Traveling with(out) a nursing toddler

Although it's been over a month since I weaned from the pump, I do still nurse Littles twice a day -- once in the morning when she first wakes up, and once in the evening, a little before dinner. I enjoy nursing, Littles is still interested (although I often feel that she enjoys the cuddles and the 1:1 time with Mom more than the milk, not that there's anything wrong with that!), and so I have no plans to drop either of these sessions anytime soon.

Of course, this posed a dilemma during my travels this past week. Since nursing is a supply-and-demand system, I knew I couldn't skip nursing all week and expect to pick up where I left off when I got home.

This meant that if I wanted to continue nursing, I would have to (gasp!) start pumping again.

It actually was not too bad. There were two main reasons why I hated full-time pumping:

1. I hated the awkwardness of either telling co-workers about pumping or finding excuses to take pump breaks during the workday.
   
2. I hated the day-to-day "am I pumping enough?" stress.

Pumping for a nursing toddler elimates both of these problems. I only needed to pump before and after work, so there was no awkwardness during the workday. And I really didn't care how much I pumped; honestly, I'm not even sure we'll end up using the milk I pumped, as Littles should be able to do whole milk exclusively by the time of my next trip at the end of July.

I refused to bring my Medela Pump in Style out of retirement, so I took along my Medela Harmony manual pump instead. I was pleasantly surprised by how much milk I was able to get. I've been feeling fairly "deflated" and I've wondered whether I really have any milk left. To my surprise, I averaged about 4-5 oz per session, which is a pretty decent amount.

Transporting the milk home was a breeze, since I only had the two pump sessions. Back in my full-time pumping days, I would have pumped probably around 100 oz on a trip of this length. Getting all that milk home would be a huge pain! This time, I only pumped about 35 oz, so I didn't have any difficulty fitting it into two cooler bags and carrying it on.

I have no goals around nursing or pumping right now, so I don't know whether or not I'll go through all of this again during my next trip. But if I do decide to do it, it's nice to know it's not too much of a hassle.