Author Topic: Returning to Work Soon- Can you share your 10 week EASY for EBF?  (Read 874 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline echohush

  • New, But Posting Steadily!
  • **
  • Showing Appreciation 0
  • Gender: Female
  • Posts: 52
  • Location: Blackstone, Massachusetts
Hi everyone,

Soon I will return to work on Dec 15th and I am wondering if any of you who are exclusively breastfeeding could share your EASY's from 10 weeks. I am especially interested in the E times, and night stretches. Right now DS only gets one bottle a day that my husband does if I have an apt or errand and not usually every day.  I would appreciate any advice for getting on a pumping schedule where he would have 3 to 4 every day. My goal is to EBF for 1 year so I am desperate to maintain my supply.

Honestly, I am also currently experiencing major cognitive challenges due to my longest sleep stretch being 3 hrs (to the point I accidently shoplifted nighttime baby wash at Target the other day! :o) so am not sure how this is going to work out.

Thanks!
Branwen


    

Offline goldmom

  • Resident BW Chatterbox!
  • *****
  • Showing Appreciation 23
  • Gender: Female
  • Posts: 735
  • Location: NY
Re: Returning to Work Soon- Can you share your 10 week EASY for EBF?
« Reply #1 on: December 08, 2014, 15:17:31 pm »
What sort of hours are you working, and how many days a week? I typically go back to work early (at 6 weeks, 7 weeks and 12 weeks for my 3). I'm out of the house from 8-5 (or so), and I would give my babies 3 bottles when I was gone, roughly at 10, 1, and 4 (of 4-5 ounces each) with a wakeup feed at 6:30/7. If they weren't making it to 3 hours between bottles, I would feed soon after picking up, so I didn't have to prepare an extra bottle. Mine were also ebf/ebm for 6 months (and still pumped/nursed for some time after that too). Since I find pumping at work a total pain, I've managed to pump at 11 and 3, which is a typical feed time for a 4+ month old, and I found I could get enough milk for 3 bottles at just those times. You could just as easily pump when you expect to give a bottle when  you are gone, at 10, 1, 4 or so also.

 Nights vary with my LO's between feeds, from anywhere of 1 nf to up to 3 nf at that young age, with slowly reducing them as they got older, based on routine and other things that tend to impact nights. The first few months are hard with tons of nw's, hopefully they'll start sorting themselves out soon as your LO gets older.