need reassurance that yes, I can pump at work!

lynniecheer06

I am a school teacher, and I don't know if it is just my school or all teaching moms are like this, but I have been feeling, pretty much since September, that I have absolutely no time during the day now that I am pumping.  I have two prep periods during the day and a 25 minute lunch period and teach 6 period, 3 different courses.  Based on how LO wakes and eats (normally) in the morning, I pump during 1st period prep, then pump during lunch, eat during 6th period prep (which happens to be right after lunch) and then next time is feeding LO before bed.  Most days, I feel I am running around like crazy before my next class starts, trying to get my copies, do paperwork, grading, getting materials and setting up labs.  Two days a week we have meetings before school, i have to check bags for 20 minutes before 1st period, I have students in my room for tutoring/extra help three days a week after school and a meeting after school once a week (all required), and sometimes get called to sub for other teachers in the building.  The last few weeks, especially today, I've been thinking that it would just be easier to give up pumping during the day and just give formula.  I've been lucky so far to BF entirely and would love to make it to a year, but it's getting just so hard/annoying/stressful/etc. to do this at work. 

Is it just me/in my head?  or is my school expecting too much of me?

lynniecheer06

My administration isn't really the msot supportive of it.  It's like they know they legally have to, but its really an inconvenience for them.  I started with trying to start tutoring after school after I have pumped, but it wasn't working with having kids standing outside my room for 20 minutes after school.  They don't seem to care that I am pumping, as they want to know why I can't make my parent contacts every week (I don't feel comfortable calling parents while i'm pumping) and other things like that.  I even ended up resigning myself to pump in my classroom because the one empty office in the school that i could use to pump, took me a month to get two of the three keys to get through the doors to it, and it's always sporadic when I can use it.  Oh, but not to worry, I was told I could use the back storage room of another science teacher (which means I'd have to go though his classroom while he's teaching with my stuff), or I could use the ISS room when we dont' have ISS. 

 Sorry this turned into a rant aobut my job!

Mike_Patti

Have you tried pumping in the car. I'm not a teacher but I work a crazy busy job with very little free time. Pumping in the car has made pumping much, much easier.

jlsimon56

I am not a teacher either but I had to pump every 2 hours to get enough for the next day's bottles, and for 30 minutes each time at LEAST.  So basically I was working 1.5 hours at a time.  I ended up having to be at work for 9.5 hours to make up the time, plus my 1hr commute each way.....I did feel like all I did was pump and work, pump and work.  I just kept telling myself that it's temporary.  My LO is now 16mo. and nurses at home, and I don't pump at work.  It's AWESOME.

RachelD158

I'm a teacher too and return to work after next week. I'm so worried about pumping and getting my work done. I have one 30 min prep a day and it is in the afternoon...I can't exactly leave my first graders to pump in the morning...I have no idea how I'm going to make it work! My It was hard enough getting all my work done with my prep and staying until 5 pm. I decided that I'm going to try to make it work for the 2 weeks that I'm there before Xmas break, and if I'm stressed to the max ill consider formula during the day and nursing in the morning and at night. Good luck to you!

MMW10

I'm a teacher too, at a new school this year, and I completely agree that pumping feels like it takes up every spare second I have. I've been pumping in my classroom since August, though, just so I can grade papers or catch up on emails at the same time. I pump before the kids are allowed into the classrooms or my meetings start (which is about 30 minutes before school starts) and again at lunch. I generally get about 20 minutes pumping each time. After school, I have dismissal duty and occasional conferences or meetings. I try to leave in time to nurse DD at daycare, rather than them giving her last bottle.

A couple months ago I was ready to stop pumping too, but I realized I was just stressed overall--stopping pumping wasn't going to help THAT much to make me give up my 1-yr. goal. And we're so close to winter break. Like a pp said, I'm going to reevaluate in Jan. DD will be 9 months by then, and I'm hoping she'll be ready to drop a feeding so I can drop a pump session! Good luck!