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Breastfeeding
MummyGruetzie
member
how much to pump ahead?
MummyGruetzie
member
DD is 5 weeks old and I'm looking at going back to work in the next few weeks. I'd really like to continue bfing, even though she'll be in day care.?
How much bm do I need to bring to day care each day? How much would you recommend trying to get as a stash ahead of time??
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Re: how much to pump ahead?
First off, your LO is precious! What a little angel face!
When we were supplementing w/formula the pediatrician's guidelines were 1-3 oz every 1-3 hours. I would assume you could base it on that...?
I'm still working on this stuff with DD#2. Do you know how much DC takes in a bottle during a feeding? With DD#1, she'd eat pretty much every 3 hours like clockwork so I'd calculate how long I'd be away from her and send that many bottles (usually 3).
With DD#1 she was already up to 6 oz by this point. However, DD#2 doesn't take more than 4 oz (I think my milk composition is different this time...who knows!). I've been freezing in 4 oz and 2 oz bags to allow for the fact that she might start to take more. Or she might not and the 2 oz bags can be mixed together to make one 4 oz bottle.
As far as how much to stash, I'd say as much as you can! You can use both frozen and fresh at daycare to rotate your freezer stash and keep it current.
I kept up pumping at work with DD#1's BM needs until she was about 9 mos old so the extra freezer stash was a lifesaver because I really started to dip into it. At its peak I probably had about 500 oz stashed.
I went back to work when DD#1 was 12 weeks old and managed to make it to a year witout supplementing so let me know if you have any questions!
My advice is to stash as much as you can. I kept up with my DD, but it was nice to have the stash on days when I couldn't pump enough for some reason, or had a meeting run over, etc.
I usually sent 3 bottles...we started at 2 oz each and got up to around 6 oz each by the time she was a year. I sent 4 at first to make sure she had enough, but she rarely drank the 4th bottle.
Wow! Can you give me some advice? I go back to work 6 weeks from now. My DS is 9 weeks old. I will continue to provide breast milk for my son. He will be with my aunt so I need to make sure I provide enough breast milk. However I have a freezer stash started with about 20 freezer bags of anywhere between 2oz - 4oz bags. However, it is getting challenging watching the baby during the day and finding time to pump to freeze extra.
How did you do it?
Thank you!
Apryl
I never worried too much about getting a stash, and it's going okay for me. Having some surplus is nice, but I didn't want to worry about having to pump all the time in addition to feeding DS while I was home. What I pump today, he eats tomorrow.
When we first started daycare, I sent a couple of bottles with about 4 oz in them. They said he was still hungry, so I now put about 5 oz. in them. Sometimes he eats more than that, sometimes less.
When I did pump, I would do it either in the morning about an hour after DS ate, or at night right before bed (although I get so little in the evenings these days that it's not worth it to me). Or if he didn't eat a lot, I'd try to pump then. But it's hard when DS is awake. Sometimes he'll play by himself or sit in the bouncy seat, sometimes he wants attention.