Mom Posts: Traveling WITHOUT My Little One

This week, I had to travel to TX for work without my 3 month old baby girl. I'm not going to lie...it sucked. To those who don't yet have kids, this may be TMI, so....fair warning!

Luckily, I love the work I do and while I was meeting with and interviewing the clients for the project, I was fully distracted. However, in addition to missing her little face every day, since I am nursing exclusively, that meant every 2 hours I had to find a place to pump. That was not easy!

The worst part was that every time I would get close to the two hour mark (or sometimes 3-4 hours!!!), I would start to feel a strong sense of panic. It was worst when we landed at 11:30, had to get bags, rent a car, grab lunch at a deli, and race to the client for a 1:30 meeting. I was lucky that the 1:30 meeting ran a bit late and that my boss was willing to start the meeting without me if need be, but I went for almost 4 hours without pumping and I was freaking out.

All that aside, as I left for the airport at home I told my husband that as long as I had to go, I was going to enjoy myself as best I could. I was going to "rock this" and not dwell on the fact that I was sad to leave my little one (and by sad I mean I couldn't stop crying the day before!).

Before the trip I did a ton of research and here are all of the tidbits I compiled:

• First and foremost, just accept that you may have to pump rather than eat or use the restroom. While it sucks, you don't want to risk a blocked duct or worse. I brought granola and Lara bars with me just for that reason!
• TSA / Airport:
• Read and print the TSA policy (here) - know they cannot open it, make you taste it, etc - and know that you can travel with as much as you need even if you do not have your infant with you
• Before you go through airport security, notify the TSA agent that you have ice packs for medical reasons; if you have milk, notify them of that as well (it's required)
• You can choose not to have the milk go through the x-ray and they will conduct other tests. Have the policy with you so you can politely point to it if need be
• Have your cooler ice packs frozen solid before you leave
• Scope out the family restrooms; all four airports I was in had them and each had outlets and a large enough countertop to lay everything out
• Flying home, I brought a soft sided cooler and three larger ice packs (not dinky ones for your lunch size). I put all the chilled milk in bags like these, put those into a double layer of gallon freezer bags, wrapped it one more time in a grocery bag and then into the cooler. That cooler went in my CHECKED luggage, because I already had two carry-ons (laptop bag and pump bag). Make sure you have two coolers if you do this because you need a small cooler with the pump for while you travel
• Try to book a non-stop flight. This wasn't in the cards for me since our flight was booked 6 days before leaving!
• Hotel:
• Call the hotel in advance to request a refrigerator for medical reasons - make sure they know that the mini bar fridge may not work because sometimes they don't get cold enough
• My fridge had to cool down because it was just plugged in when I arrived. My husband had the brilliant idea to get ice from the ice machine to chill the milk while it cooled, AND I filled my larger cooler with ice and stuck it in the fridge to cool the fridge down faster.
• The hotel will usually allow you to freeze your ice packs in their fridge. Mine asked me to fill out a form so they don't lose anything. I had a cooler with a bag tag that had my name on them
• I pumped into bottles but every night put the milk into bags like these, so I could label them and I would have the bottles cleaned and ready for the next day
• Timing:
• Think in advance about what times you'll need to pump. It's different for every mom because every baby eats on their own schedule. Try to stick to that schedule so your body doesn't get confused
• Be flexible when you can. As my lactation consultant said, as long as you keep up your supply, everything else is okay. If you have to throw milk away, don't stress about it! Just keep it coming
• Don't forget that if you have night time feedings, you need to do night time pumping. My husband said before I left "at least you'll get more sleep" and I reminded him that I still needed to get up every night. That said, I didn't have to set an alarm...my body told me to get up!
• Cleaning:
• Buy Medela Quick Cleaning Wipes; you should assume you won't always be able to clean everything
• You can also use Medela Quick Clean Microsteam Bags (thanks Jenn Whitaker and others for the recommendation)
• Bring a small container of soap (I used a free trial of Honest Company soap - it was all natural) because you'll want to rinse/wash everything thoroughly every night with steaming hot water
• If you can, refrigerate your pump accessories/parts in between sessions (I didn't have the luxury)
• One friend suggested bringing a microwaveable container to heat water in for sanitizing, but I didn't have the room (I used the wipes instead)
• General:
• Make sure the pump has batteries and pack an extra set of batteries
• Always have the hand pump with you, just in case
• Remember that if you're away from your little one, you may want to have a drink; for information on nursing + alcohol, check out this link from my friend Jenn Whitaker (a Doula) from a post by KellyMom.com
• Use FaceTime or Skype when you can!
• Bring pictures and videos. I had them on my phone but couldn't bring my phone into the client's location, so it would have been nice to have a hard copy photo with me

Do you have any other helpful hints for traveling without your little one?

I'll have a new post in May about traveling WITH your little one! After this trip we've decided to bring her with us on our trip to a family member's wedding.