My adventures breastfeeding while working outside the home...

I have two kids and with each of them I returned to work full-time (meaning 45 hours away from them each week) when they were 12 weeks old. I was also blessed with a pair of boobs made for producing milk.

Oh wait, maybe I should start this with a disclaimer? 

If you have no interest in reading about breast milk, bottles, pumps, or sore boobs, feel free to leave and return another day. I swear this will be my last time talking about boob juice until my next kiddo comes along (who's not even a twinkle in our eyes as of today). For those of you who can relate to me, or want some advice, or maybe just really like reading about breastfeeding, please stick around.

Landon Drew. The morning he decided to break up with my boobs.


I always knew I wanted to breastfeed my children. I also knew I probably wasn't going to be one of those parents who breastfed their kid through age three. I would have loved to make it until each of my kiddos turned one, but that didn't happen. However, given the circumstances I am extremely proud of myself for trucking it out as long as I did. Here is my story with Leila and Landon...

Leila was my first child. I was a paranoid mess when she came along. I breastfed her every two hours on the dot those first few weeks - stressing out when she wouldn't latch on, thinking she was going to starve to death if she missed a feeding. And it didn't help that my supply was INSANE. I mean, seriously. I could pump 6 ounces in under 5 minutes. By the time the end of my maternity leave was approaching I was a mess over how I would handle my engorged boobs in the office and making sure that she didn't have to have any formula for as long as possible.

Long story short, here's the gist of how I kept up breastfeeding while Leila was an infant in daycare...

• When she would wake up in the morning I would breastfeed her on one side while pumping the other.  I figured out how to rig the pump cone up to my nursing bra with a ponytail elastic so that I could go hands free - pretty sweet! That session would provide a whole bottle of breast milk for me to send to daycare with her. (She slept through the night very early, so I was always super FULL in the mornings.)
• At work, I would take two pump breaks - one around 10am and one around 3pm. Even though I have my own office, it was always a little awkward because everyone knew what I was doing when I closed the door. I would pump for around 10-15 minutes and each session would provide me with 2-3 bottles worth of milk for the following day.
• Over my lunch break around noon, I would go visit Leila and feed her straight from the boob. I am very blessed to work just 5 minutes from my kiddos' daycare. This provided me with more bonding time with her each day and I think it really helped keep my supply up.
• Every night after I put Leila down for bed, I would take the milk I pumped that day and put it into bags to send to daycare the next morning. I had a note taped on the door leading into our garage that reminded me to grab the milk and my pump so that I wouldn't forget it each morning. :-)

Leila was exclusively breastfed until she was 6 months old. At 6 months, I was exhausted. I couldn't bare the thought of pumping anymore at work. So we introduced formula, but I continued to breastfeed her on my lunches and in the mornings and evenings. Pretty soon she was too busy and distracted to breastfeed at lunch so we dropped that feeding. Then, she didn't want to do it at night. I hung on to the morning feeding until she was around 9 months old. She decided on her own that she'd just rather hold a bottle and do her own thing. I was sick of fighting with her. 

Everything with Landon has been different. For one thing, he's my second baby and I've been WAY more relaxed than I ever was with Leila. I decided from the get-go that I wouldn't stress out about exclusively breastfeeding him when I returned to work. In all honesty, I just couldn't bare the thought of pumping at work again. I hate pumping! (But really, who likes it?) We introduced formula to Landon when he was around 10 weeks old and he took to it right away. I slowly took away breastfeeding sessions and "trained" my boobs to produce milk only in the mornings and at night over the course of a few weeks. For the first couple of months after I returned to work, I would come home at lunch and pump so he could have at least one bottle of breast milk at daycare each day. I didn't go visit him like I did with Leila because, in all honesty again, something about it was just hard for me. And I didn't want to risk Leila seeing me and having to deal with her emotions when I left again.

When Landon was around 5 months old, I stopped pumping at all and he only got breast milk straight off the tap first thing in the morning and throughout the night (remember, he JUST started sleeping through the night).  At 10 months he decided he would much rather hold a bottle and be able to "do his own thang" than have me smothering him, so we dropped the night time feeding. At almost 11 months (just last week), I couldn't fight him any more on our morning session, so I gave up and got him a bottle. My boobs are pretty much deflated bean bags now. TMI?

The moral of this super long, and probably totally-boring-for-you story is that when it comes to breastfeeding your baby, there is no right or wrong way to do it... you just have to do what works for you! Yes, breastfeeding is GREAT for baby, but it is some seriously exhausting business when you're the momma. Add pumping into the mix and it can become a full time job on it's own. I have experienced two different breastfeeding journeys and I came to the conclusion that I have been so much happier with my experience with Landon. I haven't been as hard on myself. Yes, he's had formula since he was 10 weeks old, but he's also super happy and healthy! It didn't kill him! And it helped take some stress off me. At least he got the added benefits of SOME breast milk for as long as he did.

FYI... I left out TONS of details (hard to believe with the length of this, right?) on things like how I battled painful engorgment & borderline mastitus, so if any of you have ANY questions about pumping or breastfeeding or boob "training" please please PLEASE don't hesitate to contact me. I'd love to share more of my experience and help you in your BFing journey. :-)