How much EBM needed for me to have a night out?

[legogeek]

I've got tickets for a gig later this week and will be out for about 5 hrs 7-11pm. It'll be my first trip out without 7-week-old and husband will be bottle feeding her with expressed milk.

Any ideas of how many oz she'll need for an evening? Paranoid I'm not leaving him with enough! Hard finding time to express while looking after her.

Do you even know if she'll take it from the bottle yet?

Can you do a trial run? Or feed her some of those mini bottles of ready mixed formula and hand express for comfort while you're out?

Hello, yes I had a go with a bottle and 2oz a few days ago and she was ok!

Hello, why don't you express into bottle over next few days and use the bottle in a 5 hour period to estimate how much she drinks in that time. You could then use that as a reference any time you need to go out for that long.

Thanks all. I'm slow at expressing so don't have time to do a trial run, but will leave him as much as I can plus maybe a formula bottle for emergencies! Wondering whether a pump would be better than hand expressing - am getting 1-2oz max.

kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms/pumping/milkcalc/

This should tell you.

Also, try expressing at the same time as feeding. I had an electric pump so this was easier. Not sure how easy it is with a manual one. So feed baby on one side, express on the other. You will probably get more milk doing this. Express at night or in early morning as you will get more milk.

I find I get more expressing if I sit down with a cuppa and a biscuit not sure of the science but am willing to sacrifice myself also thinking about DD or looking at pics of her helps. Finally, applying moist heat to your boobs eg shower or hot flannel before expressing should help improve yield.

As far as quantities I second kellymom as a useful resource. One top tip I find useful is to make sure you don't put too much in the bottle in one go especially as you are unsure how much she will take. If she then doesn't take the whole bottle you then haven't wasted as much but you can always give her a second amount if she's still hungry. I find it incredibly galling when i have expressed some precious milk and it gets wasted if DD isn't hungry enough to have it all.

Oh and enjoy your night out!

Thanks all, so she went for 7oz in the end and I had 9oz ready! DH says half of this ended up on his shorts though...