This post is a MANIFESTO on everything I have learned worked and did not work (for me) as a traveling, lactating, human. It is LONG, but it is the resource I wish I would have had when I started on this journey. Note that this is just for domestic travel within the US, and traveling without baby, since that is where my experience is. Hopefully somebody finds it useful.
I’ve pumped at ten conferences so far, seven which required travel (DC, Boston, NYC*2, Mountain View*3). I attended most of these conferences when I was pumping for my first baby (Baby Droid). So far I’ve pumped at one conference for my second baby (Baby Bot), and it was local to Denver.
When I decide I am going to do something in life, I make up my mind and that is it. When I committed to nursing Baby Droid, that was it. I was going to do it. When I committed to continuing to speak at conferences after Baby Droid was born, that was also it. I was going to do it. Little did I know, doing both of those things at the same time was going to be COMPLETE MAD CHAOS, and almost not humanly possible.
Life: "You'll get 5 days away from your baby when you go on this business trip."
Me: "Oh, cool, sounds nice?"
Life: "But you'll have to sit in a room alone for 30 minutes every 2 hours as a robot baby extracts milk from you."
Me: "Losing interest…"— Aimee Free Bird Ault (@aimee_ebooks) February 2, 2018
