If you are going back to work after baby when do you plan to start your "stash"

MrMrsandBaby · October 2014

I'm only a week into my maternity leave but I am already thinking about how soon to start pumping to get a freezer stash started for when I go back to work in early January. Ideally I would like to have about 3-4 days in reserves at all times (more would be great, less would be ok). I was thinking of starting to pump after BFing around 6 weeks when Brooke has more of a schedule settled as opposed to the crazy non-schedule a newborn has.

Have any of you started thinking about this? (Sorry if this has been discussed, it is hard to keep up right now.)

ss265 · October 2014

I go back to work right before Thanksgiving and I am planning to pump starting tomorrow so I will be pumping for around 5 weeks.

The main reason I'm pumping though is to start baby on a bottle now. I want to make sure he is used to taking a bottle before I go back to work and plan to give him a bottle daily for the next 5 weeks.

windwithfingers · October 2014

I'm planning on starting around 6 weeks too. I'm 3 weeks into my maternity leave, so in a few more weeks.

AppleGrapeMSTK · October 2014

I go back December 1, and I have 10oz already. It was mostly because I was nursing only on one side due to a blister. I will likely pump starting next week (3w pp) so we have time to figure out what kind of bottle Dude will take best.

windwithfingers · October 2014

@AppleGrapeMSTK‌ I was thinking about pumping one side and feeding on the other for awhile. My right nipple has a chunk missing and it isn't healing like at all. How often did you pump? I'm intimidated by my pump so I've only used it once.

mb314 · October 2014

I will probably pump after the first morning feed staring 4 or 6 weeks post partum. I don't go back until 16 weeks so i hope that will give me enough of a stash. Last time with DS 1, I relied on my freezer stash because he ate more than I pumped in a day.

caranichole · October 2014

I started pumping after LOs growth spurt around 3 weeks. I pump once every morning early and usually get a lot because she gets a long sleep stretch in the middle of the night and I get pretty full. We started to introduce a bottle at the same time as I pump so she will get used to having a bottle. I didn't want to wait too long and struggle.

2goingon3 · October 2014

I can't speak to the stash timing, but pumping one side while LO is feeding on the other side always had the best results for me.

lotsobabies · October 2014

I started today during my first morning feeding. I go back to work Nov. 20th.

savicke2009 · October 2014

I will start asap.. as soon as my milk comes in.. I go back to work early January as well.. I like to have a good stash built up.

cmac6186 · October 2014

This may be a dumb question but I'm not sure when to pump because DD has been eating from both sides at each feeding and feeds at least every 2 hrs. She's only 5 days so this could change. But with our current pattern I can't imagine adding more time for pumping afterward and am worried she won't get what she wants on demand if I'm pumping it out.

AmandaJean12 · October 2014

I'm not going back to work, per se, but I have started working on a frozen stockpile by pumping after LO nurses 1-2 times a day on the advice of my LC.

slsl509 · October 2014

I have posted about this once before but I would advise you ladies to make sure your milk doesn't have too much lipase before you stockpile. I so carefully pumped, bagged, dated and sorted my milk to save. We even bought a separate freezer in part to store milk (and yet it somehow ended up full of ice cream, strange, that) only to find out that DD refused milk that was more that 2-3 days old. Upon tasting it, I didn't blame her at all. Yuck. Even mixed with cereal it was pretty repulsive. So I had to throw out a couple of gallons of that preciously hoarded stuff. I felt like I should have had a memorial service for it.

I guess you can try scalding it when it is fresh. After finding out all my stored milk was bad, I would just pump for the next day. Scalding it was just another step in the already hard work of pumping so I never did try it.

this is not to discourage anyone from storing milk at all - just want to let people know this can be an issue so you don't waste a bunch of time and money on milk that your LO won't drink.

https://kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms/milkstorage/lipase-expressedmilk/

LightBright515 · October 2014

I'm going to start the end of November, December.

AppleGrapeMSTK · October 2014

windwithfingers said:

@AppleGrapeMSTK‌ I was thinking about pumping one side and feeding on the other for awhile. My right nipple has a chunk missing and it isn't healing like at all. How often did you pump? I'm intimidated by my pump so I've only used it once.

While it was healing, I only pumped when my breast got really full, so maybe every 2-3 nursing sessions? If you nurse on one side and pump on the other at every feeding, you're going to end up encouraging an oversupply.

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