Flexible Work Arrangements & Breastfeeding - Choices for Nursing Moms

by Pat Katepoo

Your maternity leave is coming to an end. That's tough enough. But what about your fervent desire to give your baby only (or mostly) your breast milk? A flexible work schedule can help you successfully meet this need. Here's my view on your options.

Telecommuting

This is my first pick of flexible work arrangements for moms who are breastfeeding. In the ideal situation, your infant's caregiver would be on the premises while you worked in a separate part of the home. Then you would be nearby to nurse your infant as needed.

If your infant is being cared outside a distance away from your home office during your work hours, telecommuting allows you the advantages of pumping or otherwise expressing your breast milk...

• at the right times,

• in a sanitary environment,

• in a relaxed setting,

• with privacy.

What a refreshing difference over sitting in a bathroom stall trying to get a good let-down reflex going! Unfortunately, the majority of employers still do not provide a lactation room for nursing mothers who have returned to work.

Part-time or job sharing

Either of these get second place. With a reduced workweek and/or reduced workday, your nursing schedule can more closely conform to what it would otherwise be if you were not away from your home and baby.

Compressed workweek

This gets last place for the mom who is nursing her baby, in my opinion. If you are away from your baby for 10+ hours a day, and your job responsibilities and work setting don't allow for on-time pumping, you are setting yourself up for engorgement and breast milk leakage. Look to the other arrangements for a solution.

If you don't have much of a choice about the long days upon returning to your job, a better nursing course of action would be to mimic a night-time only nursing schedule a couple of weeks before returning to work. That way your milk production will adjust accordingly and prevent daytime discomfort.

Otherwise, it may be time to propose your preferred work schedule to your boss.

Pat Katepoo, The Flex Work Coach, is founder of WorkOptions.com and the developer of the e-workbook, Flex Success: A Proposal Blueprint & Planning Guide for Getting a Family-Friendly Work Schedule.

In May 1997, she launched WorkOptions.com to reach more time-pressed career professionals with Flex Success and her consulting services.

She, Flex Success, WorkOptions.com, and/or her clients have been featured in several national magazines including Working Mother, BabyTalk, Child, Clarity, Meetings & Conventions, Parenting, Hope and American Baby; plus several regional parenting magazines; also The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News, Chicago Sun Times, Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, San Jose Mercury and San Francisco Chronicle newspapers (among others); and the books, Work Less Live More and Breaking Out of Nine to Five, the latter which featured her own work/family balance career transition. She has also been an invited guest on the Wall Street Journal's Work & Family radio show.

In July 2000, she became a contributing monthly columnist to the ClubMom website.

For two years, her columns and commentaries on flexible scheduling and work and family management issues were a regular feature in Pacific Business News, the most widely-read business publication in the state of Hawaii, where she resides. She has also written articles for several regional parenting publications, Financial Woman Today magazine, Executive Baby and Work Life Today newsletters.

Pat was born and raised in Connecticut and is a 1979 graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Her husband Net is originally from Thailand. They have one son, Anan, and a golden retriever, Kaci. She has resided on the island of Oahu, Hawaii since 1980.

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