build up - I tend to get between 1 - 3 oz per day but that is in addition to feeds so I am anticipating a much greter yield when I am not also doing breastfeeds.
Thanks everyone.

Hi, I also had to go to a hen do when ds was about 4mths (and likewise only went for the sat night). It sounds like you have plenty in the freezer so I'm sure your ds will be fine. My ds also went about 24hrs with just bottle feeds and my dh said he was absolutely fine - just looked a bit disappointed when he kept getting offered a bottle and then guzzled it down!

However the one thing I would say from my experience is that I found it really hard to express as frequently or enough (hen do not really conducive to sitting expressing!) and therefore I was in an awful lot of pain and badly engorged by the time I got home. (A few feeds soon sorted it out and I didn't have any supply problems but it did make it hard to enjoy the hen do). So I would say really try and express as much as you possibly can whenever you can.

Have fun!