Aerobicmom's Breastfeeding Page

Preparing to Return to Work

First of all, this is a time to treat yourself well. Make sure your spouse or family know that you will need their support now. Perhaps the most trying time right after the birth of your baby is when you are preparing to return to work. You will probably react in a way that seems strange to you and you might not recognize that your reaction is due to the pressure of returning to work. And on top of all the natural anxiety of returning to work, you are going to have to figure out how to fit pumping into your schedule.

You will probably think of this as your last days of freedom; your last days to visit friends and enjoy showing off your baby. Don't make plans. Your time is already filled.

If you are planning on pumping at work, you will need to increase your milk supply and store a cache of milk for your initial days at work. An increased suplly fills two needs. 1) Most women don't respond to the pump as well as to the baby. In order to get enough milk from the pump, they have to be over-producers in the first place.
2) Increasing the supply before going to work allows you to bank the extra for those certain growth spurts that will happen while you are at work.

To determine how much milk to bring with baby for his/her first day at daycare, calculate that a baby drinks about 2.5 oz per pound of body weight in a 24 hour period. So a 10# baby will drink 25 oz throughout the day. If you break that up into 10 feedings, he drinks about 2.5 oz per feeding. So send 3 oz for each feeding you expect him to have in someone else's care.

Buy a good pump. See Buying a Pump for more information. Some women get by on a cheaper hand operated pump, but for most, the more expensive battery or power operated double pumps work best.

Method 1

During your last two weeks at home, pump after each feeding. After each feeding means any time after each feeding, including 1 - 1.5 hours after a feeding. Pump for 15 minutes on each side.
Freeze all milk you pump.
Do not give the baby any bottles during this time.
Get lots of rest. You are asking your body to produce more.
Eat well. The best way to produce milk is by eating very nutritious meals.

I used this method and it did not work for me. The LLL leader that proposed it to me claims that no one has failed with it. (I'm always the first.) My suspicion is that this is the best method if your maternity leave lasts longer than 12 weeks. If you have a long maternity leave, Method 2 just does not make sense.

Suggestions to improve the method based on my experience would be:

Have your mother/mother-in-law plan her visit for this time with the stipulation that she help with the baby while you pump. It is just too stressful to try to figure out what to do to keep the baby from crying while you pump. The crying is stressful and will probably decrease your output greatly.
If mom can't visit then, invite friends to stop by and get yourself mentally prepared to have them hold and entertain your baby. Have them come over when the baby is least likely to sleep after a feeding.
If there is absolutely noone to help with the baby, get a battery powered pump or a car adapter for your pump and drive the baby to sleep. Once the baby is asleep, pump in the car so that you don't have to move baby.
Don't bother pumping at night. This is just too much for you when you are already waking for baby at night and you are trying to increase your supply. Lack of sleep can jeopardize the supply. So sleep at night and pump in the day.

Method 2

There is an alternative way of preparing for work that you might want to try. This is for the more relaxed, even-paced, turtle type as opposed to the above method that is for the last minute, don't-want-to-think-about it type.

When your milk first comes in, you will feel very engorged before each feeding. It sometimes helps to get over this feeling if you pump off the excess before the baby actually latches on. Pick two times during the day that the baby generally nurses that you will pump before the feedings. Usually around 9:00 and around 1:00. If you pump before these feedings, you will collect at least a couple of oz before the engorged feeling goes away, and the baby will then proceed to empty the breast giving your body the signal that this high demand for milk is real and that your body should respond by continuing to produce this increased supply of milk. This can also help releive some of the latch on problems that are associated with early engorgement.

Freeze everything you pump and don't give the baby a bottle except an occasional one after 6 weeks. A baby is more likely to suffer nipple confusion (refusal of the breast) if it is fed a bottle too early and more likely to refuse the bottle if it is introducted too late.

Don't pump except for those two times during the day. These will give you more than enough store of milk in the freezer and you will find that if you pump at around those times at work, you will get about enough to replace what baby is drinking during the day.

This method works because it works with the bodies natural responses. During this time after birth, the body is well geared up to increase its milk supply. Some mothers run into problems later because the endocrine system is not geared up to increase their milk supply.

Method 3

A third alternative is to pump one breast while feeding only on the other. For example, in the first feeding of the day, pump on the right and feed on the left. At the second feeding, pump on the left and feed on the right. You will need to feed the baby more often at first and he/she might end up attached to you for more hours than usual. This is good. It will increase the supply and allow you to bank a good deal of milk.

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