Most mothers would like to continue with breastfeeding when they return work after their maternity leave but do not manage to do so and for various reasons. In South Africa less people have an opportunity to continue with exclusive breastfeeding until their baby turns 6 months. So, if you do have that privilege do so; appreciate it and continue with pride and confidence. Most of us wish to work for companies that give us the opportunity to be the best people we can be, balancing work, social life and family. Wait!! Does life really have a balance? I for one, would like to find that balance, although I fail more than I succeed I keep on trying. Maybe balance just doesn’t exist in life or maybe our view of balance is totally skewed. Anyway, I have a few pointers on how to manage work and breastfeeding. These are based on what worked for me. If you have more tips, I would like to hear them on the comments below. I would like to know about what is working for you or what did when you were breastfeeding and maybe someone else will get a few ideas.
- Prepare your mind.
Be ready – You should be mentally ready to tackle this stage of your life. It is very important to tell yourself that you’ll be able to manage pumping for your baby and you will also stop to take care of yourself when you need to. You’re already breastfeeding during your leave and that on its own may come with its challenges and this is where you learn to take care of your mental health anytime you feel overwhelmed by everything that is going on. When you are tired and just need a break, you should go ahead and take some time out, even 5 minutes to yourself make a lot of difference.
As a breastfeeding mother we think that we need to be with our babies 24/7 and our babies will never be able to survive with us. Well, that is also what other people around us also make us go through. You ask someone to take care of the child while you take a nap but they bring the child as soon as they start crying, assuming or telling you that the baby needs to feed. You end up even regretting telling yourself that you’re going to rest. What you can try to do is try keep one or two feeds pumped so that the day you need a break you can have it.
Life in general is very challenging, so there is a possibility of meeting some hurdles along this journey as well. Just be ready and be prepared to come up with solutions and ask for help when needed. The support I received from my ex-colleagues gave me so much strength to keep going.
- Plan ahead of time.
If I hadn’t planned how I’m going to pump at work, I would have most probably given up just a few weeks after going back. After being away for some time you need to catch up with a lot of things so, if your time is not well planned then you’ll easily lose focus.
This also goes to planning your work when you get there. So, what worked for me was that 15minutes towards knock-off time, I planned on what I will be doing the following day. This allowed me to know where I can slot in my pumping sessions. I was already used to having a daily to-do-list at work so that I could be able to manage the things which were considered as urgent better without panicking and stressing over not being able to get to other duties. If I didn’t manage to get to the afternoon planning, then I would do it first thing in the morning. This does not only help you not to miss pumping sessions but makes you thrive at your job as well.
- Think about how you want to do it.
This is very important, if you do not know how you want to be pumping at work, you’ll most probably end up not pumping. Pumping plans for different people will be different. Learn from other people but always remember to customize the plan to be what you can do. Someone may be able to pump quicker because their let-down happens quicker than someone else, so short but often pump sessions may work for them and someone else’s let-down may take longer and have a good flow later in the sessions so they need to have longer but fewer sessions. So, it is very important to understand yourself and work around how you’ll be managing your time at work.
I am very thankful to technology and MS Teams. I had some daily teams morning meetings which I then used as my pumping slots. Then the other one or two sessions I would come up with times depending on my to-do-list and I would choose times where I am busy with something in front of the PC. This way I didn’t have to think that I am pumping and my work is lagging behind and I also wouldn’t stress about if the flow was enough.
- Be flexible.
- Emergencies, urgencies, and disruptions may happen and will happen at work. Just be flexible about your pumping. If you are pumping to freeze this should not be a big problem. If you miss a pump session at work you can always catch-up some other time. But if you are pumping for the following day’s feed then you just need to create time after work or a later session.
- Perform your best.
- I cannot emphasis this more. Doing your best at work will help you in the long run. You do not want people to start overlooking you because you are now pumping at work or start thinking you are underperforming even though you’re performing the same way you did before your maternity leave. This does not mean to that you should wear yourself out but being efficient. If you exhaust yourself your supply will decrease and again not have energy for your beautiful gift when you go back home.
- Always be on time.
- Punctuality is deemed as being professional, but I did this because my plan was to also leave on time. Which reminds me, I am so bad with time these days. I need to get the dedication I had when I just went back to work from maternity leave. But being there on time will help you to be able to leave on time as well. This actually gives you more time with your baby at home and if they have an early evening it will also help on catching up either on sleep (I mean our bodies are working overtime during this period) or on a pumping session that you have missed.
- Rest.
- If you do not get enough rest after work you won’t get up to be on time for work, will not be able to arrive on time, not arriving on time means not leaving work on time, you won’t be able to perform your best. This will just have a ripple effect. Sometimes the only way one can rest is by not following the whole house duty schedule. Just do what’s important and go to bed early. Somehow the days I went to bed early my baby would wake up more often than normal. What a bummer.
- Enjoy every moment or at least feel the experience.
- It is very important to enjoy every moment. This experience helps you to learn discipline and accountability. Feel it and draw the lessons from it. If you find yourself not thriving at it, keep in mind that life, most likely, doesn’t have balance.