About Me

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My husband, Kyle, and I are the proud and busy parents of two little boys, Kaleb and Jacob. Kaleb joined our family in December 2009 and we welcomed Jacob in April 2012. We both work full time outside the home, I am in the field of Learning and Development. I have a passion for studying the brain and how we learn, which translates beautifully to watching my boys grow up and discover their worlds. I'm also into learning about nutrition, herbalism, food-as-medicine, natural alternatives, and homeopahtic remedies. I hope to provide an uncut view of what life is really like as a working mom, minus the instagram filters and facebook bragging...I'll save that for facebook ;)

Friday, August 5, 2011

A Tale of Two Titties

Too far on the title? It cracks me up, but I hope it isn't overly offensive, I know my humor errs on the inappropriate side...

I've been emailing with a friend who recently gave birth to an adorable little guy. She is about to go back to work and was asking me about pumping and milk storage and all that fun stuff. She asked that I post my email to her on my blog so others could access it, so here goes:

I have the Medela Pump In Style Advanced and I pumped directly into bottles because I found I got a more accurate reading on how many ounces I got in a sitting. The pump came with 2 or 4 storage bottles, I think they are 5oz with a yellow cap, these ones:

Figure 2 pump bottles for each session, then figure out how many pumping sessions you'll do in a normal shift of work, that will tell you how many bottles you need to bring with you each day. Then buy twice that amount, so you have two days worth. This way if you guys go out to dinner one night or little dude has a tough night or you just don't feel like washing all those bottles, you have a back up set. And, since they are reusable, you save a ton of $$

I pumped 3 times a day at work, so each morning my breast pump bag had 6 clean pump bottles, along with the rest of the accessories that come with the pump, including the cooler and freezer pack. I had a small bottle brush and a travel container with dish soap, along with a packet of pump cleaning wipes for those days where my schedule was really tight and I didn't have time to wash and dry accessories after a session. You can find these in the breast pump area of any major store. I also had a clean dish towel that I could lay my clean accessories on after each wash. (i had the fortune of special rooms for breast feeding mothers at my work, with sink and fridge and freezers so all us milk-makers could just leave our accessories out on our towels to dry in our private room)

I also had a book with pics of Kaleb in my bag, and some videos of him on my cell phone, ones of him starting to get hungry. Those came in handy if I was having a stressful day and struggling to switch into "milking mode" and the picture book doubled as a brag book.

Another thing to always have in your pump bag are extra pump valve membranes, they wear out after a couple months and then the suction gets messed up, replacing those may be all you need to get supply back on track! These are what I'm talking about


In addition to a place to pump, you will need to have a place at work to store your milk and also a place to wash and dry accessories after each pumping session. I would pump into two bottles, one on each side, then combine the milk all into one of the bottles. This helped me keep an accurate idea of how much milk I was getting, which helped me know how much I still needed for the next day's day care bottles.

When I got home each night I would pour all pumped milk into one or more of the bigger bottles (8 - 10 oz) that I kept in the fridge. Then wash and sterilize all pump accessories, pump bottles, and day care bottles. Get a drying rack that can support everything in one sitting and I encourage you to try these out. They ease your mind, and when the bottles and parts come out of the bag they dry really quickly and without spots on them.

I kept the freshly pumped milk in the fridge, using 10oz bottles with different colored tops or prints, on a first in first out basis. Once the first big bottle was full I'd start another, storing that behind the first, and so on. There was a section in our fridge dedicated to all things breast milk, Kyle and all regular visitors knew not to touch anything there, move anything, or even breathe too close to anything there.

On Monday night I'd put the milk I pumped that day in the big bottles in the fridge, wash and sterilize everything from the day, then once the day care bottles and nipples were dry I'd fill them for the next day from the big fridge bottles.

On Tuesday morning I would wake up at 4:30 and pump, getting the biggest yield of the day and using that to top off day care bottles if needed, pouring the rest into the appropriate big fridge bottle. (the one in the back of the line) Then I'd get ready for work and be ready to breast feed Kaleb when he woke up between 5:30 and 6:30. Pump all day at work, come home, pour the days milk into the last in line fridge bottle, wash and dry, then fill day care bottles for the next day from the first in line fridge bottle. If I was low then I could add an extra pump session around 10:00 PM and then back up at 4:30 to start the day over.

By the end of the week I would almost always have leftover milk, which I would then freeze and add to the freezer stock pile, also operating on a first in first out. I pumped on the weekends along with breast feeding as much as possible in an effort to ramp back up supply. This would be what I'd use for Monday morning day care bottles.

This left my freezer stash for times when I wanted to leave Kaleb with Grandma and Grandpa and go out for a night, or nights I wanted a glass of wine and needed to pump and dump. The freezer stash is good for about 4 months, I think, so if any made it to 3 months I'd just use that up for day care one day and have that much more fresh milk left over that week to freeze.

Just a few more thoughts and then i'll stop, I promise :)

If you can, go to work with your pump before you actually officially start back. This will allow you to go through the process from start to finish, get an idea of how long you can expect it to take, and make it so when you are actually on the clock you already have your system down.

Before you go back to work, try to get a handle on how many ounces baby boy is eating during the normal time you will be away from him, and in what quantities he is eating those ounces at each sitting. I did this by lining up a row of 2oz bottles and feeding Kaleb one after another until he was done. I spent a day doing this and it helped me feel better about how much to put in each bottle for day care. Most day cares will only keep a bottle that has been drank from for 1 hour and then they have to dump what's left down the drain. That will make you very annoyed after all the hard work you do for those ounces! Having a good idea of how much he eats in one session will help prevent that from happening.

I used to send a 2oz "snack" bottle every day along with the rest of his day care bottles. That way if he was still hungry after a regular bottle, for whatever reason, they had the snack for him. Gave me peace of mind that he had plenty to eat, and prevented a lot of wasted milk because they weren't heating another full bottle only to have him drink a few ounces and be full.

Finally, don't steam clean or wash or rinse the hoses that come with the pump. Unless, of course, they get milk in them. But, if the pump is working properly they shouldn't be getting milk in them so if that happens it is probably time to change the valve membranes. If you do get some water in the hoses, or get milk and need to wash, then wash and steam clean and then hook them up to your pump and crank it to the highest setting so the air is pushing in and out to try and dry the hoses. Otherwise they don't ever dry and can get mold in them. For me, if I got water or milk in there I tried one time to wash and if they didn't dry completely I just bought new ones, they are like $5.

And there you have it, an exhaustive account of my pumping and storage strategies :) I have to say, I am having a lot of fun getting to share what I learned, thanks for humoring me and my (hopefully only currently) retired mammaries!

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