Work and breastfeeding

The law provides that during the first nine months of the child's life, an employee may interrupt her work for a maximum of a quarter of her working time to breast-feed or express milk. This could also mean that, if you have the opportunity, you use this time to go home or the nursery to feed your baby. This time is paid. The condition is, however, that you have notified the employer of this. Incidentally, an employer is obliged to provide a clean room that can be closed, in which expressions can take place quietly. You can read more about this on the website of the health and safety portal.

When you go back to work, your baby will get milk from a bottle when you are at work. This will just be your breast milk. You can express the milk for your baby during working days. You can often suffice with expressing one to three times during a working day.

It is not recommended to give your child a bottle during the first few weeks because of possible sucking confusion. After about four to six weeks, when your child has completely got used to the breastfeeding, he will no longer be confused. Now is a good time to start teaching your baby to drink from a bottle. If you don't practice this, your child may have trouble drinking from the bottle by the time it really needs to. You can also use a pacifier from 4 to 6 weeks of age, babies can then distinguish better between hunger and the need to suck.

Expressing breast milk is also something you need to practice. It is good to start this around 6 weeks after birth. Try to practice pumping 2 to 3 times a week. The best time to do this is after the morning feed. In the first instance, it is not about the amount of milk you express, 20 to 30 ml is sufficient. You can increase the amount of expressed milk over the following weeks. Don't be surprised if you express little milk the first few times. It is of course very different when your baby is breastfeeding than when you are expressing. Your body notices that too. It can help to watch your baby while pumping (if he/she is really with you or in a video or photo). Also pumping is something very personal. One woman likes to express with an electric pump and the other with a manual breast pump. Let yourself be informed and choose the option that suits you best.