Mail Call - Pumping on a Plane?

We've got another question from a pumping mom - can you help? If you've had experience pumping on a plane, or want to add to the tips our Pumping Moms offered, share your advice in the comments, or email us at pumpingmomsblog@gmail.com

Here's the situation:

Hi there! I will be traveling by plane next week with my husband and 5 month old son. Just wondering if any of your EPing mamas have any suggestions/tips/advice for me? I have been EPing since the beginning, but have not traveled thus far. Our flight will be about 3.5 hours long and I will definitely HAVE to pump sometime during the time frame of us being at the airport and before we get off the plane. I am on a 4x/day pumping schedule, mainly because I nanny for another 5 month old baby, so I have to make sure I only pump 1x during the hours that I have 2 babies, for obvious reasons--so I would like to try to keep this schedule so my supply is not affected (and so I am not leaking all over the place, which seems to happen when I screw with my schedule).

Also, we will be gone for 5 nights/6 days and I am not sure how many bottles I should bring. We are bringing our bottle-cleaning supplies, but I just don't want to have to pack everything, ya know? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.


Response from Kristen:
I have not traveled on a plane however I have to travel by car often & I am constantly pumping in the car, so I have become a pro... IMO...

I personally think that pumping on the plane would be easier & probably more private if you can believe it. Do you have a hands free set? If not you can easily make one out of a sports bra. Also your pump needs to be battery operated....wear your hands free set, I do it over my bra so when I am done I can take off if I want.Sit in the window seat & have your husband sit on aisle(assuming it is 2 seat only) I would wait until you have taken off (oh as a side note... You should feed baby on take off & landing.. It will help with pressure in the ears & less fussy) I would have hubby hold up baby blanket so you can lift shirt & get hooked up.. I put the horns & bottles under my shirt then I would lay baby blanket over me & I would just pump.... When done I would unhook & then maybe go in bathroom to take off hands free bra & get more comfortable :) Your milk will stay good until you can get in refrigerator since your flight is only 3.5 hrs. I don't know how long you pump for but I would time the pump session so maybe you only have an hour or less left when you finish pumping, that way you can get to where you are going without wasting milk. Good Luck!


Response from Heather:
I haven't traveled via plane while pumping, but we did take several road trips. One suggestion is to make sure you take a pack of freezer bags, they take up less room than bottles, and if you "run out" of bottles (like if baby eats less due to all the activity and all of your bottles are full of pumped milk) you can transfehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifr milk to the freezer bags to free up bottles to pump into. For most of my pumping time, I was producing more than my little one ate, so I usually had to bring home more milk than I brought on the trip...extra storage was a must!

My daughter was off the charts in that she took 42 oz of milk a day from 1-6 months. She's not even very big! But when you EP, you really know how much they are eating, and she was consistent. I always took at least a day and a half of milk with me, because I'm a worrier and wanted to be sure if I missed a session or something she'd still have plenty. Clearly you don't have to do that. If you are pretty consistent, think about how long you will be "gone" each day, like will you be at a theme park for 8 hours? 12? Bring enough that you can travel comfortably.

When traveling with frozen milk, one tip I heard and tried was to NOT put it on ice - the frozen milk itself is colder than ice cubes, so the best thing (and what they do when shipping breastmilk) is to just pack the packets of frozen milk close together in an insulated cooler, and use the outside ones first. I tried this for a wedding and after 2 days some of the center milk was still frozen solid, it worked GREAT! I was a little worried since you have a shorter time to work with defrosted milk (should use it up within 24 hours, vs. over a week for "fresh" milk) but it was easier than dealing with ice and refilling coolers for sure.

One final tip - 50% of the time when I had an in room refrigerator, it didn't work properly, so I did keep my "fresh" milk on ice instead - no big deal since hotels usually have ice machines and I already had it in a cooler. Make sure you test the refrigerator if you will be relying on it.