Let’s say you have a 5-month old baby which you are breast-feeding, but you have to work full time so you use a breast pump during the day, as needed, both to relieve the pressure (I am assuming here, I am neither female nor have I been married to one) and to save the milk for the baby’s use later.
How many times between the hours of 8:30am and 5:00pm would you need to do this?
How long would it take each time?
I ask because my boss is in this situation, and we all know that if she is in her office with the door closed and we can’t hear any conversation, this is what she is doing. It seems to go on a lot, and to take a very long time. I suspect that sometimes she is using this option to take naps because she isn’t getting enough sleep. But I am prepared to be schooled in reality, which is why I ask.
This may be a GQ sort of question, but I suspect there is some variation so I am putting here in IMHO.
Roddy
It really really really really depends on the woman. Some women have an extremely easy time of it, and can pump large amounts in a short time. But many women who are pumping run into supply problems, where the amount of milk continually decreases. It can be very difficult to keep up supply. Not to mention, there can be all sorts of other issues complicating it.
Seriously, this is beyond personal. I know it’s easy to be curious, but it would be incredibly stupid to talk about this with co-workers or (god forbid!!) ask her. She may in fact be taking naps. My personal pumping experience, and that of my close friends, makes me think she probably isn’t, but she may be. But it doesn’t matter. It’s like asking a woman about how often she is changing her maxi pads. You are going to look like an asshole.
It’s really none of your business unless her boss makes an issue of it.
I am nursing and pumping. As others have said it depends on the woman. Some woman have a lot milk they can pump quickly while others can take longer only to get less. It also depends on the pump. Some of the more powerful pumps can work quite quickly while others can take longer.
Prolactin levels are higher in the morning so most women get more milk at that time. The general rule is once every two or three hours for at least fifteen minutes.
Generally every 2 hours while you’re trying to increase your milk supply, and every 4 hours when your supply has stabilized. Pumping can itself cause supply instability though, so sometimes you do every 2 hours for a while, then every 4 hours for a week, and then your supply drops, so you have to go back to every 2 hours. It really sucks. Most women pump for about 40 minutes (20 minutes per breast) if they’re using a single pump, and 20 minutes total if they’re using a dual-pump system which can do both sides at once.
WhyNot,
Who mooed for 14 months, exclusively pumping with a chronically low milk supply
It’s often hard when you’re at work when meetings interfere with your scheduled pumping times. I remember having to try and get a pumping in before a meeting, before it was time, and it took a horrible amount of time. And then other times when I waited until afterward, and it was excruciatingly painful because I was engorged. The first breast would just shoot milk into the pump, while the second breast leaked, and then when I tried to pump the second breast, hardly anything would come out. Extremely frustrating, and stress doesn’t make for ideal pumping conditions. Add to that overall worry that you’re not pumping enough and won’t have enough for the baby for the next day … it’s just hard, even if you’re a champion, experienced nursing mother.
Give the woman and break and try to understand. It’s only for a relatively short period of time.
I was still feeding my 8 month old around 6-8 times during the day (i.e. from waking to bedtime), so probably similar frequency for a 5 month old who’s probably not eating any solids as yet (current recommendations are just now shifting from 6 months to sometime after 4 months).
Pumps are less efficient than a baby (and if she has a manual pump, that’s even less efficient than an electric one), and to do both sides would take around 20-30 min at a time.
I worked for a hospital. I had a very very very good breast pump (leased from the hospital) that did both breasts at once and took about 10 minutes. The hand pump took much longer and, only one at a time. I would say the hand pump probably took 30 minutes.
I had to do it every 3 or 4 hours. My coworkers (all women, one of whom had been in the identical situation about a year and a half before) would stand outside my office door mooing.
I will confess, though–there were naps from time to time.
I breastfed and tried to pump. I succeeded at breastfeeding, failed at pumping. When my daughter was about 5 months old, I think that I fed her every 2-4 hours during the daytime. And if I was overdue for being drained, it was quite painful.
I think I need to clarify my motivation, as I seem to have unintentionally hit on a sore spot or two.
I have nothing against breast-feeding, nor am I really complaining about my boss’s behavior. I would never ask her about it (she doesn’t need to be asked, she is very forthcoming about it. “I’ll be in my office making donuts”). And I sympathize with the possible need for naps from time to time.
I do get frustrated when I need to ask her for a decision and she is unavailable. She is always busy and hard to find anyway, and this just adds to that. Sometimes email just doesn’t do it and we need to talk face to face.
But mostly I was just curious about how much of a burden that being a nursing mother can be on a working woman. Now that I know, I can cut her even more slack in my head than I was already doing.
Roddy
Just as another data point: my son is four months. I pump once at 2:30 AM, once at 11:55 AM and once at 3:15 PM, so twice at work. Twenty minutes of actual pumping each time, and another 5-10 of set up/break down. I am able to produce enough to cover about half his needs: he drinks more formula than breastmilk from the bottle, but I also nurse when I am home. I’d love to have a job where it was possible for me to pump more at work.
I’m one who had the easy time with it. I had a strong electric dual pump and set it to the max. Used it for about 15 minutes in the morning while surfing the Dope and filled two bottles. Then again at 18.00 when I got off work, about one and a half bottle. Sometimes, when the the supply in the freezer was dwindling low, I’d try and do it another time in the evenings, or I’d come home from lunch ( I live near my work place).
At that age, I’d need to pump once or perhaps twice a day. I was not an especially fast milker, so it would take a half hour per session.
And it was a pain to find a safe place, too. With Dweezil, I was working in a large Federal building that had a health center, there were several rooms there that nursing mothers were allowed to use just for that purpose. So that wasn’t so bad.
With Moon Unit, I was working in a much smaller agency that did have one small “sick” room - but it was off an outside hallway (i.e. not inside the area that was secured by our badges), and to use it I had to go to HR, get the key, go do my thing, and return the key.
I was lucky though - my boss was only part-time on that project, and HE had an office. His schedule virtually always was opposite mine (I was also part-time)… so I’d just go into his office, put a sign on the door “do not disturb”, and have at it.
I don’t recall explicitly asking his permission to do this, but I think he knew… for sure he did the day he unexpectedly came to that client at lunchtime. He was pretty gracious about having to wait outside his OWN OFFICE while I hastily put things together and skedaddled.
By the end of my nursing career, I was having to pump for at least an hour at a time to get enough milk to fill a bottle. I can’t remember how many times I’d have done it between 8 and 5 though, sorry. Twice? Presumably that wasn’t enough though, as my supply tailed off until she hit a year
