Hi ladies. I will be at Disney World without my 5.5 month old. Any tips for pumping while at WDW? I will need to pump 5-6 times a day. I plan on pumping at the hotel for the first and last pumping session each day. I would love to figure out a way to not have to leave my kiddo and hubby to pump while at the parks. Any ideas? I was thinking maybe lunch and dinner. I plan on bringing my spectra s9 with my freemie cups so I can pump on the go easier. It kind of seems loud though. I’m not sure if I will feel comfortable doing this but I don’t really want to waste time sitting in the baby care center to pump. I want to maximize all our time in the parks as this will be the shortest WDW trip we have done. Should I bring my spectra s2 for pumping in hotel?
I would love to pump and bring home expressed milk. Any tips? Thinking of asking hotel to put it in their freezer and somehow get it back home to me safely (will be flying home).
It has been a while, but this manual pump worked great for times my wife needed to pump more discreetly (meaning, quietly). Despite being manual, it worked almost as efficiently as the plug in/ battery powered pump she used at other times.
For storage, definitely utilize the hotel freezer. The cast members will be more than happy to help you store it in their freezer. I just read a report of someone there this week who did this and they said it was a breeze.
I think a manual pump would probably be your best bet if you want to pump on the go in the parks. I am thinking of the dark rides/shows that I BF on and I would think you could definitely pump on those as well.
Also recommending a hand pump for the parks… I used one under a nursing cover during shows and rides lasting 15-20 min without anyone noticing. I would have been less comfortable doing this with kiddo #1, but by kiddo #3 I felt at ease using the hand pump almost anywhere, and did not want to miss out on spending time with our family and my parents when our youngest was 4 months old. The hotel was super helpful for storage.
Thanks so much! Yep I don’t want to miss anytime. This is kiddo #2 and with kiddo #1 I would have never gone to Disney World and pumped in public haha. Ya gotta do what you gotta do…now I do use a nursing cover. Thanks for the advice.
Thanks so much! Maybe a silly question but are you able to dual manual pump with both breasts at one time with two manual pumps? Or is that too much work?
Trip next month and will be pumping while baby stays home. Any tips you would pass on from your experience @FOGMELA ? How did you end up storing/freezing milk? We’re staying at POP and I’m concerned the in-room cooler will be cold enough.
Hey! I definitely would not rely on the in room cooler to freeze anything.
This is what I did:
Early morning pump in hotel room and put in room cooler so that I could combine it later in the day with the other cold milk
(I put it in milk bags when I was done pumping)
I pumped at counter service restaurants for lunch and dinner while I ate (I didn’t want to waste time going to the baby care center as we had our 4 year old with us and we had lots to do). I would put the milk in my backpack cooler with a few reusable ice packs.
I would do my last pumping session when we got back to the hotel room for the night
I was feeding 5 times normally at home but only pumped 4 times and didn’t have any issues with my supply when I got back home.
At the end of the day I would bring my reusable freezer bags and the milk from the day to the front desk. They put it in their freezer. At the end of the trip I had quite a bit of milk to take back home. I read you should try to take home the milk in bigger milk bags like let’s say 7oz instead of 3oz bags so combine your milk as you go. It stays frozen Better when the bags are bigger. It takes longer for the bags to thaw out.
I hope that helps. Feel free to ask any questions.
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This is so timely - I’m going next Thursday (also staying at Pop, which I have done several times but never while pumping) and have been totally obsessed and stressed out trying to work through all the details. So to clarify, I need to ask the front desk to put things in the freezer, not Bell Services? How do they want things packaged and labeled - do I need to bring a separate cooler bag to give to them?
I thought I remembered that the fridges at Pop had a small freezer compartment (not technically meant to be a freezer, just a space in which things happened to freeze…) but apparently not. I also saw several people say that they are actually “beverage coolers” rather than fridges, which meant that they don’t get as cold (and therefore don’t reach specific temperatures necessary for preventing food and breastmilk from spoiling), but also have seen other people say that they had no issues.
I’m also somewhat nervous about temperature - it will be warm while I’m there (mid-80s) and although I will of course have a cooler bag with freezer packs, I’m worried that the heat will be too much and things won’t stay cool enough. What was your experience?
Breast milk is bacteriostatic at room temp (and research shows no significant bacterial growth from 0 to 6 hours without refrigeration). Anything you are doing to cool cleanly caught milk will retard bacteria growth. I used to collect milk on one side with every feeling and actually just leave it at room temp through the night with additional feedings - just adding to the collection bottle all night long over 12 hours - before it got to the fridge even.
My pumping days are long behind me but my company offers this as a benefit when traveling for work. I know it’s expensive but wanted to put it out as an option. I thought it was really easy to use.
You could probably ask Bell services to put in their fridge as well. I brought extra freezer gallon bags to put all my stuff in each day so it was easy for the hotel. I would label your freezer bag with your name on it.
I believe my hotel had the same thing…more like a beverage cooler than a fridge but it did get cold enough to keep my milk cold and I felt good about it.
I got a cooler backpack and it worked really well. We had much cooler temps but I brought like 5 refreezable ice packs from home. I would try to pack the milk in the cooler so that the ice packs were on all sides of the milk when possible. You can also bring small ziplock bags and get ice at different counter service restaurants throughout the day…just double or triple bag it so it doesnt leak. Then, get new ice when it starts to melt. I had to do that one day as my freezeable ice packs had not totally frozen back over by morning time when I gave it to the bell stand / front desk the night before.
I brought a manual as a backup as many moms said they love them but I am not a pro at the manual pump haha. I wasn’t nearly as efficient as my electric but it’s definitely got to be user error haha
