Expressing - equipment?

[amyboo]

I'm bf my 5 week old DS and it's been going fairly well. However, I have to sit an exam on 21 May and DH will need to feed DS while I'm in my exam, as it's 4 hours plus travelling to/from exam centre.

So, I'm thinking that I'll try expressing and see if I can get DS to take a bottle. I just wondered if someone could tell me what I need to buy? Do I need to buy a steriliser or can I do it with tablets or something? How do I heat the milk? And how do I store what I've expressed? Also, if you have any recommendations for which pump to buy, I'd be really grateful!

Thanks!

Medella breast pumps are very good especially the electric ones.

Sterlising: You could buy a microwave steraliser, but I always found cold water steralising best for me. It's much cheaper too. Just buy some Milton steralising tablets, place the bottles in a bowl of water with the tablets and make sure it is all submerged in the water. Another way is boiling everything in a pot on the stove.

Storing: You can store your expressed milk in the fridge, I think its for 24 hours if I remember correctly and you can freeze it as well.

Heating: You can reheat the milk by standing the bottle of milk in a bowl of hot water and letting it stand until warmed up. I usually use boiling water as it's a bit quicker than tap water

I used a Medela breast pump. You can get milk storage bags that directly connect to the pump then you can freeze in deep freeze for approx 6mths.
I used the Tommy Tippee Steam microwave steriliser which is quick and easy.
You will probably want to slowly build up a stash of breast milk for the 21st as its quite common to only be able to get a few ounces at first.
As you feeding a 5 week old so frequently expressing the 2nd side if not much taken at the feed often works quite well.

I have a brand-new-in-box electric medela breast pump that you can have for a very good price (less than half RRP.) I bought it when DD2 arrived early (as DD1 was early and had needed EBM for ages with hospital pump). However, didn't need to express with DD2 so never even opened the box.

Let me know - and good luck in the exams.

Thanks for the advice. I live in Belgium, so the electric one is probably not much use (wrong plug...). I've just ordered one on amazon.fr so I think that should be fine. I just hope it works now, otherwise taking my exam will be doubly stressful! Now, must go and do some studying while DS is sleeping....

Loads of useful info here, good luck in the exam

www.kellymom.com/bf/pumping/index.html