Going away from child 4 nights while BFing

[smilee1079]

My husband's company will be sending us on a trip for 4 nights when our baby will be about 4 mths. I am not sure we can bring the baby and if not, my parents have agreed to watch him. Is there any way for me to pump and save the milk while I am gone or will all that go to waste?

[pamela]

If you have access to a mini-fridge, especially one with a freezer, you can keep it and then pack it with dry ice for the trip back. I brought my freezer stash with dry ice on a 9 hour drive and it hadn't softened at all.

[arch01]

Book a hotel with a mini-fridge and bring a cooler for transport. Make sure you date the milk so you can use it in order.

You'll need to be pumping and freezing milk from close to the beginning if you want DC to have BM while you're gone. Educate your parents on thawing/using thawed BM.

[Deleted]

We went away for a weekend when DS was 4 months old. If you are diligent abotu building a freezer stash from the beginning that part of it should be okay (I was lazy about pumping while on mat leave). I had issues because I forgot part of my pump so I had to use my manual pump all weekend. what a PITA. But I just brought a little soft-sided cooler and a freezer pack, and I stored the BM in bags and laid them flat in the cooler - transporting them was easy (I was flying).

[minzy]

I agree with the others about logistics, but just wanted to add that you may want to ask your hotel if you can use some space in their commercial freezer if your stash gets too large for the mini fridge. We spent one night of a move in a hotel with my entire stash, and the staff had no problem with me using their freezer space overnight.

[SusanBAnthony]

A thought about building a good freezer stash: every morning during my maternity leave, starting at about 3 or 4 weeks old, I would nurse the baby, he would go to sleep, and about 30 minutes after I nursed, I would pump both sides for 15 minutes (even if nothing was coming out). By doing it in the morning when your supply is highest, and by being extremely consistent, my supply built up fairly quickly, and I was able to freeze about 6-8 oz. every morning.

[mswax]

Dec 6, 2012 9:15:19 GMT -5 SusanBAnthony said:

A thought about building a good freezer stash: every morning during my maternity leave, starting at about 3 or 4 weeks old, I would nurse the baby, he would go to sleep, and about 30 minutes after I nursed, I would pump both sides for 15 minutes (even if nothing was coming out). By doing it in the morning when your supply is highest, and by being extremely consistent, my supply built up fairly quickly, and I was able to freeze about 6-8 oz. every morning.

This is a great suggestion, and I didn't figure it out until we had #2.

As for the trip, you can certainly bring your milk home in a cooler, but at least for me, if I was going to have deal with all the pumping and transporting, I'd just rather bring the baby with me.

[jr009j]

I had to travel for work for about 3.5 weeks when dd was 6 months. I froze everything solid in bags and used ice packs in a cooler. It was all still solid after 9 hours of travel time. If you're flying, going through security with it frozen is much, much easier and you're allowed to have ice packs.

If you can stay in a hotel with a kitchen, I recommend it for both the full size fridge and the sink.

[vegas]

Are you flying or driving? If you are flying you may have a hard time bringing back all of the milk. TSA says you can travel with a "reasonable amount of breast milk" which leaves it completely open to interpretation. I tried to fly home from a business trip with 10 bottles and they gave me trouble. It could have been because I didn't have the baby or it could have been too much to be considered "reasonable", the a-hole TSA agents didn't care to elaborate. I eventually made it through security with all of the milk but not without some serious hassle.

[Deleted]

Dec 6, 2012 11:13:50 GMT -5 vegas said:

Are you flying or driving? If you are flying you may have a hard time bringing back all of the milk. TSA says you can travel with a "reasonable amount of breast milk" which leaves it completely open to interpretation. I tried to fly home from a business trip with 10 bottles and they gave me trouble. It could have been because I didn't have the baby or it could have been too much to be considered "reasonable", the a-hole TSA agents didn't care to elaborate. I eventually made it through security with all of the milk but not without some serious hassle.

That stinks.

I didn't have an issue flying with a ton of BM. But it wasn't in bottles, it was in 3oz increments in medela bags, half of it frozen.

[smilee1079]

We will be going to Vegas for DHs work all expenses paid. I can't bring the baby with me to certain events but my parents love Vegas and if all works out well, they may come too and watch the baby whenever I can't. That should allow me to BF most mornings and prob some other times each day. We could store in. Cooler and keep getting new ice if no fridge and I pump and use it soon after. I will have more info end of Jan. for a July trip so we can better plan. Thanks for all the info!