Nursing/Pumping Schedule for the Working Mama

Being a working mama, it's hard for me to wrap my head around all the prep I need to do to actually be away from my kids. When one child gets done with nursing, it seems you easily forget all the effort it took to pump AND feed on a daily. Here is my schedule now that I'm back at work. Hopefully it is helpful to you mamas out there that aren't able to be with your little ones all day!

6:30 a.m.-first feeding of the day (on the breast) & right before I leave for work.

9:00 a.m.-pump from both breasts (I'm usually able to pump around 8 ounces or so)

12/12:30 p.m.-pump again from both breasts (around 5-6 oz. this time)

2:30/3:00 pm.-pump from both breasts (more like 2-3oz if I'm lucky)

4:30/5:00-offer the breast the minute we walk in the door (which is sometimes a total shit show due to my toddler's "Twonager" tendencies-I guess that term is totally a thing.

I try to fill him up as best I can before bed by cluster feeding so that he sleeps in longer stretches at night. This (in theory) makes sense although I still have an almost four month old that gets up every 3 hours or so....but I have faith we will get there soon.

by 7:00 p.m. we have taken our bath, swaddle and are down with another feeding before bed.

I also am lucky because my kid doesn't like drinking milk from the Medela bottles that hook up to my pump (I have this one) so it's super fun at the end of each day to dump all the milk I've pumped into Avent bottles and then label them 1000X for the daycare people (Can you tell i'm being facetious here?)

But at the end of the day, my kid is getting what he needs and I'm happy about that. Whatever you choose to do (breast or formula) being a working mom is a hard job with many things to juggle (in a different way than if you were to stay at home). I hope that this alleviates some of the stress you may be feeling by giving you a guideline and the encouragement that you can do it!!

Some more helpful tips:

-drink TONS of water

-If you can't pump in a secluded office or bathroom, try this car adapter or this hand pump

-Whatever I can't pump, I use frozen milk. Eventually, this will run out and I'll switch to formula.
-I bring a pumping bag to work, leave my pump there, and bring an extra sponge and soap to wash my parts in between pumping

In case you just came to see one well fed baby, here he is: