How much milk supply should I have stored?

Jill - posted on 05/23/2012

calculate how many feedings while your at ..my son ate 4oz each feeding but not to exceed 5oz. so make sure you are at least a week ahead when you go to work more if you can. I was lucky and worked nite shift & my son was only nursed twice a nite for a while. Hes now 9 mo and i no longer pump at work but I do pump when I get home in the am.

Jill - posted on 05/23/2012

calculate how many feedings while your at ..my son ate 4oz each feeding but not to exceed 5oz. so make sure you are at least a week ahead when you go to work more if you can. I was lucky and worked nite shift & my son was only nursed twice a nite for a while. Hes now 9 mo and i no longer pump at work but I do pump when I get home in the am.

Heather - posted on 05/22/2012

dont stress! :) everything will be ok! there is an amazing support group on here to help you out! when i went back to work i pumped four hours after i had nursed my son...and i made sure that it was two feedings worth....and yes if your not pumping/nursing off what your baby is eating then your supply will decrease...it takes three days to get your supply up and three days to lessen. i also got myself in a habit of pumping everymorning before i nursed...my supply was the highest at that point and i had an extra bottle a day i could stash away that way if i had a rough pumping day i was a bottle ahead anyway! :) as long as your pumping enough each day while your at work for your sitter the next day you dont need any stored but i got in a habit of pumping whenever i could and stashing it away and i have 20 bags in the freezer that i rotate out each day... youll find your groove that works best for you and baby. good luck! :)

Sara - posted on 05/18/2012

Biggest thing will be to not stress too much about it. When you stress it causes your milk supply to go down. I would say just plan on pumping in the morning and evening to make sure you keep your supply up, and on your days off pump after LO nurses, that will help too. Also, make sure you find out at the end of each day how much he ate while at the sitters, so if you didn't already pump that much at work you can finish pumping that evening, and you're able to replace what he ate that day. Good luck! But everything will be fine :-)

Serena - posted on 04/30/2012

I know when I went back to work after 7 weeks off I had about a half of a months stored up and I pump at work every 4 hours pluss I always have an extra pumping in the morning after his first feeding. I'm still doing good with this. I freeze all the pumped milk right away and have the sitter use the older frozen milk and keep it all rotateing.

I think I've used all the milk I stored up from maternity leave and I've been back for 3 weeks now. Just keep pumping and if you see that you are useing alot of your storage then maybe you can add an extra pumping before bed or right after work?

I know what helped is when I come home from work if he just ate I would pump right away until he was ready to eat.