Help! Away from baby for one day only? How to manage?

[sky_and_lavender]

My LO is 6.5 months. I haven't started solids with her. She is EBF and usually eats every 2-3 hours. The only pumping I have done is with a hand pump. I have an electric pump I've never used. But electricity will probably not help me anyway.

In the coming month (starting next week), I have to go on two separate day trips. They will each be 9-12 hours long. I am a student and going to remote locations to do environmental sampling.

I have two options:
Leave LO at home with my husband, who will feed her expressed milk, while I hand pump every 3 or so hours in gas station bathrooms. (Not ideal, because fully pumping both sides takes 30 minutes or more! Could I possibly spread out the time to one side every 4 hours per side without damaging my supply?)

OR

My very kind husband has offered to drive in a separate car, and except for 3 or so hours when I will be in a site off limits to babies, bring the baby to me to feed her. I would bring my hand pump with me in case I get engorged at any time.

Both things are really awkward. When I signed up to do the research, I didn't know a lot about breastfeeding and hadn't thought about how complicated this could be. My poor research professor is accommodating but I feel so gauche. It doesn't help that I'm in a research situation where there are almost no women.

[PatioGardener]

I vote take the baby and your DH. You'll educate your research prof on the importance of breastfeeding and work to make breastfeeding the norm in your field, as well as feed your baby and avoid mastitis.

The trick to doing such ground breaking things, I have found, is to do them with your head held high and no inkling of embarassment or abnormality in your action. If treatedt as completely natural and accepted (even expected) then people tend not to question.

good luck! and congrats on your student/mom balance- I'll be doing the same next year.

[sky_and_lavender]

Originally Posted by PatioGardener

I vote take the baby and your DH.
. . .
good luck! and congrats on your student/mom balance- I'll be doing the same next year.

Thank you for your supportive words. They make me feel less "wimpy" (as in, crazy mom afraid to leave her baby for the day) and more empowered (as in, woman doing what's best for her baby and herself.)

I wish you all the best next year!