The Milk Memos: How Real Moms Learned to Mix Business with Babies-and How You Can, Too

This book is a "must have" for any nursing mommas going back to work and hoping to continue the breastfeeding relationship. I wish I had had this book when my first daughter was born and I went back to work. I felt so alone in my extremely challenging endeavor of pumping and working. If I had had this book, I would have felt supported, vindicated, inspired, and most of all, would have had the collective wisdom of other women who've learned how to make it work.I now plan to buy this book for all my friends who are having babies and planning to continue their careers out of the home. I would also recommend Working Without Weaning but if you're only going to buy one book, this one will tell you most everything you need and it's so darn affordable! It's also well written and backed up by research.Hurray for a couple of super-moms who managed to pump AND work AND somehow find time to write a book! Most books are written by stay-at-home moms who could never understand the pump/work dynamic. (No offense to them but even my local LLL leader couldn't help me because she has never experienced working out of the home 40 hrs/wk, away from her baby, dealing with pumping and storing milk and all the rest.This book covers everything from starting the breastfeeding relationship on the right foot, introducing bottles, buying the right pump, negotiating time/space with your employer, sleep-deprivation, anxiety about being separated from your baby, the challenge of juggling career and family priorities, the challenge of being perceived as "less productive" at work now that you're juggling everything else. It has a nice balance of informative narrative from the authors, interspersed between the journal entries of the "Milk Mamas" group sharing the lactation room at IBM. I wish I had colleagues in my workplace to share this kind of journal with but reading their comments made me feel like I was not alone in my struggles.Unlike other books I encountered, this book does not start from the premise that new moms should consider quitting their job or giving up their careers. It starts with the understanding that you are going back to work, either by choice or necessity, and aims to give you all the tools you need to successfully continue providing your baby with breastmilk for as long as you want to. Towards the end, it addresses the potential alternatives such as flex schedules, part time work, or putting your career on hold. But it doesn't start off making you feel like you're a bad mother if you go back to work.Now that I've read this book (and a couple others), I just know I'm going to be more successful with pumping and working this time around with my second baby. In retrospect, it helped me see that I actually did a pretty good job the first time around (100% breastmilk until 6 months; daughter weened herself at 9 months when my milk supply dried up). I just felt like such a failure and like I lacked the kind of support I needed.Definitely buy this book NOW and read it cover to cover if you are going to be a working mom! You'll enjoy and appreciate it.

This book was a good read and was certainly written in a way that is not too scientific and allows any mother to recognize herself in it. If this is the only book you read, it will give you information decent enough to take out on your pumping trip. However, if you have read any other book, you will find this one redundant and some of the topics plain... certainly not topics that a pumping mom would address in a post-it note.The book gets a 4 star because I have found comfort in knowing that other moms went through this, reading about it, and I did like the humor in the book. I have also appreciated the sneak-peak preview of the pumping reality at work. I liked the factual info about how much was needed in the fridge before going back to work, and some ideas (that I used while travelling) as to how to pump when you do not have a place to do so.However, I think this books lacked important information. In the fiction-style of the book : how come for instance no woman in this book use a hands-free bra for pumping ? This is must-have if you're going to use your pump 2 to 4 times a day. Why would no woman rent or own a hospital grade pump and talk about it ? Why don't they talk about the resources you can use (books, internet, or hints) to deal with over/under supply ? Why don't they talk about days with (big supply) and days without (low supply) and that's it's normal and how to handle it ?while I did like the read and did find some info I found in no other place, I feel this book is still incomplete as a pumping resource. Don't hesitate to check kellymom.com and askdrsears.com for more pumping resources !!

I'm typing this review during a middle of the night nursing session with my four-month-old, who just started daycare last week when I returned to work from maternity leave. Throughout leave, I had anxiety (and guilt) about returning to work. Luckily, I stumbled on a recommendation for this book in the comments section of one of the many "pumping and going back to work" articles that I read just in the nick of time.While it is certainly spot-on for nursing moms, I think ANY mom returning to work can find comfort, humor and practical advice in its pages. I've already decided decided to include a copy of this book in any shower gift and will recommend that the new mommy reads it about a month before going back.I'm happy to report that I survived my first week back (which, pro-tip, was only 3 days thanks to starting midweek), complete with three daily pumping sessions, and it went better than I could have ever expected. You can do it! I could almost feel the Milk Mamas from the book cheering me on, and have already bonded with a couple of the Milk Mamas with whom I share our very own Pumping Palace. :)

I got this because I wanted something which would give me several viewpoints on expressing at work, and perhaps feel some solidarity with people who had done so, as I know nobody who has in "real life". It turns out that although the words of the authors might be true, the other "characters" are composites, invented by the authors to create a structure on which they could hang the advice. It's a nice way of delivering the information, sure, but I felt a little cheated that I had gone to the effort of sourcing a "true" book which wasn't, and the information content of which I could have read on a website in ten minutes.

Read the book when returning to work. It felt like talking to my girl friends and helping each other. Helped me through the tough first month back in business. Thank you so much for publishing it!

Helpful and with a lot of humor ! A very good prepareren for mothers who Will go soon back to work.

Même si les références sont américaines, ce livre est vraiment intéressant sur la continuité de l'allaitement après le retour au travail