D.C. Area Babies
How do you pump and fly without your LO?
So silly question here - I am lucky enough to have scored a final job interview. However, the interview is cross-country. I have a fairly decent supply of frozen BM so I have full confidence that my LO will have more than enough food that my DH can give her while I'm gone for about 24-36 hrs or so. My question though is how do and where can you pump while you're traveling? If I'm pumping and dumping do you just pump in the airport and plane bathroom? Any suggestions from those that have done it would be wonderful! TIA!
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Re: How do you pump and fly without your LO?
I EPed with our first son for a year so I became a pro at traveling while pumping--ha!
In airports, your best bets are any lounge areas you can access (some airlines will let you use their lounge if you explain you need to pump) or family bathrooms. I could not bear to dump any breastmilk so I saved it all. For smaller amounts of milk, I just used a cooler with ice packs. One time I had to travel with 100+ frozen ounces so I used a cooler and dry ice.
You can travel with as much BM as you want whether or not you have your child with you. You just have to "declare" it at security. I never had a problem.
GL!!
like previous poster mentioned, you can fly with breast milk and ice packs even w/o baby. I did this several times and never had a problem. I just told security what I had. You might want to review the rules on the TSA website...I found I had to educate several security members of my rights. I never had any problems and some security members were pretty quick to get me through the scaning process once I mentioned I had breast milk...go figure.
Not sure which airports you're traveling through, but I couldn't find any private lounges. I usually just pumped in a bathroom stall. I'd hang my pump from the hook and my PIS Advanced had a little "shelf" I could use once I opened the bag up. It wasn't as bad as I thought and I got used to pumping in the bathroom quickly after a trip or two. Another piece of advice, I also requested a fridge at the hotel I stayed in and I'd try to stay in a hotel like a SpringHill Suites or Residence Inn which has a little kitchen/wet bar to clean pump parts and freeze ice packs. If that wasn't possible I'd request a fridge (most hotel chains will provide for guest medicines, etc) and wash pump parts in the bathroom sink. I'd also carry extra pump parts to use in the airports. The longest I was away from LO on a business trip was 4-5 nights and I did just fine bringing home expressed milk. Takes a little bit more planning/organization, but it can be done. I'd mark bottles with a sticky note with the pump date and combined milk from same day pumping sessions to cut down on the number of containers I needed to keep in a cooler for travel. I'd usually bring one - two soft side coolers which were easy to carry on/off the plan with me.
GL on your interview and pumping while traveling!
if you sit in the window seat and put a blanket over you, no one will even notice and the engines will muffle the noise. Just bring lots of extra batteries