Breast feeding/expressing but returning to work

[Bluestar27]

Baby is breast feeding well but doesn’t take to formula at all. How do other mums who are breast feeding but need to return to work cope with feeding and expressing? I find if I express between feeds then baby doesn’t get enough at the next feed and is hungry. How can I work the feeding and expressing so I can express enough at home for her to have whilst I’m working?

Expressing at work isn’t really an option as I find it takes me half an hour per time to express. I work in a small school so would feel uncomfortable doing this.

Any advice please

I think they legally have to give you a private room and the time to express. How old will your baby be when you go back?

Anywhere from 9-12months. I know she’ll also have started solids by then but as a first time mum I can’t picture the balance until I’m in the situation!

Have you tried mixing formula with breast milk to see if that goes down. Then gradually increasing to ratio of formula? Then the pressure is off a bit so you can just breast feed when it's convenient. Expressing is hard work. I exclusively expressed as DS never did latch. I kept my supply up by getting up in the middle of the night. That would probably work supply wise in terms of not draining her next feed but it's probably all you need when starting a new job.

Baby still goes roughly 4 hours in the night. Sometimes more. I worry I’ll express then she’ll wake up shortly after for the feed. I suppose I could just give her the bottle I’ve just done as a last resort. It’s alot to get your head around! I haven’t tried mixing formula with expressed just yet. She takes the formula and is fine but around 2 hours later is very badly sick (not like the spit up and sick that happens when she has breast milk) HV hasn’t been very helpful.

I had this issue. You have various options. With my first, he would never take a bottle or drink formula, but by 9 months when I went back to work he would take water from a sippy cup. I breastfed before I went to work each morning and when I got home before he went to sleep at night, DH who was home with DS from 9-12 months just fed him solids and water during the day. My milk supply adjusted to have the right amount. This worked fine until I gradually stopped breastfeeding at 13 months.

My second DS would drink from a bottle but I had to go back part time at 6 months. I rented a hospital-grade expressing machine, and using that built my milk supply up enough that I had enough. I also found a manual hand pump (which I could just use in the loos at work) worked well. What I could never get to work well were those mid-priced electric breast pumps.

The thing to remember, though, is that if you are back at work then you are expressing for a feed the baby isn't having. So it's not like you are feeding the baby lunch then trying to pump - you are at working pumping the lunchtime milk, which you take home for your baby to drink at lunch the next day (refrigerated in the meantime obviously).

So with your first just solids and water in the day and breast milk when you were home?

Yes the lunch time milk expressing would work then for the next day. I only get half an hour lunch and sometimes it takes me half an hour to express! So no time to actually eat etc. Sometimes I don’t quite express as much as she would always have/need which is awkward. We also only have this little grotty fridge in the small staff room at work so I’d feel uncomfortable putting my expressed milk in there and for everyone to see. I know I shouldn’t, feeding my baby is priority, but still. We also don’t have any ‘private’ spaces where I could pump as it’s all class rooms with lots of windows and open spaces! What if the children walked in.

Yup, by nine months the baby will mostly be on solids anyway. Feeding twice a day was enough to keep up my milk supply and DS to get two good feeds of breast milk with all the benefits of that, but also he took to solids well because that was all DH had to give him. Lots of puréed fruit and veg.

Re lunchtime expressing, it takes half an hour now because you are feeding regularly so don't have much spare supply. If you have missed the feed because you are at work your breast will be exploding and the milk will come out way quicker. (Remember to put pads in your bra in case of leakage).

I went back to work after 6 months and he wouldn't take a bottle at all. I did express at work and send him to nursery with a bottle incase they could get some in him but after a month I stopped as he wasn't taking any. I just usually pumped once in the middle of the day and I got quite a lot. When I decided not to bother because he wasn't taking it my supply adjusted fine, he kept breastfeeding until he was 3. Luckily at 6 months he had solids so could get liquid that way and he started using a cup so had water from that. I also breastfed him just before drop off and as soon as we got home.

I found with mine that at that age they didn't really want what I expressed for them to have when I was at work and would have a massive feed direct from me when I got home and would have had solids/ water through out the day. It did mean for a bit they upped their intake over night as well because of this but by then I was able to pop a boob out and feed lying down and they'd crack on whilst I went back to sleep. Co sleeping really helped.

I was teaching and had access to a lockable private room for o use for expressing. Good luck.

That’s great you had a lockable private room! I’ll see what comes of it if I need it. Hopefully she will be able to just have solids then through the day and I’ll bf before and after

I'd baby is around 10 months you won't need to express or feed in the day if you don't want.

At that age they will be fine with just water and solids in the day.