Working Moms
BF and working questions
Hi ladies!
I go back to work in about a month and am EBF'ing right now. I've been pumping as much extra as I can to get a freezer stash. My mother and MIL are splitting the daycare of LO when I go back.
For those of you that pump while at work and then send BM to daycare what bottles do you use? I'm assuming you transfer the milk you pump into the other bottles to send to DC?? Right now I only have the medela bottles and a few little 2 oz ones. Also, if you send frozen milk do you thaw it the night before and send it in a bottle or do you just send the bag?
I'm trying to figure out the logistics of all of this right now and am slightly overwhelmed!
Thanks in advance!
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Re: BF and working questions
My mom watches DS at our house so with frozen milk I just put it in the fridge in bags in a bowl the night before and she puts it in the bottle as needed. If I was taking DS to her house I would just leave some in her freezer to be honest since she knows how to defrost it. At work I pump into 5 oz medla or 4 oz Ameda bottles I transfer once I get home. Once I hit what I need for the next day I wait to get 5 more ounces and put that in a freezer bag while at work and put it in the freezer as soon as I get home. My supply pumping has been a lot better this time around than it was last I have been averaging 16 to 20 ounces a day he takes 15 ounces. I use my freezer stash on Mondays and usually one bag on Wednesday night when I go to the gym.
I would send fresh milk from the day before each day, measured out already in the bottles. I used Breastflow bottles for both of my kids. I only used frozen milk when I didn't pump enough. I would just give my mom the frozen bags and she could defrost them as needed (kept them in her freezer). If you were using a DC center you would probably need to defrost overnight and fill the bottles yourself in the morning before DC. If you have a good freezer stash you need to make sure you rotate out the milk so it doesn't get too old. Freeze your milk from Friday, and defrost older frozen milk Sunday night for Monday.
I didn't have this problem, but a lot of moms find that caregivers give LO too much BM. If this becomes an issue, make sure you premake/measure all the bottles for your mom and MIL and don't provide them with too much extra. At 3 months, my LO would take about 3 4oz bottles per day.
Thanks! I really have no clue how much I actually produce during the day. It's so weird -- I just feed him on demand right nw and he normally seems satisfied.
I'll check out those bottles for sure...thanks for the suggestions. I've used some of the older Bm from the freezer stash on the nights when DH gives DS a bottle and the same with my mom/MIL when they've babysat. I think some of what I've frozen will be close to being "expired" right when i go back to work so i will hopefully use that right away.
BFP 11/09 - DD 7/10 - BFP 8/11 - M/C 9/11 - BFP 6/12 - DD - 2/13
I don't have a huge freezer stash anymore but I pull milk from the freezer on Monday and freeze some from Friday. What I do to defrost is put it in a cup of water on the counter at night while cleaning up dinner. I have to make my bottles night before or I'd never leave the house. I ask dc to use the bottle with the thawed milk first. I mark it.
Dd is 9.5 months and that's worked well for us.