I pumped twice a day, once at 11-12 for 20 minutes, once at around 3 for 20 minutes. I took used the minutes to be part of my lunch break, so out of the hour I only had 20 minutes for actual lunch, because most places have to give you time to pump but require that as much of that is your personal time as possible.

Nearing the end of school it was too busy, so a lot of days I pumped only at 3, but I ended up getting a lot less then if I had two sessions.

Now that he's near two, I just pump once at 5pm, after I'm done work and while S is getting the kids. When I go back to school in a few weeks, I'm quitting pumping, since he's 2 years old now, but will continue to nurse when he's home.

I nursed him at lunch and pumped once. It took a LONG time to get any milk. It was really frustrating. I would try and just build up as much of a supply as you can before going to work and then use the pumping for mantaining your supply more than for being enough food for the baby. I would also pump at the same time as an evening feeding and I made a lot more milk then.

What pumps did you guys find to be the best?

I used the cheaper hand-pumps when I had Julian, but they never worked all that well, ended up breaking, or didn't work at all.

When I go back to work this time, I am going to need something that works very well! I am hearing good things about the Pump in Style? Any good reviews for others?

I would pump 2 times during an 8 hour shift, which lead to me having to use formula,when I was working. my job wasn't willing to let me take "extra" breaks to pump, I had to pump during my lunch break and during my other break i got.
I had a Medula PIS pump, which worked awesome! and was worth every penny. but I couldn't pump more often, I Would bring home 6oz a shift on a good day, but towards the end, I was only bringing home about 2oz.
Blake loved his bottles and didn't care what was in them, until we found out right around 1 year, that he had a severe dairy allergy. Since then, he has gotten soy milk and goats milk. (and yes, unfortunately he is still on bottles, since he keeps having MRSA infected wounds and has to be on nasty antibiotics, I put them in his bottle)

Thanks for the info, everybody. I really appreciate it. I'm still figuring out what my work schedule will be this fall (I've got a second interview coming up for what sounds like a really interesting job - cross your fingers for me!), but I want to be very clear about my needs as a nursing mother going into it.

I also had the pump in style and it was great. Two of my sister also used it with their babies.

I definitely second the pump in style. It's a tough cost to swallow to begin with, but if you can find it used that's even better. I found mine used on ebay, just bought new tubes for it since it's an open system. With Trey I tried other pumps and nothing worked, with Theo I rarely had issues with the PIS. Totally love it.

I found a used PIS pump online (ebay, $50). I'm a little wary, though, about possible contamination. I keep reading that PIS has an "internal diaphram" that can't be totally cleaned?

Those of you who have bought used pumps before, what did you do to reduce the risk of infection? What parts did you replace/boil/clean in some other way? Were you worried at all about the possibility of blood-born pathogens b/c of cracked nipples or the like?

Again, thanks, mamas, for all your advice?

When I got the pump from my sister I got new lines and cups.

From what I understand the only kind of pump that is strictly safe to get 2nd hand is a hospital grade, because all the parts that touch the milk are replaceable. And I could be wrong, but I don't know if you can get hospital grade pumps that are very portable, like that you can reasonably take to work? I know the one I used after DD was born was pretty big and clunky. I think it'd be one thing to get one from someone you trust to tell you about any concerns they had, but I'd worry about getting one from a stranger TBH.