Will I be able to leave a breastfed 6 week old?

[MissMilly88]

Hi all, due to have a baby girl at the beginning of May. I've signed up to exam mark mid June as I do every year and am trying to figure out the logistics of leaving my baby from around 8 until 3pm when Breastfeeding to attend the conference . I plan on expressing when I can so that DP can get involved in feeding too, if I bring a pump with me (to alleviate pain etc) and leave enough expressed milk for the day, do you think this would work? I'm a first time mum so I just need to know if it's viable or not. Thank you :)

You may not be able to express. I get 20ml in one sitting of expressing. At 6 weeks I managed to express 4 or 5 times a day and would produce about 80ml. Expressing can be hard work and if you have a baby who doesn't want to be put down then even harder. It might be fine but equally you could find that baby arrives 4 weeks before (I was 2 weeks late), your milk could take 4 or 5 days to come in (like mine) and so you'd only have 3 weeks to establish breastfeeding before being away. Equally you may not be able to express at all. I was talking to a lady the other day and she said that try as she might she couldn't express a single drop.

Oh and what if baby won't take a bottle, or a bottle from someone else.

My LO was ff but I couldn't have left him at that stage. 6 weeks pp I was still in a lot of pain from a difficult delivery and couldn't sit on an uncomfy chair for long periods. If you have a section you might not be able to drive still so that might affect travel plans. On a completely vain point, I wouldn't have had anything nice to wear that fitted to go to anything like that which would put me right off!

It's all individual OP. No two mums, babies, births, recoveries are the same and you just have to do what feels right for you when the time comes.

I think all bf mothers of 6 week olds would need to pump to maintain supply, though, which would take up quite a chunk of the day and some forward planning. Worth knowing the facts in advance in order to arrange somewhere to express/store milk/clean pump, etc, or know if it's even an option.

Thank you all for your responses :) luckily the marking I do always have reserve markers at the conference and so it won't be a problem if I need to drop out. I was planning on asking my mum to babysit near by so that I could breastfeed in the gaps. Obviously until baby arrives I'm not going to know how feasible it will be! Thanks for your input :)

I would echo what others have said. It’ll be very difficult most likely. I couldn’t have left either of mine at that age, neither would take a bottle and I also found it very tricky to pump. Could feed absolutely fine and had plenty of milk but it would take hours to get a couple of ounces with a pump... 6 weeks is very early days with a new baby, especially your first. At the moment you can’t imagine how much it turns your world upside down and how you will feel. Apart from the practicalities I just literally did not want to be away from them at that age, you could have offered me £10,000 to go out for the day without them and I’d have said no thanks! Having said that I know some people leave their babies at this age but it’s unusual and not easy at all if you plan to breastfeed. Your boobs will feel like they’re going to explode all day even if you manage to express a bit, it’s just not the same as feeding the actual baby. Also you’d have to express a LOT of milk to leave for the baby while you’re gone and it’s very early days to be doing that and could cause you to over produce milk and become very engorged.

It will be difficult but not impossible. In the USA many women do not have paid maternity leave so they return to work full time at 6 weeks! Leaving EBF babies depends on these factors:

1. How often and how much they drink within that time period

2. Pre-pumping the required amount of milk

3. Whether they drink from a bottle nipple

4. Whether they drink reheated frozen milk

5. This is tricky to determine since pumping often doesn‘t produce the same amount as nursing. I try to make a rough guess based on how much she drinks from a bottle when I‘m out combined with the „softness“ of my boobs. Just as an example, mine is 7weeks and drinks 80-160ml per nursing session, which is every 2-4 hrs. If I leave the house for 2 hrs then I make sure to nurse her before I go and then leave a bottle with 60-80ml of milk behind.

6. You’ll probably have to freeze milk to build a supply sufficient for 8+ hours. At 6 weeks, your milk supply will have adjusted so there‘s just enough for baby and it may be tricky to pump extra amounts. The most I can get per day is 40-80ml. If you‘re lucky and the baby sleeps longer during the night then you‘re effectively skipping a feed and can pump that instead.

7. You‘re advised to avoid all bottles in the early weeks to prevent the dreaded nipple confusion. However some EBF babies end up refusing all bottles, so it‘s a fine balance between giving them a bottle just often enough to see they‘ll take it and not getting them too accustomed to it.

8. Some women produce high-lactase milk which tastes unpleasant when frozen and reheated. So best to check that baby will drink frozen milk before leaving a large supple behind.

Babies are so individual you may have to wait until he/she is here before being able to make plans :)!

And totally forgot to say that if you do leave baby for more than several hours, be sure to take a pump with you otherwise your boobs will explode :P!

I went to a christening when dc2 was 5 weeks old. She was with me, but had a super long sleep and my boobs very nearly did explode.

Yes it's possible. In an ideal world yes mums can stay with their babies 24/7 but in the real world many have to work straight after birth and still breastfeed. I even (shock horror) used a little bit of formula when I couldn't pump enough and still managed to breastfeed until 16 months