Expert: Sally Wendkos Olds - 6/16/2006

Question
My daughter is 3 months old. She is exclusively breastfed, even when I get a babysitter for a few hours I pump milk. My husband and I are planning a 4 or 5 day get-away in October and are leaving the kids with family (we also have a 3-yr-old dau)... our baby will be 7 months old then. I want to bf her till about a year old. I also want a romantic vacation without having to wear a bra for bed (without dripping and spraying all over the place) and I don't want to have to pump. Is that whole senario too idealistic? Or would I have to spend a month basically weaning my baby and then another month getting my milk supply back up again? (That seems like alot of fuss for just a short vacation). I have enough milk now that I saturate 2 nursing pads on the one side and one pad on the other side every day (not sure why the one side produces more milk, but that's a different subject).

So, in short, my question is, what would it all involve to be "milk-free" enough that I don't leak or need to pump for a few days and then continue to breastfeed my baby when we get back?

Answer
Dear KM,

First, congratulations on giving your baby the best start in life by breastfeeding her!

I wish I could give you a fast, easy go-ahead for your plans for a romantic, non-milk-producing vacation, with a quick return to a great milk supply for your nursing baby. Unfortunately, I'm afraid this is too tall an order -- and yes, it is, as you said, unrealistic. If you dry up your milk enough so that you neither nurse nor pump for 4 or 5 days (meaning, basically, that you have weaned your baby), it would be extremely difficult to resume nursing, a process known as relactation, which I discuss in my book (see below).

If you want to nurse your baby till 1 year of age, maybe you can postpone your vacation a few months until then. If you want to, or have to keep, your vacation dates at her 7-month age and want to continue nursing, you would need to pump while you are away from her -- and even then, she might not be willing to resume nursing when you return even if you are.

You would probably not be leaking milk by the time she is 7 months old; usually the milk supply adjusts itself by then so that there is plenty for the baby but the leaking has stopped, so you wouldn't need to wear a bra for bed. If you do -- there are some really pretty nursing bras on the market so if you do need to wear the bra to bed (which of course you could take off for romantic interludes), you might want to invest in a sexy bra-and-panty set.

Whatever you decide about your vacation, good luck.

Regards,

Sally

Sally Wendkos Olds
Author, THE COMPLETE BOOK OF BREASTFEEDING: Eiger & Olds, 3rd edition 1999, published by Workman Publishing & Bantam Books, and available in most public libraries, bookstores & La Leche League chapters. Also, author, THE ETERNAL GARDEN: SEASONS OF OUR SEXUALITY.