Back at work in 4 weeks. How many pumps a day actually keeps supply going?

Baby is 5 months, exclusively breastfed, and I'm back at work in 4 weeks doing four days a week. Office job, they've said I can use a meeting room "when one's free" which fills me with confidence, and there's a communal fridge that mostly contains other people's forgotten yoghurts.

The spreadsheets have begun. If she feeds roughly every 3 hours and I'm out of the house 7:30 to 5:30, that's what, three pumps? Two? Every schedule I find online says something different and half of them seem written for people with private offices and understanding calendars.

What did people ACTUALLY do, not the ideal version, the real one? And did your supply survive it? I'd like to get to a year if I can but I'm braced for this being the beginning of the end.

Went back at 6 months, five days a week, made it to 13 months feeding, so it survived and then some. The real version:

Started with two pumps a day, mid morning and mid afternoon, about 20 minutes each. By month 9 I'd dropped to one because she was on solids and feeding less anyway, and honestly supply just adjusted. The morning feed before work and a long feed the minute I walked in the door did more for my supply than any pump session, I'm convinced of that. Weekends were all boob, which I think reset everything each week.

Logistics that mattered more than the schedule: a small cooler bag with ice packs so the yoghurt fridge was optional, two full sets of pump parts so I only washed up at home, and putting the pump sessions in my work calendar as recurring "meetings" so nobody could book over them. Do that last one on day one, it sets the expectation before anyone thinks to question it.

Only thing I'd add: feed right before you leave the house and the second you get home, even if it means baby waits ten minutes for the childminder handover. Those two feeds carried my supply more than the office pumps did. I only ever managed one good pump a day at work and we still got to 14 months.

Becky, the fact that you're four weeks out and already planning puts you ahead of most, the transition tends to go worst for people who wing it and best for people exactly like you with a slightly obsessive spreadsheet. Jess and Priya's real-world versions match what readers tell us over and over: anchor feeds at each end of the day, fewer-but-protected pumps in the middle, and the boring logistics sorted before day one.

Two site guides worth your four weeks: returning to work while breastfeeding covers schedules and the conversation to have with your employer, including making "when one's free" into an actual named room and time, which you are entitled to push for. And bookmark the milk storage guidelines now, because the yoghurt fridge question will arise at 4pm on your first Tuesday.

One reframe from someone whose feeding journey had several moments that felt like the beginning of the end and weren't: going back to work changes the shape of feeding, it doesn't have to end it. Come back and tell us how week one goes.

First week back: done. Two pumps a day mostly happened, one meeting room ambush, one afternoon where I got 40ml and panicked, then Friday I got my normal amount again so it evens out. She has decided the 5:45pm feed is the main event of her day which suits us both. Calendar trick worked perfectly, thank you Jess. Week one survived, twelve-ish to go.