Getting into a routine of expressing for when I go back to work--tips?

[YanknCock]

At the moment DS is 3.5 months and exclusively breastfed. He normally feeds about 6 times a day, with the last one being 6oz of expressed milk just before he goes to bed at 8pm. He sleeps through until 6 or 7am on this.

I am planning on going back to work full time and he will be at nursery from when he is about 5 months, 6 at latest. I want to keep him on breast milk, but not sure how/how soon to start the transition to bottles during the day. It takes me two sessions of expressing to get the 6oz he has at night, and I normally do it at night after he goes to bed, for use the next day.

I'm envisioning a morning and evening feed from the breast, and then 4 bottles for during the day at nursery. Sooooo....where do I start? How much do I give him per feed from a bottle? When do I need to start working on this to have him ready for nursery in 1.5-2 months? Should I start with having the evening feed on the boob and using the expressed earlier in the day? What if he doesn't sleep through anymore on just the boob?

Your thoughts/tips/suggestions gratefully received....

Oh, forgot to add, I know I can start weaning at 6 months, so figure it will be max of a month that I need to do four bottles a day for nursery. From what the HV said, it seems like the transition to getting more of his nutrition from food will be pretty quick if he's starting weaning at 6 months. She said about a week of baby rice, a few weeks of purees, and then get on to more chunky stuff (along with continuing breast milk). Sound right?

If he takes a bottle, you don't need to do anything really. He knows that hunger is sorted with that as well as boob, so you can move between feeds being all boob and all bottles in the day no problem.

I'd do the evening feed from you though - it will be much better for your supply

DS had 120ml per bottle when he had EBM at nursery - he had 3 feeds per day, but they did have frozen milk jic, and I told them they could reheat a bottle once as long as it was fresh milk (told them if I'd sent frozen for any reason), so that dealt with him only drinking a half and then wanting more. The first few weeks, I also gave them an extra bottle on Mondays, and then they rotated it through so they had one in hand.

DS didn't drop milk feeds very quickly, even though he ate everything in sight as soon as he could grab it. So, I think I expressed three times a day till he was 9 months, then twice till 12, then once till 14 months when he dropped all day feeds. When he dropped a feed consistently, I kept expressing the same number of times for a couple of weeks so that I upped my freezer stash as I needed a big one for when I was travelling.

Its much easier to express to replace a feed, but you do need to express really well - a double electric with breast compression and then hand expression at the end will mean you really remove all the milk.

My rule of thumb was that I never gave DS a bottle when I was around, and I fed on demand when he was with me. Am sure that was what helped me continue till he was 23 months when I'd gone back ft at 4.5 months

I went back to work 2 days a week when DS was 8 weeks old then 4 days a week from 6 months. I only ever expressed twice a day and at 6 months he was having 3 5-6oz bottles a day.

I agree that a double electric pump is vital. I would double pump until the flow stopped then switch from side to side with a single pump until that flow stopped and then hand express. Initially I was surprised how much more I got when pumping to replace a feed, rather than alongside feeding.

I made sure I built up a decent stash in the freezer as otherwise it was all a bit stressful. It was nice that the occasional lost milk, usually from a bag being damaged in the freezer and then leaking on defrosting, wasn't a disaster.

DS was BLWed so didn't drop feeds until he was 8.5 months, but then he dropped them very fast, with no day time feeds at all, even when with me, from 10 months. Pumping while working is a huge commitment, so it was a happy day when I put the pump away, but it's still something I'm proud of having done. Only thing now is trying to work out what to do with the 70ozs of EBM in the freezer which DS has no interest in.

I'm afraid I can't help with the sleeping point, I'm still waiting for DS to sleep through the night at 11 months, so I'm very jealous of you!

Oh dear. I've only got a Medala Swing, can't really afford to get another pump, especially not a dual one! I got this one from ebay, maybe I could just get a 2nd one and take over two plug sockets whereever I pump?

Also, I'm really nervous about just waiting until he actually goes to nursery to start the bottles during the day. The problem is not him taking it, but more with me being able to express enough. If I don't express every day routinely, I find it harder to get the same amount when I go back to it. Plus it seems to take me two sessions, two hours apart to get enough for 1 bottle. Am getting scared this is not going to work!

As I don't even know what job I'm going to have (am applying for different ones and if I don't get anything back to my old one), I can't say if it will be a good environment for expressing.

I went back to work with dd1 at 4.5mos. I was also worried how it would pan out. She also was a bottle refuser and I had no one to coax her onto one during the day soooo.... I had to wait till she got to nursery. It took a 2 - 3 days before she took appreciable amounts of milk from a bottle. they can also try her with a sippy cup - on without a valve like the tommee tippee one.

I only took milk for the first day as the separation from dd meant that I would be pumping whole feeds during the day.

I bf her at the nursery in the am and when I picked her up in the PM.

many babies also reverse cycle - feed more at night to replace some of the day feeds. cosleeping makes dealing with reverse cycling easier in most women's experiences.

i second getting a double pump. the ameda lactaline is much cheaper than the medela pump and is v v good. it is what I used and lots of mners really rate it.

if you factor in that cost of the pump vs the cost of formula till your baby turns one, it turns out cheaper. plus they hold their value really well when you resell it.

okay, I suppose I could sell my Medela if I can get an Ameda used. It would be nice, actually, to cut the pumping time in half. Trying to build up my supply and express extra with my Swing hasn't been working too well.

Is the lactoline small enough to transport around easily? Maybe I should keep it at work during the week?

The Lactaline is tiny - I could get everything for the day, including two pumping sets, bottles, coolbag and a book in my little daypack. You can get them v reasonably on ebay.

It's much easier to pump to replace feeds instead of alongside them

thanks CMOT, that's good to know! I'm watching a few on ebay now. I reckon 50-60 is probably what I'll need to spend for a used one, so once I get it I'll have to try it then sell my Medela and try to recoup the money.

Today I tried pumping after the first two feeds and managed about 45ml each time. I definitely do get a lot more when pumping to replace the evening feed, usually 90ml.

I saw somewhere there is a formula for calculating approximate amounts to give your baby per feed of EBF. It's the weight in pounds, multiplied by 2.5 or 3, which gives you the total amount in ounces for the day. Then you divide that by number of feeds. I think I am scaring myself with that because with that calculation DS (12lbs) needs 30-36oz a day, and at 6 or 7 feeds a day, thats 5-6oz every time.....so I have to get at least 20oz expressed every day! V daunting when you're used to only expressing 6oz!

I'm not sure about the formula for quantities there, I'm sure I read on kellymom that after the first
month ebf babies generally have about 25oz a day (sorry can't find it and do a link at the moment as I'm on my iPod) there are quite a few useful tips about pumping and working there so probably worth having a look.

If it helps my routine was to do the night feeds and morning feed from the same side, which would mean the other side would be full for the morning expressing, when I would generally hope to get 6-7oz from that side and 3-4oz from the other. In the afternoon I would generally expect to get 3oz each side. I would then do the night feed starting from the side I'd left full in the morning so it got emptied properly once a day.

Like CMOT I would never give a bottle if I was there as I couldn't be doing with the extra pumping. On non work days I would try to pump throughout the day for the freezer, just leaving the pump in the fridge, so I could do 10 mins after each feed.

One thing you may need to figure out is how to store/prepare the pump during the day. I used to sterilise before work, but stopped at 5 months. Then I'm afraid to admit I just used to put the pump back in the bag between sessions, almost certainly not what you're supposed to do, but DS was always fine. I used to store the milk in the fridge obviously.

Thanks Chocolate, found loads of useful stuff on Kellymom including the calculator. It does seem like I'm going to need less EBM than I thought. I think I'm just worried because DS is little, only 9th centile--I'm paranoid about not giving him enough or having the nursery staff think I'm starving him or something!

Kellymom also recommends not giving him a bottle when I'm around to do a feed. We started him on the one bottle of EBM at night so that DH could feed him and so he'd be used to taking a bottle when the time came for nursery. I guess when I'm back at work we'll be going back to the breast for that evening feed and maybe I will just feed him twice in the evening instead of the once before he goes to bed.

As far as pump storage, I do sterilise the pump parts once a day, but between pumping I've just rinsed it through with water--probably very wrong! So far so good though, he's only had one slight tummy bug and I'm fairly sure he got that from DH (who had D&V).

i did the same thing with my pump during the day as you are doing. in about 2 yrs total of expressing, no ill effects. I stored it in a freezer bag between pumping.

top tip: freeze milk in a silicone ice tray then pop them out into a freezer bag too. it makes for less wastage of ebm and less space in the freezer too.