How to Prepare for Going Back to Work (hint - settle in first)

It feels like you just had this baby, and you're not eager to leave him. For breastfeeding moms returning to work, how do you separate baby from his food source? When do you need to start pumping? Will he take a bottle? How much do you need in your freezer stash? Questions like these may be weighing heavily on your mind.

First of all, are you a breastfeeding mom who just had a baby? Like in the past 2 weeks? Then close this page and don’t even think about how you’re going to manage going back to work. You don’t need any additional assignments besides recovering from your delivery, bonding with your baby, and getting breastfeeding established. Why are you not eating a bowl of ice cream or taking a nap right now?!

If your baby is three weeks old, then welcome to the discussion about returning to work. You can begin to prepare, but let’s start slowly. No one should feel like they have to buy a deep freeze and start filling it up. The first step is to collect a few ounces of breast milk. Have you experimented with a Haakaa? That silicone thing your girlfriend told you to get? Maybe you have a Boone Trove, or some other version of a passive milk collector. This thing might look intimidating but it’s very simple - you just apply it to one of your breasts while baby is nursing on the other side. It may collect some milk, but likely won’t empty your breast, so baby can still have a go at the Haakaa side, and then you switch the Haakaa over to the breast that baby just finished. After the nursing session is over, the Haakaa contains some milk, and you stick it in the fridge. It doesn’t matter how much milk you collect. You might have a few mls, or half an ounce. Maybe you got an entire ounce on each side. If you start wearing the Haakaa more often, your body will start making extra milk and you will begin to collect more and more. That’s one way of collecting milk while multitasking. The other way is to double pump your breasts right after baby has finished nursing. Your first morning session might work best.

All right, now you have some milk to put into a bottle with a slow-flow nipple, and introduce it to baby. But this isn’t your job, lactating mother, this is someone else’s job. Ideally you want baby to associate you with only breastfeeding. He needs to start learning that when you’re not there, he can get a meal out of this other thing, from someone else. It’s a whole new skill for him! He might take it like a champ, or he may struggle to establish a rhythm on the bottle. Either way, if he has been breastfeeding for 3 weeks, then his nursing skills are cemented, and this is a good time to introduce something new. A 3 week old is flexible enough to take a bottle, but he likely will not start preferring that bottle. Next up: How much do you put in there? An ounce or less, to start. He might waste it, and it’s painful to pour your milk down the drain! Once he is reliably taking milk from a bottle, you can work up to 2-3 ounces, or more. How often does he need to practice drinking from a bottle? Well, a few times a week. It doesn’t have to be daily.

Through your efforts to collect milk, you may be able to start freezing some, but don’t go crazy. As much as I worship the moms who donate to the milk banks, it’s a lot of work to feed a baby and a freezer. If you are putting away 3-5 ounces a day, that’s amazing. More than that does put you at risk for oversupply issues. And if you can only manage to pump enough for those practice bottles, and can’t get ahead? That’s OK. You only need enough milk for baby to take on that first day of work. On your second day of work, he can drink what you pumped the day before. If you start running short, pumping less at work than he is going to need the next day, there is no reason to panic. It is nice to be able to draw from your stash of freezer milk, but there’s also formula.

The next part is going to be a relief: you don’t have to get your baby on a schedule to prepare him for daycare! When he is away from you, his caregiver will offer him bottles, and he will take them hopefully without a struggle. His caregiver will watch his cues and offer him a bottle when he seems hungry, and those bottles will likely tide him over in your absence for about 3 hours. That’s typical, anyway. They will establish their own schedule with him, and it probably won’t be anything like how he nurses, because that’s a highly refined and vastly different program. Nursing works best on cue, and he might visit for a snack or a full meal, a drink or a comforting snuggle, or maybe a hit before nap or when he wakes up. The bottle on the other hand, is just food. So bottles will be less frequent. And you don’t have to sync up his bottles with your pumping sessions. You’re at work trying to squeeze in pumping sessions whenever you get a chance, hopefully every 3 hours or so.

When you drop him off, tell daycare when he last nursed. At the end of your work day, tell them when you’re on the way, so they can hold off giving him a bottle right before you arrive. He’ll be happy to see you and your breasts might be full, so you can nurse him right there, or in the car, or as soon as you get home.

Your daycare may ask you a whole bunch of questions about your baby’s feeding and sleeping habits, but probably the most useful thing you can tell them is an estimation of how much he normally takes from a bottle...and a general timeframe of when he usually goes down for naps. But honestly, on their turf, things might be very different, and they will figure it out. You don’t need to hand them a baby who is on a rigid schedule of eating and sleeping, and have them take over, and maintain that exact routine. That would honestly be a nightmare to attempt to create. It’s just incompatible with breastfeeding.

When you are reunited with your baby, continue nursing on demand. Frequent sessions will be great for your supply, and remember, you two are operating on a completely different model than what the daycare has established. This is normal and expected. If his nap timeframe remains constant, that’s the type of consistency that might be helpful. His eating habits will be different. I have noticed over the years that the babies who are allowed to continue nursing on demand and comfort nurse, are the ones who do not prematurely wean. You may also want to consider not offering your baby a pacifier when you’re together. You don’t ever need to feel guilty about using the breast for comfort, or to put your baby to sleep. These are good habits that ensure longevity with your nursing relationship. (The sleep specialist might tell you differently, and that’s why we’re not best friends!)

Feeling anxious about returning to work can be normal, and sometimes the anticipation is worse than the actual reentry. That said, if you find yourself overwhelmed, worried and losing sleep, or truly dreading your return to work, you may want to explore your options. Whatever your plan was before you had this baby, becoming a mom, or even the addition of another child, can change everything! If your budget allows for you to stay home for awhile or return part time, there is no shame in making these arrangements.

Overall, going back to work as a lactating parent is a big transition that can be managed if you take it one step at a time. The logistics can initially feel very complicated, but after a few weeks back on the job, they become routine and workable.