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Breastfeeding after work, at conferences, in 4WD, in a forest !! – Mel’s story

Posted on March 6, 2009
Filed under: Expressing, Working mothers

I breastfed my first lovely daughter until she was 15 months old and I was 7 weeks pregnant, despite having gone back to work when she was 6 months. I wanted to keep feeding until she was older than 11 months as we were flying from Sydney to the USA, and breastfeeding was such a gift to settle her on take off and landing.

The main point I want to make is that going back to work doesn’t need to mean the end of breastfeeding, I expressed at work until I was ready to stop, and continued morning and night feeds. The ‘end of the day’ feed, with baby in my arms, her dozing off, with that lovely milk drunk grin, were a happy time of the day.

The real hard yards of breast feeding, in hindsight, were when I was back at work after my second DD, and the odd circumstance that I found myself expressing milk. Yet I wanted to keep breastfeeding, so expressing in strange locations seemed a small price to pay.

I returned to work 3 days when DD2 was 6 months, and expressed at 11am and 2pm, and took home frozen or chilled milk each day to give her carer.

The first challenge was when I was offered the chance to go on a conference in Perth, when DD2 was about 8 months old. At this point I was still expressing 4 times per day, 7am, 11am, 2pm and 7.30pm (approximately!). I was determined not to give up just by being at a conference and away from her, so I was pumping 4 times a day for the 4 days I was away. She was with her dad the whole time, having frozen milk. As there was no way to take frozen milk home on a long flight from Perth to Sydney (is that about 6 hrs?) plus home from the airport, I decided to ‘pump and dump’ in order to keep my supply up.

The men at the conference thought it was a little weird, I would duck off the disabled toilets, express, tip about 100-150 ml down the sink then return to the conference.

But the really strange, abnormal place that I found myself breastfeeding, was while sitting in a 4WD car, conducting field work in a forest. I was back at work as an Environmental Scientist doing research, but wanted to keep breastfeeding. So expressing in the 4WD was what came next. I warned the guys ‘I’m expressing, don’t come back to the car for about 20 mins’. I didn’t get the largest amount of milk, but it kept my supply up, and I happily continued to breastfeed DD2 until we were both ready to stop.

I hope this story can continue to inspire other mums to breastfeed after they return to work, even if they work in weird and wonderful locations!!

Filed under: Expressing, Working mothers

Comments

2 Responses to “Breastfeeding after work, at conferences, in 4WD, in a forest !! – Mel’s story”

Leah on March 7th, 2009 8:17 am

What an interesting story, it’s great to read about Mum’s feeding in a variety of circumstances :)
Barb on March 10th, 2009 2:57 pm

Mel, you are amazing! You go, girl. Total respect for working so hard to keep feeding. And what a great role model you are, too. Well done!

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