So, most of you fellow veteran moms would probably agree with me when I say: pumping is a total drag! After my son was born I battled major oversupply (as in mastitis three times in a single month-ouch!), and as a result I had to pump in the middle of night even while both the baby and my husband snoozed peacefully a few feet away from me. Back in those early days of sleep deprivation and exhaustion, while hooked up to the pump at 3am I may or may not have thrown the occasional jar of nipple cream or baby bottle in the general direction of my husbands snoring face.

By the time I went back to work after my maternity leave, I had already logged what felt like hundreds of hours hooked up to my milk machine. My freezer was overflowing, and I was an old pro at slapping on the flanges and squeezing out that liquid gold. Yet in the days leading up to my return to the office, I spent hours scouring the internet for a simple “how to” guide on pumping while working. What essentials do I need and what can I live without? How do I fit pumping in my busy day? How on earth do I store all that mommy juice at the office?

It took me a few weeks of trial and error to figure it all out, but lo and behold I managed to successfully pump at work for a whopping 8 months. I had all the right gear, I had found a rhythm, I worked through the supply ups and downs, and I had a total system for getting the job done. My son is turning one this week (side note: how did that happen so quicky?!), so over the last 6 weeks I have slowly been phasing out pump sessions until that one glorious day about a week ago when I stopped pumping altogether.

It was… the BEST. DAY. EVER.

Even though I’m continuing to breastfeed in the morning and evenings, I’m officially packing up the pump and stuffing it as far back in the closet as possible. It’s been both a dear friend and a dreadful foe, and I’m thankful for the countless bottles it helped me provide my son over the last year…but I’m ready to be done with it. Before I pack it up for good and start forgetting all the details of my pumping journey (because Mom’s eventually forget every detail about the baby days, amiright?), I want to share some tips and tricks that helped me get through the adventure of being a working, pumping mom.

Get a hands-free pumping bra- actually, get two

Just trust me on this one. You might think you can get away with your regular bra or one of those crazy homemade contraptions (and if you can, high five!) but to make sure you’re comfortable and getting the most efficient pump, get yourself a hands-free bra. It’s well worth the investment. I bought two so that I could use one for a couple of days, then use a clean one for a couple of days while the other was being washed (and so on and so forth).

Also, you don’t need to take your regular bra off to wear the pumping bra. Just shove the cups of your regular bra underneath your knockers, put on the pumping bra and voila! Pump-ready in a jiffy.

Keep your pump bag organized

That miniature duffel bag that comes standard with most pumps is useless for a professional pumper. The first few days of pumping at work were a mess of tangled cords, knotted tubing and a disarray of bras, creams, baggies, and more. Every time I went to pump, I was spending just as much time setting up / tearing down as I was pumping! Plus, every time I went to work I felt like I was moving in: I was hauling my pump bag, my laptop bag, and my lunch bag. No fun.

And then I discovered the Nurse Purse. Warning: it ain’t cheap. But this thing changed my life, and it is now the ONE gift I buy for all my expecting friends who plan on returning to work. It has a little compartment for your pump that keeps it separated from all your other goodies, and the front of it zips open to reveal your cords, tubing and pump switches all in an organized fashion. It even has a place to put your baby’s picture! This bag kept my pump parts organized, and was big enough to also hold my laptop, lunch and other random gear.

Pick set times to pump, if possible

The general rule is to pump as often as baby is eating while you’re away, so for most moms returning from maternity leave that would be every 2-4 hours. Before I even went back to work, I blocked off 30-minute pump sessions every single day; it was a good reminder to go pump, plus it (mostly) prevented coworkers from setting up meetings during designated pump times. Yes, it’s totally a pain in the butt to pump every few hours at work… but eventually you can drop a pump if your supply keeps up and then it’s not so bad.

There were lots of times where I would either be too busy to pump, forget to pump, or have a meeting that cut into a pump session; whenever that happened I would just have to add in a pump session before bedtime. Moms typically produce less milk at night though, so on those days when I had to do a makeup-pump before bed it was always a little stressful trying to make enough milk (moral of the story: don’t skip pumps!).

Keep extra parts handy

Imagine finally sneaking away to pump, sitting down and setting up the machine, putting on the pumping bra and….wait a minute, where’s the little piece with those plastic white thingies? Oh you mean the pump doesn’t work without those? UGH.

New moms are forgetful. So protect yourself from yourself by stocking extras of everything in your pump bag. Better yet, keep those extras in your desk drawer/locker so you don’t have to pack them around. Especially important to have extras of are membranes and tubing, which are essential to making the pump, well, pump. If you forget bottles to pump into you can always make do (I once pumped into gallon-size freezer ziplocks I found in the break room pantry) but you won’t get very far without all the proper equipment. And then you’re stuck either hand expressing (no thanks) or running home.

Enforce a 1:1 pump to water rule

This was super helpful in maintaining my supply! I made a rule that every time I went to pump I would take a glass or bottle of water and finish it while pumping. I couldn’t leave the pump room until I had finished all of the water. Sounds silly, but it really did work!

Don’t be OCD about cleaning between pumps

This one is easy. Keep a box of ziplock bags in your pump bag or pump room, and after every pump just toss the parts in a fresh bag and shove them in the fridge/cooler. No need to wipe them down, no need to wash them. I even kept all the parts connected so when it came time for the next pump it was literally plug-and-play.

Grease up the flanges, NOT your nipples

This one took me like six months to figure out. Every time I sat down to pump, I would lube up my nipples* with my favorite nipple cream (lube is essential, otherwise- hello, nipple burn!) and then attach the flanges. I always ended up with too much lube which decreased my production, and my nursing bras got really funky looking from being stained with nipple cream over and over. Then one day I realized I could probably just put nipple cream on the flanges themselves… and it worked! I used less nipple cream, it was way less messy, and my bras were no longer gross and stained.

Oh, and my all time favorite product for this is Earth Mama Angel Baby.

*PS- If you would have told me a year ago that I would be publicly blogging about “lube” and “nipples” in the same sentence, I would have laughed in your face.  Being a mom changes everything.

Mason jars were my best friend

Before I went back to work I bought a ridiculous number of milk storage bottles, which only meant I was cleaning a ridiculous number of milk storage bottles. So then I tried pumping directly into storage bags, but with bags it is hard to tell precisely how much is in there, and my son would never drink exactly a “bags-worth” of milk so I ended up with all these weird half-empty bags of milk. Plus buying all those bags add up the dollar signs quicker than you’d think.

Then another mom suggested the mason jar method, and I never looked back. Here’s how it works: On Monday, take a mason jar to work in your pump bag. After you pump, dump all the milk into the mason jar. After your next pump, just add the milk to the mason jar (some recommend not mixing warm and cold breastmilk, but I never had any issues with this method). Do this for each pump of the day so you’re taking a home one jar filled with liquid gold.

On Tuesday, baby drinks the milk from Monday’s jar and anything leftover goes into the freezer (and on Wednesday, baby drinks the milk from Tuesday’s jar- and so it continues). On Fridays I would just freeze the milk and then thaw it again for Monday morning. I was able to just send the jar to daycare / leave it with the nanny and they made bottles from it, sending home all the leftovers which went into bags and into the freezer. So no milk wasted, and only one container to wash. Win win! Some daycares may require you to actually make each bottle rather than sending a mason jar of milk… but this method should still work really well for that since its less dishes!

Pump on the weekends, too

I know, pumping is probably the last thing you want to do on the weekend. But what I found is that by pumping just once a day over the weekend I was able to keep my supply up (Monday’s supply would be super low if I didn’t pump all weekend even if I was breastfeeding non-stop) and I was able to build a killer freezer stash. I would pump in the morning, right after my baby went down for his first nap; this was the best time since production is typically highest in the morning, and I could just get the pump over and done with before hopping in the shower and getting on with the day. The benefits are worth the pain the butt/boob.

She who pumps, doesn’t clean pump parts

I made a deal with my husband very early on that “she who pumps, does not clean pump parts.” If I was going to hook my ta-tas up to a machine multiple times a day in order to sustain the life of our offspring, the least he could do was wash the dang parts. And he obliged (well, like 50% of the time).

Regardless of who is doing the cleaning, always clean your pump parts in the evening because trying to clean them in the morning before work (or at work in front of coworkers) is not fun. And for goodness sake, buy these handy sanitizing bags so you don’t waste your time boiling pump parts! (PS- I only sanitized once a week… sometimes less often… and my baby is fine)

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Of course, I realize that what worked for me may not work for all mommas out there… and I trust that you’ll find a system that works for you. Also, I know there is TONS more to be discussed about milk production and supply (how much does baby need, how often should you pump, how can you boost supply, etc.) and all of those details will be coming in the next post. So stay tuned!

What are your favorite pump-at-work tips and tricks? If there was one pumping tip you could tell a mom who is about to return from maternity leave, what would it be?