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Breastfeeding
Working Moms come in!
I will be going back to work in exactly three weeks, and I am so worried about my supply dropping. What precautions do/did you take to keep your supply up?
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Re: Working Moms come in!
stick to your pumping schedule as much as possible. if you start pumping at different times every day because of meetings or whatever, your body will not know what's going on.
I ep, so I think that made a difference. I don't have a desk job, so I had to make a point to pump at work. The first few days, I only pumped at lunch and that wasn't working. I have managed to schedule in a pump in the morning before I start seeing the majority of my patients. I try to make sure I pump at the same time every day.
I saw a small drop in my supply when I went back to work, but I started drinking more water and added another serving of oatmeal to my diet (I now eat it 2x/day). After a week or so, it adjusted.
Assuming you use Outlook or a similar meeting invitation/calendar tool, make reoccuring meeting for yourself to block out pumping time.
Do breast compressions and massages to aid in getting the milk out.
Most importantly, and I can not stress this enough....really understand how much you need to bottle feed your baby. I have over and over again seen posts about mom's giving their baby 5+ oz of breastmilk via a bottle at 3 and 4 months - that's way too much. Read up on https://www.workandpump.com/ and kellymom.com. There are some key guiding principles to understand about a BF baby that gets BM in bottles while mom is working...the BF baby's don't constant increase liquid intake like formula fed babies, that BF babies will often reverse cycle (take less during the day and take more when actually nursing).
Generally speaking, what you pump one day should serve as the basis for the following day. Remember a baby can NOT turn off the liquid flow at the bottle, this is not true when nursing. A baby can be sucking at the breast but not actually nursing. Thus, many babies are over fed at the bottle. Try a paci to satisfy the sucking need.
Let me know if you have other questions. I've successfully worked and pumped (still am) with 2 kids.
I pumped for 12 months. The biggest thing that helped me was keeping a consistent pumping schedule - I would pump every three hours as consistently as I could.
Other things that I believed that helped: drinking enough water/liquids, eating oatmeal in the morning and letting DS feed on demand at night and on the weekends.
Nursing regularly when you are with your baby and establishing a good pumping routine at work.
Here is what I did:
-drink lots of water
People were very accomodating.
-pump as often as you would nurse
-continue to nurse regularly when you are not at work
-pump for as long as you can-after your first letdown (when no milk is coming out) keep pumping. Often times I would have a second letdown and get more milk usually 2-3 oz. more. Plus pumping longer after you aren't getting more milk will help stimulate your body to make more milk.
-look at pictures of your baby and think about your baby
-if you need to, add an extra pumping session. When I was worried about my supply I would pump before I went to bed a couple hours after DS went to sleep.
-stick with it and make it a priority
-let coworkers know that you are pumping and that it is also a priority. I told people at school including my principal, so everyone knew when my door was closed and locked, I was in there pumping and to leave me alone
-I pumped 2X at work so I had double pump parts. I didn't wash or rinse my pump parts after pumping. Instead I threw them in a plastic ziplock bag and washed them at home. Then I used the next clean parts for the second pumping. This allowed me to pump longer because I didn't have to spend the time washing the parts.