How long are y’all pumping for at work?

[jimmyjww1222]

I returned to work a few weeks ago, just on the weekends, and wanted to see how long everyone who goes to work pumps and how many times throughout the day.

When I work 9-5, I pump 3-4 times for 15 minutes and when I work 10-5, it’s 3 times for 15 minutes. But then it takes me like 10-15 minutes to clean and put everything away and I feel like I’m taking a little too long to do it, especially since it’s only me and my supervisor all day. Think about cutting it to 10 minutes, but over the weekend I definitely feel like my supply drops already with pumping for 15 minutes.

 

[leejoe12]

@jimmyjww1222 Are you cleaning the pump parts every time? You can do the fridge trick to save you time so you can have more time pumping. I also write on my bags while I’m pumping, except for the amount until the end to also save a little time.

 

[jimmyjww1222]

@leejoe12 What’s the fridge trick?

 

[leejoe12]

@jimmyjww1222 Instead of cleaning pump parts every time, just throw the empty pump parts (still put together) into a large ziplock bag and put into the fridge along with your milk bags. I can fit all into a regular size lunch bag so it’s discreet in the work fridge. I then take out the pump parts next time I need to pump and it’s ready to go. I clean everything at the end of the day at home. It’s worked for my first when I had to go back at 12 weeks and for my second now at 6 weeks. You can YouTube or TikTok what I mean too.

 

[jimmyjww1222]

@leejoe12 Oh cool! Never thought about that. That’s a good idea.

 

[lifeword]

@jimmyjww1222 20-30 minutes is a totally reasonable amount of time to spend setting up /pumping/cleaning. I know it feels like we're somehow letting our coworkers down or something by being out of commission that long multiple times a day, but that is not super long at all.

That said, what I did to save time (and therefore keep my guilt lower) was:
Bring extra parts with me all the time so that I could just quick-rinse the flanges and pop on a fresh valve each session.
I also bought adaptors so that I could pump directly into my feeding bottles (Dr. Browns) and so I wasn't ever having to wash those out, just grab fresh bottles. So clean up only took a couple minutes to rinse and put the bottles away.

 

[bronsontaur]

@jimmyjww1222 I wouldn't feel bad about it. Just think of how much time smokers spend on their breaks.

 

[miketexas]

@jimmyjww1222 I pump every 2.5-3 hours at work and pump for 20-30 mins each time. When I go for 15 mins, I notice I haven’t even pumped 1/2 of my normal output at 20/30 mins so it’s worth it for me to continue. I aim for 3 letdowns each time.

 

[trinichristiannudist]

@miketexas Yeah, I usually had to pump for 30 minutes to get enough milk. I'm jealous of women who can only pump for 15 minutes!

 

[llee]

@jimmyjww1222 I pump every 2-3 hours, and I just pump until the milk stops, which sometimes is less than 10 minutes, and sometimes it's 30 minutes. I do usually wash the parts after that, but not always depending on if I need to get to a meeting or something. 30 minutes every 2-3 hours is normal.