Yes, this is very diffiult. My wife had a similar problem when Mini-G started at daycare. First of all, you are doing a fantastic job! Little Monkey is doing great and it seems he even took to a bottle pretty well (hooray!!).

I will now launch into unsolicited (and sometimes obvious) advice based on things that helped my wife, so feel free to stop reading now . First, make sure that you are not even a little bit dehydrated. That cuts production A LOT. Second, and perhaps more difficult, try to find a comfy and quiet place to pump. Take a paper or laptop so that you don't feel pressured to get back to lab. Third, if you can figure out a time of day that you are most "productive" wrt to milk, try to do some extra pumping sessions. My wife used to pump right after feeding Mini-G in the morning because she could get extra production then but not later in the afternoon. After a while you body will adjust and make even more if you can "trick" yourself into thinking Monkey has ramped up demand.

I'm always REALLY impressed by women that pump while they are at work. Little Monkey is lucky to have such a super Mom!!

When they say supplementing with formula cuts down supply, they are correct. But then, so does stress. Also, skipping feeding at night cuts down on supply. But then, so does lack of sleep.

So you see, you will now constantly be pulled in two directions until you are done with breastfeeding. It's not a good thing to let the guilt build up. Though I wonder, breastfeeding (especially when working) is *hard*, and maybe the guilt helps people stick it out? In any event if you are starting to truly feel *bad* about it in any way, pay attention to that and get help.

It's important to remember that the science does *not* say that formula feeding is on par with poking holes in your baby with a rusty steak knife. It's really ok (and good for iron levels). That said, I really think breastfeeding can be very wonderful baby-bonding. I personally found it worth it for about 8 months (I pumped a LOT), but we *had* to do a lot of supplmenting. Do what you can.

Bah, forget mommy guilt - do what you need to do to feel happy, un-stressed, and sane.

Your milk supply will go up and down as you shift your schedule, paticularly when you're switching from giving him milk from the tap to primarily pumping. Don't worry too much about it. And don't fret about him starving - he'll be ok. (I know, easy for me to say "don't worry" from the sidelines - but I can tell you that all the stuff I worried about when my son was your son's age turned out just fine :))

For me the first 6 weeks of BFing/pumping were 100% hell, but afterward everything got a ton easier. We got into a groove and figured it all out, and in the end made it to two years, actually.

First of all, Dr, O., fight the guilt: you are doing a wonderful job and formula will nourish your baby just fine, there is nothing wrong with it or you! Second of all, ditto on the dehydration/stress thing--try to have a bottle of water available at all times, and personally I am a crackpot about vitamin D: I take 1000 IU a day.

One thing that helped me was to pump every night before I went to bed (about 9-9:30 pm) as an extra session. This helped me build up a stock of extra milk, and helped my body keep ahead of my daughter's needs. At first you won't get much, maybe 2 oz, but eventually it will increase. Since it's a lot harder to control your daytime, that evening session was more relaxing and consistent, and I think that made a difference.

For daytime, I was lucky to have my own private office, so I could just close the door (with the "DND" sign because my students have a key, lol) twice a day and take care of business. I had to be really strict with my schedule to protect my pumping times (for me this was 11 am and 3 pm at first, now we're down to just once a day at about noonish). I blocked those times off in my calendar and did not make myself available for any meetings no matter how "important."I was blessed by nature (and that extra pumping session at night) to be pretty productive with a fast letdown, so it was always fairly efficient for me.

I had a few work trips early on, to study section and a conference, and more recently two talks at universities out of town. I just bit the bullet and contacted the admin help before the trips (the grants assistant for study section and the admin in charge of my schedule for the talks) and told them I needed dedicated pumping time at times X, Y and Z. They were extremely understanding and accommodating, finding me a room and discreetly scheduling in a "break" for each of the sessions, as well as offering refrigeration if I needed it.

My advice, if you really, really want to make more milk, is to try to protect your schedule as fiercely as you can. Six weeks is a tough time to have to go back out into the world, but at the same time I completely identify with the "guilt over not feeling guilty about leaving" thing. Hopefully your workplace is going to let you organize yourself as you see fit for this, and if so, just let yourself put this as a priority in your day. It will only be like this for a year (less since as babies get older and start solids/sippy cups you don't need to pump as much), so the impact on your work isn't as big as it feels like it is at the time. Your right to do this is protected by law as far as I know, so you can be firm in your request that your schedule gets respected.

Oh, Dr O, I have no real words of wisdom here because I have zero experience with breastfeeding. But the rest of your commenters (except for Tideliar) clearly do, so you're in good hands! Just keep your chin up -- you can do this!

Thanks for all the words of support and advice; I don't see any of the advice as unsolicited at all!! :) And welcome to postdocmom from Lurkville. ;) In response to some of the comments:

-I definitely am not meeting resistance from boss, coworkers, or anyone else in the department about pumping. I have a private office (with a lock and no key) that I can use. It's more a matter of taking the time away from experiments, which is just going to require the best of my mad organizational skillz!

-To keep my supply up, I pump in the morning after I nurse (around 7:30/8am), three times while at work (11am, 2pm, 5pm), and once more before I go to bed (9/9:30pm), a couple of hours after I nurse Monkey to sleep. I'm hoping to eventually cut out the morning pump session, since it takes so much extra time when I'm trying to get out the door to work, but I'll wait until he's about three-four months old (he was 6 weeks as of Monday). Of course, as he starts eating less at night, that idea might become a pipe dream.

-The Monkey has slowed down on his eating the past couple of days, so I've been able to catch up on bottles and have even restocked a few of my frozen bags after feeding him in the evenings. My supply has always been really good with a very fast let-down, even with pumping. Monkey just started eating so much this past week - likely due to a growth spurt - that I got worried I wasn't making enough for him.

-Monday had been a great day for Hubby and Monkey, sleeping great, etc. Since I was so worried about my supply that evening, Hubby used a bottle of formula for his midnight feeding, and things fell apart right after. Monkey didn't sleep more than 4 hours total from that bottle until 8:30 last night, when we took him out for a drive. He slept 10 hours after that, but he's resisting sleep again today, so the car ride just might have to be a standby until he catches up on his sleep. I can't say for sure, but I worry that the formula threw off the start of a decent sleep habit. Only time will tell, but at least I'm making enough milk at this point to test out this theory.

Just writing to give you some support. All the other commenters did a great job with suggestions.

I went back to work when my younger one was 3.5 months and was pumping 3 times a day for a while, then down to 2. It worked out well. The entire time I was grateful for having my own office so I could pump whenever I wanted.

You are doing great, don't worry! But as someone said above, you do need to start freezing some for the time when you interview (you will have to dump all the milk you pump while traveling thanks to the no loiquids policy; what a waste) and when you interview you should be able to get away with a luchtime pumping and pre-dinner pumping in addition to morning and before bedtime pumping. I had a 2-day conference tri[ when my younger son was 4.5 months. I didn't pump before the conference dinner and as it ran late I started leaking through double pads before the dinner was over! Thank god for black shirts...