Some people have written in to ask me about expressing milk and how I planned for my son's feeding times before I went back to work. I'm happy to share my methods with you, but please note that I'm no guru on the matter, since I'm merely walking the path that many have taken before me. My first advice is to get to know many other women who are committed to 100% breastfeeding your baby, because the more friends you have in the same league, the motivated you will be to keep up the practice.

Before I head on to my own mechanics, I'd like to say that every woman is different, and what works for me may not work for you; so do try to ask around and get information from several sources. Eventually you'll form a system that works best for you.

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Paul usually drinks 3 ounces of milk at each feeding (sometimes he takes less, sometimes he drinks a little more). I use a Medela Harmony, a manual pump, at work, because my work requires me to be at different places at different times, and a manual pump is the most practical option for me. I store the milk in 3-ounce batches, so that the milk would thaw nicely into adjusted measurements for Paul.

Now every day whilst his mommy is at work, Paul drinks about three to four bottles of milk, dependent on his mood. Breastfed babies don't follow a very fixed schedule when it comes to feeding times, so sometimes, Paul gets a little grumpier and wallops all four bottles that I pass to my mother in law. On other nicer-mood days, Paul sleeps and rests more and drinks less. But on a daily basis, whenever I head to work, I'll send over 4 bottles = 12 ounces of frozen milk to my mother in law, and then I'll go to work with four empty bottles packed carefully in my bag.

In terms of breastmilk, demand equals supply, and at work, I keep up a proper schedule. Since I'm at events and functions so often, very early own, I've trained myself to express milk at the typical tea breaks: 1030 am, 130 pm, 330pm and 530 pm. Each time I can steadily push up to 3 ounces the least, and on very very good, productive days, I get up to 5 ounces per pump.

In the middle of the nights, sometimes, Paul may skip his 3 hourly feeds, and there're a few occasions where I wake up from the engorgement pain, stare at my baby sleeping soundly in his cot, and wait for 1/2 hour before deciding that I'll express all the milk.

Now all of this has resulted in me getting about 1-2 additional bottles everyday, and every since my first day of work, we've managed to store up almost 40 bottles in the freezers, and the number is slowly increasing. My milk is stored in several places: the office freezer, my mother's freezer and my home's own freezer. If you get a lot of milk, you may want to buy an additional freezer just for the storage. For me this current arrangement works well so far. so I'll be sticking at it until the day when my milk truly truly multiplies and it becomes inevitable for us to get a freezer for all the storage.

It may be a little tedious trying to balance work and expressing milk for my kid at the same time, but knowing the benefits of breastfeeding and how the milk is good for my son makes me happy and willing to go through this and stay the course for at least a year.

So, good luck to you if you're planning to attempt expressing milk, and do tell me of any other methods that work for you. I'd love to know also what foods help you get more milk, so please share!