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I work in a hospital with multiple pumping rooms that have wonderful hospital grade pumps in every room. I feel very lucky!
My coworker had a baby last year and she used the conference room in our building. It locks and she pumped the same time every day, so everyone knew that conference room was not open at those times. I'll probably use that. There is a vacant office I could use, but there are huge windows and the blinds are rather finicky so probably won't bother with that.
If in the office (which is usually the case), I pump in my personal office (though our company does have a designated pumping room for those that are in cubes) but I only have a sliding door, no locks, some blinds on the windows, and a frosted glass wall facing the building interior. If I'm traveling, I've had to pump in my car before because I refused to use a public restroom along some random highway.
My office is private but you can see shadows through the frosted glass wall and I have to position myself in front of the door so people can't "see" me. Also, my office manager had someone walk in her office even when she had her door shut, blinds drawn, and a sign up saying please do not disturb while she was pumping because we don't have locks. It would be nice to have locks but if I really cared I'd go to our designated pumping room.
I've asked for the conference room because it has a shade and a lock. (It also has a phone and computer that I can use so I don't have to take "break" time out of my day.) I'm a graphic designer for the company and will create a "Conference Room In Use" sign for the door when the time comes.
It was really the only option as there is only a bathroom as the other door with a lock. (All the offices have windows without shades or frosted glass..)
We had an empty office to use, but everyone in our building who needed it got to use the same room. I had to coordinate pumping times with two other ladies.
Okay silly question, do you have to pump while at work? Or is this optional? I kinda thought you could just pump when your home? Please educate me.
I used my own office. I had the maintenance man put up a simple gate latch type lock that I purchased myself.
@bells: it depends on how often you are feeding when you return to work and how long you are away from the baby. If you don't pump and empty your breasts, your body will assume that you don't need to make as much milk anymore and production will decrease.
My office recently created a "lactation room". I know the mothers currently using it are appreciative of the addition. There is a scheduling issue but at least there is a designated, comfortable space. Prior to the room, they were using an old office with paper over the window. Obviously not a desirable place to hang out. I think a lot of companies are finally beginning to follow suit, even if they're not mandated to do so.
When I was working (my last day was Tuesday -woo-hoo!) I pumped in the locker room bathroom which had it's own lock and an exterior area with a sink and a chair.
It sucked though because it wasn't very comfortable and I had absolutely no cell phone service or wi-fi access - so basically I'd sit in a metal folding chair for 20 minutes bored out of my mind. I started taking a book or a magazine but the other problem was that people would come into the locker room and were constantly banging on the door to see if it was occupied.
I was soo happy when I didn't have to do it anymore. It was a pain in the ass because I had to pack up the milk and clean all the parts and I was afraid of them touching things and getting germs. Plus I felt like I could never get anything done at work and I was only pumping twice a day.
If you want to exclusively breastfeed you HAVE to pump at least twice at work so your body thinks there is a baby eating that often - otherwise your supply will drop off. I noticed a change in just the two weeks I was working.
This is one of my pet peeves personally. I hate hearing stories of pumping or pregnancy discrimination. You should not have to suppliment because of that.
Yes, there is legislation in regards to pumping. You should definately educate yourself on those so that you can discuss the situation with your employer. You can always choose to go with less but then your employer may expect that for subsequent women who may not want that. Every employer is required to match the federal legislation, though if they have less than 50 employees they have to prove it would hurt thier business significantly. It is also only for those that FLSA is for (though many states have it on their books too).
I would never ever use a bathroom. I don't even want to take my food anywhere near the bathroom why would I do that to my child. You do not have to use a bathroom (federal legislation says specifically NOT a bathroom). Even if that is the only thing they offer come up with other ideas.
I use an empty office with a lock currently. So far it has worked for me. I cannot use my car because I would just bake (I live in the desert).
We haven't supplimented because we haven't needed to. I pump first thing in the morning (he eats off of 1 side) and that is fed to him at 8 am. I pump at 8 am. I feed him at 11:00 am, then he gets a bottle from the day before at 2 pm. I pump at 2:00 pm. There is usually about a 2 oz surplus each day. If he wakes in the night to eat I only offer the side he would get in the morning so the other one fills up.
@brownieMomma: I agree - it's total crap how employers don't provide adequate spaces for their employees to pump or expect them just to fend for themselves and make a space.
In my situation if I had had an office with a lock and some blinds I could have continued working on my computer WHILE I was pumping (in fact, I would have been happy to), so in my case not providing facilities for pumping made their business LESS efficient.
@camrie: Guess I'm lucky, but once a day pumping at the office is totally fine for me.
Where I used to work I had an office with a lock but for those that didn't they just went in a conference room to pump when it wasn't scheduled and there were a bunch of different conference rooms in the building with their schedules listed on the door.
@Mrs. DG: Has it been that way the whole time or just as your little girl has gotten older?
I tried to make it only pumping once when I was away for 8 hours and started leaking through my shirt, not pretty at all. But my little girl also sleeps a good chunk at night so two long stretches of no milk out would probably be not be so good for keeping up milk supply
@ShellyT: Oh man, don't even get me started. I work for one of the top 10 hospitals in the country and I started a new job after I came back from maternity leave. It took a MONTH to get them to approve my access to the pumping room. It took me going to a lactation consultant and she took it on up the chain of command before I could get anyone to help me out. Before that I was pumping in a bathroom in a handicap stall on a diaper changing station. So.. we're all about making sure our patients don't get MRSA, but no biggie if your kid gets ecoli from pumping where people poop. It definitely took a toll on my supply because getting the time to pump has been hard and some people have been less than supportive. If you've already gone back to work I'd suggest trying to rent a hospital grade pump and try to pump extra on the weekends so you can boost your freezer supply. Now that I have access to the lactina pumps at work I'm able to get a lot more milk with those than with my PIS pump.
My plan is to pump in my office and I'll just cover over the window in the office door with paper. Right now my office mate is awesome, and I think she'll be totally accommodating... although she will be in the office while I'm pumping, which still weirds me out a bit. If I get a new office mate I have no idea what I'll do. I'm not aware of any other spots in our building for pumping, other than the bathroom (totally not acceptable). Some of the most senior people in our department are women though, so I feel like if I spoke with them they would hopefully be able to work something out for me.
I'm glad to see so many people have a designated room. I use a hot storage closet in a busy area where anyone in the offices on either side of it or walking by can hear my pump going. Then I try to discreetly (not so much) take whatever needs to be washed or refrigerated with me. It's something, but certainly not ideal. I do find it ironic that the building offers a smoking lounge, but this is the best they can do for mothers trying to do something healthy for themselves & their babies.
@bells: I pump when he eats to keep my body on his schedule and my supply up
@jubyju22: A hospital grade pump is a great suggestion. I regret not looking into renting one from the beginning. Pumping 3x's at work with my Medela worked great for me initially, but now that LO's intake has increased and my pump isn't as efficient as he is - I'm struggling to keep up with the demand which makes pumping at work all the more necessary.
I pump in an extra office that doesn't have a lock, and so far my DO NOT ENTER sign on the door has worked, but I'm sure it's a matter of time before someone barges in. I use a Hygeia pump which I *highly* recommend... it works just as well as the hospital grade pump did for me. I pump about every 3 hours and that is enough for my son (5 months) plus a fairly healthy freezer supply.
our office used to have a "mother's room" but no one used it. all my co-workers preferred to pump in their own offices because they use this contraption thing that allows them to work on a computer while pumping. i have an office but it has floor to ceiling windows. it does have blinds but since it's horizontal, it's not completely private. because of my position, my boss had a lock installed on my door. i suppose i could sit in front of the door, away from the windows.
@troubled: I waited until my milk was well established (8 months or so) before I started slacking off... But in my busy season I was lucky to be able to pump once a day, let alone twice.
Even now, I only feed at night and I still have a robust supply, so I might be out of the norm... not sure.
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One of the more challenging things about going back to work for me was finding a clean, private place to pump. Now I know there is some legislation at the state and federal level addressing pumping for some classes of companies and I'm sure everyone has their own desired level of privacy, but it does make me wonder if other mothers faced the same challenge when they went back to work. Where do you pump while you're at work? Do you feel you have enough privacy? I also wonder if anyone has had to stop/supplement BF'ing because of their pumping situation at work.