[puffsgirl11]

I have a 3 month old who I express all of his feeds for and hope to for as long as I have milk.

I am just about to rent a pump from my local ABA and need to give them a rough idea of how long I will need it for.

I go back to work in July a couple of days a week and when at work it is highly likely I will not be able to express due to the nature of my job. This would mean that I cannot express in a 10 hour period.

DS will be 8 months old and I was wondering how I could go about keeping my supply up especially when I am at work?

I would assume DS wouldn't be having as much breast milk as he does now due to being on solids. I am on herbs and Motilium for my supply and will stay on these for as long as I need to.

Any ideas on how I can go about this would be great as like I said before I would love for DS to have breast milk for as long as possible.

Thanks

[junebuggy11]

I went back to work when DS was 7 months old. I worked nights to start, as he generally didn't feed then, so I would express once (also an unpredictable workplace, so no g'teed) and then I would come home feed him, and he would take that bottle of EBM to day care. He would also get one bottle of formula, as I didn't generally have time to express for all the feeds he missed.

I stopped expressed when he was about 14 months old, as when I was working days it was a lot harder to find time to express, and I was sick of it! Since then he's had formula or cows milk when I've been gone and fed from me when I am there. I'm trying to wean him to at least just morning and night at the moment (he's 19 months) so in short it's been fine on my supply, since I've been working.

I don't know if exclusively pumping you might see a drop, but at the same time, he may take to solids and drop feeds quicker then mine has.

Good luck!

[Girlo]

Hi OP,
I was in a fairly similar situation with going back to work. I ended up feeding my DS morning and night with no expressing during the day and my supply was still fine until we decided to wean at about 13 months. DS was on formula during the day but was still getting breast milk twice a day.

But, I was very fortunate to have a great supply. i'm not sure if cutting down to only two feeds a day would hinder your supply?

One tip would be to hold off water during the morning. I found that if I drank lots of water I would get quite "full" early in the day. But if I drank plenty in the 2-3 hours before I got home to feed it would work well.

Finally, you said you are hiring a breast pump.... When I looked into it, you could buy a modela swing (highly recommend it - it is fantastic) fr the same price as hiring one for a few months. Perhaps do a quick price comparison and see after how many months of hiring you could have bought one??

Good luck OP!