Milk booster tips and breastfeeding resources
This is a review of Fridge-to-Go cooler bag for storing and transporting breast milk on the go.
If you are looking for the best cooler bag for breast milk (and other food/drinks actually), I strongly recommend you to take a look at Fridge-to-Go cooler bag.
In this post, I would share with you the features, detailed pros and cons of Fridge-to-Go cooler bag, as well as its comparison with Coleman cooler bag.
(this post contains affiliate links)
If someone asks me, “What is the best breastfeeding book for working mom”, I would undoubtedly choose this book, “Work. Pump. Repeat” by Jessica Shortall.
If you are a working mom looking to continue breastfeeding after you return back to work, this book is a MUST for you.
Let me repeat once again, this book is a MUST READ for every working mom continuing breastfeeding.
If you are interested in getting this book, but not sure if it’s worth for you, then you should continue to read my review of Work. Pump. Repeat.
In this review, I’ll share what you can find in this book, things I love from this book, and what this book may lack of.
Read on…
(this post contains affiliate links)
This book covers most of the things you need to know about planning to continue breastfeeding after returning to work. Starting from the:
1.Pumping School
Learn how to pump for the first time, what to expect when pumping, how much milk you need to express prior to work, how to estimate milk your baby need to drink when you are away, and how to feed your baby expressed breast milk, and importantly: how to avoid overfeeding with bottle (you need to educate your baby’s caregiver about this, and choose the bottle teat carefully- more details in the book).
2. Pumping at work place
Do your planning even before you take your maternity leave (identifying where you can pump, negotiating with your boss and HR personnel regarding your plan to pump at work (ehm, professionally), and how to deal with coworkers who comments on your ‘pumping’ thing.
3. Dealing with pumping during business trips
What is the objective of pumping (very important to remember over and over again), what to do with the milk (throw or keep), and if you are travelling with expressed breast milk (EBM), how to deal with TSA officers (there are rules regarding this that you need to know), how to pack EBM carefully so that it can come back safely to your baby, including a little bit on how to mail your EBM by mail (seriously, you can do this!)
4. Troubleshooting common problems
Admit it, breastfeeding can be hard. Even more when you decide to juggle between pumping, breastfeeding, and working. You may forgot your pump part, you may skip pumping session, you may really hate your pump, you may just want to quit breastfeeding altogether. What to do in dealing with these problems? This book gives you quite a wealth of insights about how to solve these.
Shortall positions herself as a friendly fellow working mom who cheers you up on your pumping journey. Reading her book is just like reading a personal email from a best friend who truly cares about YOU, your struggle, and your goals. Never once she doctrine that ‘You should continue breastfeeding no matter what, if you quit then you are a BAD mom’ kind of thing.
She totally understands how it feels to be a busy working mom who juggling between work and raising kids, plus pumping milk for our baby.
She shares her experience and stories (which are quite fun and hilarious by the way). And not only that! In writing this book, she interviewed hundreds of working mothers and include their stories in the book as well. You will get lots of jaw drops reading their stories, which some of them are quite extraordinary.
While sharing her knowledge, she includes a LOT (and I mean, really A LOT) of practical tips regarding pumping.
Some of my favorite chapters in the book, which I believe you would love these too, include:
1.Planning of negotiation with boss / HR regarding your pumping plan
She even include a sort of letter/conversation template on how to start a discussion about this. Admit it, it is not fun to tell your boss about boobs and breast milk and such, right. In fact, it can be embarrassing, especially if your boss is male.
Therefore, she suggested to analyze your situation, way before you take your maternity leave. I love how she advises us to take this matter professionally. Though by right, we can always pull out the governing rule saying: hey, you should give me my right to pump for my baby, it’s better not to start with this.
Rather, start by explaining what you need, or maybe even some extra explanation why breastmilk is important for your baby, and assure your boss that pumping won’t make you loose your work performance.
Shortall even goes to very nitty gritty detail about how to approach your HR about allocating space to pump, what you need inside the room (chair, table to place the pump, power source, or even fridge perhaps?) and what to do if no spare room is available.
2. How to respond to coworkers comment regarding your breastfeeding choice.
Your coworker can be supportive buddies, lucky for you, or can be nosy enough to confront your decision to pump milk for your baby. This book lists various ways how to respond, from a nice simple reply to some sarcastic ones, depending on the type of comment you receive, lol. I really laughed out loud reading this part. Love it.
3.Defining your breastfeeding goal.
Shortall is very clear that she support your decision no matter what. Your goal may be different from others, and that’s totally okay. You breastfeed exclusively, great! You breastfeed and supplement at the same time, great. Don’t let other people’s comments steer your goal and make you feel depressed and guilty to your baby.
4. Pumping while traveling
While not all working moms travel for work, I believe this section is a gold mine for those who frequently travel for business trips. From what to bring in your travel, how to deal with TSA officers especially if you carry expressed breast milk, how to pump inside the plane (at your seat or in the plane toilet), how to negotiate with the hotel and such, and how to bring your milk back home, almost all the thing you need to know is presented in this book.
The only time I’ve ever read this kind of information is only by scouring motherhood forums. Even then, the information is scattered here and there.
So, having it all together in one book is really a plus.
5. A lot of other moms’ stories.
I think I told you before about this. But to me personally, this is such a valuable thing from this book. Reading other moms’ stories makes me feel grateful and realize that I’m not alone in my pumping journey.
While there is a chapter about how to stockpile breast milk prior to returning to work, I hope to see more information on how to add in pumping schedules in between nursing session (other than morning pump).
Also, the section on how to bring milk back to home can be much more clearer by adding a bullet list what to do right from before checking out from the hotel. I read somewhere that you could use dry ice to keep you milk frozen longer, but it is not highlighted in this book.
Having said all the pros and cons, I still believe that this book is really a very comprehensive guide for navigating your pumping journey as a working mom.
Not only I love this book, see what others have said about this.
You can purchase Work. Pump. Repeat as a paperback or Kindle ( the Kindle version is only $4.99!).
If you are still not sure whether you will like this book, fret not. You can read the FREE chapter here.
I hope this book review helps you to better understand what kind of content Work. Pump. Repeat can offer for you. If you have any questions regarding this book, feel free to ask. I’ll be happy to answer your questions.
I bet, countless time, ya?
But with so many websites and mothers’ forum out there, it is so easy to find conflicting suggestions on what to do.
Which one is correct..? Which site can you trust..?
In this post, I would like to share with you my pick of top 10 best breastfeeding websites, which are run or managed by lactation consultant or professional doctors.
Whenever I met problem and need quick solution, they are among my first stop points to find readily available answer.
When I returned to work, could you guess what my biggest fear is?
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Exactly, not being able to provide enough breast milk for my baby.
With my past experience of having to supplement my first baby, I became even more protective of my milk supply.
But bumps were everywhere.
Starting from work-related stress..
The desire to show that ‘hey, I am still doing my job even though I spare a great amount of time for pumping..’
Then, my irregular pumping session began, and skipping pumping here and there.
Oh.. That guilty feeling of choosing work over pumping.
Can you relate..?
Then, it happened.
My milk supply started to plummet.
And I got panicked.
No matter what, the desire to achieve my breastfeeding goal was so strong.
So, I started to create a detailed plan to bring back my milk supply.
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Fast forward, it worked.
I was able to keep providing enough milk for my baby until she’s 23 months.
Are you struggling to keep your milk supply up?
Or, you are not there yet, but constantly worrying if you could provide enough pumped milk for your baby?
If yes, then this post is for you.
Because I decided to share how I managed to build back my milk production.
Ready to learn more.. ?
Note: most of these tips are geared towards mom who combine direct nursing (i.e. latch on) and pumping. So, some of them won’t be applicable for exclusive pumping mamas.
For the sake of simplicity, I would always use ‘work‘ to refer to times when you are away from your baby. You may not be actually working, but maybe studying full time. It’s okay, as long as you are separated your baby regularly for long hours almost every day (i.e. full time),that counts as ‘work‘.
Have you ever feel that you’ve pumped for half an hour but only getting drops of milk?
Or your breast still feels hard even though you’ve pumped for so long?
What’s the problem?
Why pumping can not be as simple as direct latch?
Pumping breast milk is a learned art that you’ll get better and better with practice.
The good news is today I have a few tips on how to pump more milk efficiently.
By applying these tips, I managed to get at least 40% more milk than what I used to get.
Aren’t you excited to know?
PS: If you are in a hurry, scroll down to the very end of the post to download your FREE infographics.
Let’s dive in..!
Before you start, make sure that:
And now, boost your pumping productivity with these 8 sure-to-work tips.
My confession: I aim for at least 3 let-downs per pumping session (at work), or two ( if pumping in between feeding).
This is my number one milk producing tips, try this!
On my desperate day, I even try to get the fourth let down. Yeah, the milk you get from second let down won’t be as much as what you get from the first, but combining them all together, you’ll get a lot more milk.
Getting the subsequent let down can be done in similar ways how you get the first.
Here’s how:
After the milk flow from first let down slows down (hint: you should see only very little or no more milk drips), turn your pump to let down / massage mode again, or use these 10 tips to stimulate let down again).
Note: it will take a longer time to get the next let down. So if you are used to getting your first let down within 2 minutes, you may get your second let down within 3-4 minutes.
Take it easy.. If you still haven’t achieved let down after 10 minutes, try again another time.
Perhaps you are familiar with hands-free pumping. I think you must have seen those before. A video of mom, pumping while working on her laptop, her breast shields are secured to her breast with a hands-free pumping bra.
Yea.., it is such a time saver. But if your goal is to get most milk from your breast, I suggest you not to multitask and use your hands to do breast massage.
I would still recommend you to get that hands-free pumping bra (this brand is one of the moms’ favorite) so that you won’t need to worry about supporting both breast shield every time.
Here’s how to do it:
And to convince you that doing this is good to get most of the milk and drain your breast, watch this video.
Note that even though the video above is focused on premature babies, this technique also applies to other normal babies, at any age. Nancy Mohrbacher discusses this in details in her article.
Hands-free vs Hands-on Pumping | Which One Should You Choose.
If you watched the video in the link above (hint hint: you should watch if you haven’t), you will notice that in addition to breast massage during pumping, you can further increase your pumping output by doing hand-expression right after double pumping. In fact, combining hands on technique on dual pumping followed by hand-expression yield the highest amount of milk.
Marmet technique is one of the famous methods to do hand expression, here’s a video example to show you how to do it. It’s not really that difficult.
But if you are not into hand-expression (don’t worry, I can fully understand =D), you can use a manual breast pump to further empty your breast.
Don’t forget to always massage your breast, okay.
You don’t need to pump until a certain amount of time, but instead, until you see no drops of milk anymore.
Get access to my best pumping strategies and start pumping MORE milk [FREE checklist]
Do you know that repositioning breast shield may get your milk flow again? Try it!
There are two ways to do this.
First, is simply to re-attach the breast shield to recreate the vacuum, without changing the location where it was.
And secondly, if using the first method no longer gives you more milk, you can reposition the breast shield by focusing on different parts of your breast. If you haven’t tried these tricks before, seriously, try it!
Initially, I use these methods only when I pump with my manual pump. But then I found that I can use the same tricks even with an electric breast pump (click here to see my recommended high-quality breast pump).
Just be sure that you dis-attach the breast shield during the off-vacuum state (i.e. when the suction is not applied).
Say, you are away from your baby for 10 hours for work. Which one do you think is better? Having two pumping sessions, 30 minutes each, or 3 pumping sessions, 20 minutes each?
Some of you may say, hey they should be the same since the total time spent is one hour for both.
But actually, having more sessions will give you more milk.
I’ve tested this several times.
When I first returned back to work, I diligently pump 3 times a day at work, and able to bring in close to 200-250 ml alone from those 3 sessions.
As my workload gets tougher, I reduce my pumping session into two. Well at the beginning, I’m still getting roughly the same, or slightly less amount.
But after a few weeks, my supply depleted so much I was running out of my stock. And finally, I went back to pumping 3x a day again to bring up more milk.
If you wonder why having more pumping but shorter pumping session gives you more milk, let’s revisit the golden rule of milk production:
As you empty breast more frequently by pumping, you send a signal to your breast to make more milk, and thus you get more.
Similarly, when you pump less, you send signals to your breast that milk is not required urgently, and thus, breast will produce milk at the slower pace (and even stop if the breast has reached its maximum storage capacity).
This trick will also work even if you pump in between feeding, i.e. for stockpiling breast milk. Rather than having a single long session, break it up into a few short pumping sessions for more milk.
Do you know that prolactine (the hormone responsible for milk production) is at the highest during wee hours and early in the morning.
This is why typically our breast will feel fullest in the morning.
So don’t miss out this opportunity to pump more milk. Just wake up early enough and pump. You don’t really need to wake up in the wee hours, especially if your baby is still nursing at night. But once he sleeps through the night, you may want to consider doing wee hour pumping to maintain your milk production. A silent breast pump with night light (here are my recommendations) will offer you a lot of conveniences to do this.
Typically the morning pump session will yield the most milk compared to other pumping sessions throughout the day (if you are fully pumping in between feeding). This was one of my best trick to get more milk while stockpiling my breast milk.
I love to pump and nurse at the same time, especially when my baby is a newborn.
Not only it saves a lot of time, you don’t need to worry about trying to stimulate let down (because baby will do it for you, haha).
Pumping and nursing at the same time also send signal to your breast to produce more milk, as if you are nursing a twin. How good is that? Surely a win for you, right.
Make sure to use a bra that can be used for both pumping and nursing (here’s a good one).
However, please note that as your baby grows older, this trick can get more challenging.
Your curious baby will stare at your breast shield (thinking who is this guy, trying to compete with me for mom’s milk, and may start pulling the tubing). Well, that happened to my baby.
But anyway, every baby is different, you just need to try first and who knows your baby doesn’t mind nursing while you pump at the same time.
Get access to my best pumping strategies and start pumping MORE milk [FREE checklist]
Have you heard about power pumping before?
If you have been pumping for quite a while, I believe you already heard about this term.
In simple term, power pumping refers to doing multiple-short pumping sessions within an hour period (with breaks in between) and doing it a couple of times a day (at least twice).
A typical one-hour power pumping would consist of:
The short answer is: yes, it can….
…. Provided that you do it effectively, and you stick to it long enough.
When I said effectively, that means, always ensure breast is emptied for every pumping session (so tips #2 and #3 are a MUST).
How long does it take for your breast to respond (i.e by producing more milk)?
I would say, it depends on a lot of factors such as the age of your baby, the power pumping frequency, and so on.
As your baby grows older, you may find that it takes longer time, 2 weeks or even more to notice the effect). This is especially true if you only do this once or twice a day).
Then, what about me?
Well, sadly, with 2 little kids around, sparing one hour for power pumping is already hard enough for me to do (raise your hand if you can relate). But that does not mean you’re a bad mom. Hey, we all doing our best for our kids, right.
So instead of doing power pumping, I do cluster pumping and nursing combo. It’s similar in terms of ‘pattern’, but instead of spending one hour, I only pump two sessions with 10 mins break in between, this is what I did in the morning. Then at night, I nurse my baby, then pump for 10 minutes (baby had daddy time), the nurse again.
The result is …, well, not so amazing, but I can notice a slight increase in my milk production. Check out my full pumping story here (starting from the day I started working, how I managed the freezer stash
Check out my FULL pumping story here (starting from the day I started working, rebuilding a depleted stash, until the day I finished my stash).
So, yes, if you can’t do power pumping, no worries. Try cluster pumping instead. And it will still help you to increase your milk production.
SEE ALSO: Top 10 Pumping Tips and Tricks for New Moms
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Phew.. What a long post that I wrote. I tried to be as detailed and comprehensive as possible so that you can apply these tips directly in your pumping.
To summarize all the points mentioned here, I’ve created an infographic for this to make it easier to understand.
PS: You are free to pin and share this with your friends, but please do not republish it on your blog / website. If you want to make reference to this infographic, you can simply link to this post. Thank you!
So that’s it. I sincerely hope these 8 tips answer your question on how to pump more breast milk.
Do you want to add more tips? What is your favorite tip to pump more milk efficiently?
Share with us!
NEXT: How to maintain your milk supply after returning to work