Day 5- The Stash That Never Was — Breastfeeding, Working, and the Mental Load

I went back to work much sooner with my daughter than I did with my son. As the sole income earner and practice owner, I had just two weeks off from supervising and only one month off from seeing clients. I eased in with virtual sessions at first, but the juggle between breastfeeding and working hit differently this time. With my son, I had closer to 12 weeks off and a fuller freezer stash. This time, most of my time was spent nursing—not pumping, not triple feeding.

And what is triple feeding, you ask? It's the exhausting loop of nursing, pumping, and then bottle feeding pumped milk to the baby. I didn’t have the capacity for that again—physically or emotionally—so the tiny stash I did manage was gone quickly. My mom, who watches my daughter full-time, regularly had to come to the office to grab milk. The stress of coordinating pickups and drop-offs was immense for both of us.

Even though I naturally have an oversupply, I had to be careful. My first breastfeeding journey was filled with clogged ducts and mastitis, so I was constantly walking a line—trying to make just enough to get through the day, but not so much that it put my body at risk again. We tried every supplement under the sun. Teas. Cookies. Legendary Milk products. My mom even baked her way through every lactation cookie recipe she could find, just trying to help me make a little more.

To this day, I still don’t have a freezer stash. I’m lucky if I have an extra bottle for the next day.

🧃 The Invisible Weight

I know I’m not the only one who's juggled last-minute milk drop-offs, pumped between meetings, or questioned how long they could realistically keep this up. I’ve had enough conversations with clients and friends to know—this is a common kind of chaos, even if no one really talks about it out loud.

And the research is clear: working while breastfeeding is a structural challenge, not a personal failing.

Spitzmueller et al. (2016) found that full-time employment is a strong predictor of early breastfeeding cessation, with workplace inflexibility directly disrupting a parent’s ability to maintain milk supply. Negative or indifferent attitudes from employers and colleagues only make it harder.

McCardel’s (2022) dissertation confirms what many of us feel but can’t always name—that working mothers carry an invisible mental load in trying to breastfeed while balancing professional responsibilities. It's not just about feeding—it’s the tracking, the timing, the prepping, the worrying, the guilt.

We know this weight is heavier for some more than others. Structural barriers like racial inequities in workplace support, limited access to lactation accommodations, and the cultural stigma around breastfeeding contribute to early weaning (Goyal et al., 2012).

And all of this is happening while we’re trying to look like we’ve got it together.

✨ What If This Isn’t “Just the Way It Is”?

Arlie Hochschild called it the second shift—the unpaid, invisible labor women do after their “official” workday ends. And for so many nursing parents, breastfeeding becomes part of that shift. A job within a job.

This isn’t about blaming ourselves when the stash is empty. Or when the pump schedule gets missed. Or when we consider stopping altogether. It’s about naming what’s actually making this hard—and it’s not our bodies.

If you're feeding bottle to bottle. If you're scheduling your whole day around ounces and ounces alone. If you’re pumping while finishing notes, returning calls, or hosting a meeting—you're doing something powerful.

It shouldn't be this hard. But you're doing it anyway. And that deserves recognition, not shame.

📚 References

Goyal, R. C., Banginwar, A. S., Ziyo, F., & Toweir, A. A. (2012). Breastfeeding practices: Positioning, attachment (latch-on) and effective suckling–A hospital-based study in Libya. Journal of Family and Community Medicine, 19(2), 136–139. https://doi.org/10.4103/2230-8229.98307

Hochschild, A. R., & Machung, A. (2012). The second shift: Working families and the revolution at home. Penguin Books.

McCardel, J. B. (2022). The mental load of breastfeeding and work: A qualitative study (Doctoral dissertation). ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.

Spitzmueller, C., Wang, Z., Zhang, J., Thomas, C. L., Fisher, G. G., Matthews, R. A., & Strathearn, L. (2016). Got milk? Workplace factors related to breastfeeding among working mothers. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 37(5), 692–718. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2061