Helpful Hints From One Nursing, Working Mother to Another
By Rachel Sobel
- Choose the best pump for your situation. If you are working full time and will be expressing milk for most or all of your baby's feedings while you are away from home, a hospital-quality double electric pump is probably your best choice.
- Determine whether renting or buying a pump is best for you. If you can share a pump with another mom in your workplace (you would each have your own accessories for the pump) or only plan to pump for a few months, renting may be most economical. If you plan to pump for longer than a few months, at home as well as at the office or for future children, you may wish to purchase a pump.
- Get into a schedule. Many women find that they express more milk when they are able to pump at the same times each day they train their bodies into a let-down at those times. Choose the times of day you have the most milk and that fit into your working schedule you don't need to pump at even intervals. For example, you may find that pumping twice between 8 a.m. and noon, then once between noon and 5 p.m., yields the most milk for you.
- If your milk supply begins to drop a little, try adding another pumping session to your daily schedule for a while. You may find that if you do this for just a few days, you can go back to your regular schedule and continue pumping the same amount of milk you did with the one extra pumping a day. For women in many types of jobs, it can be hard to find the time to pump during the day, so knowing that the extra pumping is temporary may make it easier to add one.
- Keep your pump at work during the week, if there's a safe place for it and you don't need it at home. If you're commuting on public transportation, you probably don't want to lug your pump with you each day. Instead, carry your collection bottles in an insulated lunchbox with plastic ice packs you can take your lunch to work in it and bring your milk home in it. You can also safely store your milk in it during the day so you don't have to worry about forgetting your milk in the lunchroom refrigerator.
The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families. 
