On Monday March 8th I return to work. Exactly 3 months to the day that Lucy was born. I’m so so so happy that I took that much time off. I literally don’t know how women go back to work at 6 weeks. Not that I didn’t have the energy to do it as I was already back out running and Lucy was pretty much sleeping through the night already, I was just in no place to spend all day away from her. Now I’m looking forward to getting some more adult conversation time. My Dad is the day care and so I have no worries about leaving her. Plus hopefully he’ll bring her downtown for lunch sometimes.
I’m nervous about pumping at work, but it’s just another thing that I’ll have to learn to do and eventually it’ll just become part of the routine. Breastfeeding at first was not that easy. I mean it was in the sense that Lucy was a bigger baby and so had a bigger stomach so I didn’t have to feed her every two hours. Plus she’s a fast eater so she’s done in about 10 minutes. But there was a definite learning curve there, and now that I’m in the zone with it I can’t fathom stopping it. It’s so easy and more important to my cheap ass self is the total freeness of it. Plus it’s so cool to look at Lucy growing and know that literally I provided all of that. Pretty cool. So I’ll figure out the pumping thing. I talked to them today at a meeting about a room where I can do the pumping, and then I’ll just do it. Won’t be as easy as staying home obviously, but it’ll work itself out.
So I’m going to totally enjoy my time with the Lu these next few weeks and prepare myself to go back to the working world. I’m looking forward to meeting the Jason for lunch and coffee throughout the day, so I got that going for me.
I had to take 8 weeks off myself after both of my kids’ births. The extra time was completely worth it. Enjoy the last two weeks off.
i have been pumping a lot because of pain and also so that trevor and i can easily switch off nights. i actually like it a lot because you get to see lots of details that you miss when the baby is there (like that the milk comes out of multiple places on the nipple and you can differentiate the let downs.)
oh yeah, also you can tell exactly how much milk you are making in a day which is interesting to know. and you can see if one breast makes more or less than the other.
except for the whole recovering thing and the lack of sleep i would rather have been back at work for the first two months and then stay home now (although i am working basically part time for the next month) because now she is finally starting to do interesting things like stay awake and smile.
“My Dad is the day care and so I have no worries. . . ” Sure as long as I get the diapers on frontwards!
Should be fun!
DAd
yeah…8 weeks is still not enough time in my mind. 3 months is something like 13 weeks I think. No way I could have gone at 8 either.
You are such a good mom, Leah!
I can’t wait for some summer months so grandpa science doesn’t get all the fun with Lucy!!
Sue
we are so lucky with Lucy because she’s already sleeping through the night, from like 7 to 5ish so nights aren’t a problem. And she actually only would wake up once during the night from the very beginning almost (I guess that’s the benefit of a bigger baby!). Yeah she’s a lot of fun now, but she gets her crank on at about 2:30, so I won’t be missing the afternoons
I have done some pumping, I just haven’t had to do it in an unfamiliar place. I hope I’m not in some closet or something. I’m sure I’ll figure it out.
I pumped at work until my daughter turned 1, so if you ever want someone to talk to about it let me know. Do you know about the rubberband trick (http://www.kellymom.com/bf/pumping/hands-free-pumping.html)? I could not have handled pumping at work without being able to do it hands free. I didn’t like the actual pumping, but it was nice to be able to take a little break during the day to play some GameBoy or read a book. Good luck!
Did you find out what the pumping situation is going to be? I’m a long-time lurker and expecting a baby in mid-June. Yay! Of course, since I’ve gotten pregnant, my boss decided to downsize our office space (unrelated to my pregnancy). So, I’ll be losing my private office. Totally sucks. We’re also losing our conference room. There’s no private restroom in the building so my options are kicking someone out of their office 2 times a day or pumping in a bathroom stall. Oh man. I’m getting sad just thinking about it…
Congrats on the baby! So far it seems that the pumping situation is that I am going to have to go across the street to the other offices of this client and use a room they have set up for pumping, or there is a lounge area in the bathroom where they are going to try and put a partition up. I just checked that out and I guess that would work fine. Hopefully it can be private enough…if not I’ll just go across the street. It’s all new and weird…hopefully it all works out ok. I’m a bit nervous!