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A Guide To Traveling (Without Baby) While Nursing

Travel while breastfeeding: Our biggest tips that saved our sanity! via Yellow Brick Home

photo of us by Gooch Too

I’m taking a complete detour from our usual DIY talk today, and after receiving so much interest from you, I’m going to dive into the topic of traveling while nursing – without baby. (Friends, I tried to keep this brief, but I’m an over-sharer, ha!) Last month, Scott and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary in Malibu, while leaving behind our then-9-month-old baby girl at home with her grandparents. I was a wreck over it. Not because we didn’t think that decompressing and refueling alone (and yet together) wouldn’t be worth it, but because our sweet Lucy was still nursing. The logistics of being able to travel for an entire week seemed so daunting, that we almost turned down my parents offer to house-pet-and-baby-sit. At the time that we made the decision to go on our adult-only adventure, Lucy was barely 4-ish months old, and we knew we’d have some work to do to feel comfortable and actually enjoy our time away.

When I asked if you’d like to know about our process for extended travel while leaving behind a nursing baby, I was surprised by your overwhelming response. I’ve continued to receive messages from many of you that said, Yes! Yes, please! So if our experience can help another mom and dad, I’m happy to share our experience with you! We had a hard time finding all the information we needed in one place, so I’m pulling it together here, today. The great news is that we not only traveled more than halfway across the country for 7 days, but we returned home to a happy baby and with close to 130 ounces of frozen breast milk!

Our Goal

We wanted to be able to travel for an extended period of time (in our case this was 1 week), maintain my milk supply (with pumping) and find an affordable solution to transport the milk from Malibu to Chicago. In this post, I’ll break down:

• How we prepared for an extended trip without baby
• How I maintained supply while we were away
• How we made it home – with 10 hours of travel in-between – with frozen milk without paying hundreds of dollars to ship it.

If you’ve landed on this post with a similar goal, let’s dive in!

Before Our Trip

We can only speak to our experience, but we knew that we wanted Lucy to be sleeping through the night by my parents arrival, and after speaking with our pediatrician, we received encouragement to begin sleep training. We spoke to friends with children and read countless articles on the topic, and by 4.5 months, Lucy was a champion sleeper. She does extremely well with routine; in our experience, we’ve learned that sleep begets sleep, and to this day, she take two naps during the day (that total anywhere from 2-3 hours) and sleeps for about 11 hours at night. We worked hard on her sleep schedule, and we continue work on it every single day! She had also transitioned to solid foods before we left, but she still nursed in the morning, after every nap and before bed.

In the several months leading up to our trip, I began pumping after most feedings to build up a supply for my parents, and for a few weeks, I would pump and then feed her that expressed milk, so that we could get a sense for how many ounces she needed at each feeding (since it’s anyone’s guess how much a baby drinks during a nursing session!). Testing the ounces and learning how much she needed meant that I knew how much I needed to pump (and in which amounts) so that my parents would have the milk they needed while we were away. By the morning of our flight, we had just enough milk for my parents – almost to the ounce. I don’t want to minimize how time consuming this preparation was (both sleep and food), but it was important to us to allow us the peace of mind while we would be away.

A note on bottle feeding: Some of you asked how we got Lucy to drink from a bottle. We gave her a bottle from a very young age – probably starting around a week old – so that Scott and family could take turns feeding her. I remember wondering if she would be confused going between me and the bottle (a fear, I think, that may have been instilled during a breastfeeding class) but she gladly fed from either. We tried a few different brands, but without a doubt, her favorite is the Comotomo!

Finding a Solution to Transport Milk

Probably the largest obstacle we had to overcome was figuring out how to get my pumped milk from Malibu to Chicago. All of the milk we’d be transporting would be frozen, and it would need to stay frozen for the duration of our travel. We quickly learned that there are a lot of great options out there for smaller trips (say, 2-3 days), such as Milk Stork. Milk Stork will ship you a box, dry ice and all packaging supplies, and then you can ship your milk back home (up to a certain amount), so that it’s at your doorstep when you return. That said, it comes at a cost. There was also the option to pack the milk ourselves in a styrofoam cooler with dry ice, but when we called FedEx and UPS locations around Malibu, many of them refused to handle dry ice, or their shipping rates were upwards of $300+ for such large quantities and weight.

So we thought, can we somehow pack our frozen milk in a cooler and carry it home on the plane? After digging through TSA Guidelines, we learned that breast milk can be carried onto a flight within ‘reasonable quantities’, but there was no mention as to what was considered reasonable. We ultimately decided that if we could fit all of the frozen milk in a carry-on bag, we would simply ask for a supervisor should we run into any issues. We also printed out the TSA Guidelines in case anyone questioned us.

Our Cooler + Practice Runs

The next step was finding a cooler that we could use as our carry-on, so I’ll save everyone the trouble and tell you that this is the cooler (size medium) that became the hero of our trip! Ice Mule #ftw. We read the hundreds of five star reviews, and it continued to rise to the top of every one of our cooler searches. It has the ability to roll up for easy storage, plus, the price was right! In the weeks leading up to our trip, we did ‘milk tests,’ which meant that we tested different ways of packaging bags of frozen milk in the cooler and checking to see how it held up 8+ hours later. So that we didn’t waste any of my milk, we tested both cow’s milk and almond milk, and yes, it’s every bit as hilarious as it sounds! Scott found this cheat sheet to packaging breast milk for long periods of transit, and, aside from a few modifications, it worked like a dream. After close to 9 hours, our ‘milk tests’ were still completely frozen! I’ll dive into exactly how we packaged the real breast milk in a moment.

Travel while breastfeeding: Our biggest tips that saved our sanity! via Yellow Brick Home

Our best friend + hero, The Ice Mule.

Packing + Pumping

Scott and I are both light packers, traveling with one carry-on suitcase each for the week. In Scott’s suitcase, we were also able to fit my electric breast pump, storage bags and cooler. We made sure to book an Airbnb with a full kitchen, so that we could have access to a sink and full sized freezer, and during our stay, I pumped every time that Lucy would normally eat, bagged and froze the milk. I may have been off schedule an hour or two once or twice, but it was important to me that I keep up my supply, since Lucy is nearing her one year birthday (the thought makes me cry, my sweet girl!) and I was worried I may start weaning if I wasn’t diligent. Is that a thing? I honestly don’t know if that would have happened, but I didn’t want to risk it (first time mom here)! Note: Most hotels will also accommodate the request to have a freezer in your room if you ask.

A note on travel days: Between drives to and from the airports, 4.5 hour flights and rental car pick ups and drop offs, our travel days were long. I looked up ‘Nursing Rooms’ in the Chicago O’Hare and LAX airports, so that I could pump before takeoff and after landing. This helped to keep me comfortable, and I found that both airports had several private rooms where I could do this!

And a (not so?) funny side story: On our first full day in Malibu, the Santa Ana winds blew down the canyon where we were staying, and our power went out for 12 hours. This meant I had no way to use my electric pump, and the several bags of milk in our freezer were vulnerable. Because of the power outage, the traffic lights went out in Malibu along PCH, and we ended up being stuck in traffic for hours, putting me very behind on my pumping schedule. I wasn’t too worried about missing one pumping session, but when I realized I wouldn’t be able to pump at all (read: no electricity!), the hosts at our Airbnb went out and purchased me a manual pump. YOU GUYS. And then they filled a cooler with ice and gave us access to/from their home so that we could keep our milk frozen! They went above and beyond, and we are eternally grateful! That manual pump ended up being a necessity throughout the rest of our stay, because we could bring it along on day trips, and I could pump in the car, say, if we were driving from a hike to a dinner reservation.

Preparing Breast Milk for Transit

At the end of our stay, I had almost 130 ounces of milk that needed to make it from our Malibu freezer to our Chicago freezer. Could we do it? (Spoiler: Yes, yes we could.) Note: Almost all of the bags of milk were 4 oz. or more (with some falling in the 3-ish oz. range), because we learned from our milk tests that smaller amounts got slushy around the edges. 

Travel while breastfeeding: Our biggest tips that saved our sanity! via Yellow Brick Home

We followed this document, with a few minor differences. Our process looked like this:

• We started by insulating the individual bags of frozen milk with newspaper. Once we had 4 bags of insulated milk, we wrapped those 4 together with a double layer of newspaper, and we packaged them in a gallon-sized Ziploc bag. We did this same process for every 4 bags, which looked like this:

Travel while breastfeeding: Our biggest tips that saved our sanity! via Yellow Brick Home

• The bottom layer of our cooler was lined with ice packs, which was simply additional breast milk storage bags that we filled halfway with water and froze the evening before!

• We added the 4-packs of milk to the bag, and we lined the outer layer with more ice packs. Before closing the cooler, we laid more ice packs on the top, so that all of the milk was fully encased by ice packs:

Travel while breastfeeding: Our biggest tips that saved our sanity! via Yellow Brick HomeTravel while breastfeeding: Our biggest tips that saved our sanity! via Yellow Brick Home

The cooler is unique in that once it’s closed up, you blow into the side for extra padding and insulation. (We have the medium size, seen above.) When we were all packed up, it was heavy. Even still, we could throw it over our shoulder and carry it right onto the plane! Which brings me to…

Our Experience Through TSA

I think I must have been holding my breath the entire time we were in Malibu, because I was so, so nervous for TSA Day. (I even had a few nightmares beforehand in which all of our milk was tossed in the trash while I watched in horror; good gravy, I shudder thinking about it now!) But I have the best news – we sailed through TSA without a hitch! We went back and forth on putting our cooler through the X-ray, but in the end, we decided to do it since no negative side effects have been found. Even still and not surprisingly, our cooler was flagged, and it went to a screening area where a TSA agent had to open the bag.

I started to panic at that point, but I was immediately relieved when she explained that she didn’t need to unpack each and every bag. While wearing gloves, all she did was feel through the plastic to make sure that there was no liquid. She told us that her main concern was to ensure that all contents were completely solid. In other words, she had to feel that the milk was frozen. (If we were packing liquid milk, there was a strong chance that they would’ve tested the bags of milk.) After 3 minutes, she gave us permission to repack our cooler, and we were off!

From Malibu to Chicago (which included a car to a plane to a train to another car) was 10 hours. 10. Hours. As soon as we walked in the door, we made an assembly line around our kitchen island, and everyone – grandparents included – began unwrapping the milk. All of the milk was still completely frozen. You guys, I got misty. The milk made it! I finally let out that huge sigh of relief that I’d been hanging onto for far too long.

Travel while breastfeeding: Our biggest tips that saved our sanity! via Yellow Brick Home

If you’ve read this whole post, it might mean that you’re also a parent that has fallen down the internet rabbit hole, hoping to find a solution that will make traveling while nursing a possibility. My hope is that this article helps you even in the smallest way! Because every experience is going to be different, I’m all ears if you want to talk or have more questions. And if you have advice of your own, please feel free to share in the comments! Let’s talk.

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  • Sara11.7.18 - 8:24 AM

    From one nursing mama to another (our girls are actually close in age), this is awesome, way to go! Just a quick comment on the frozen milk. I know it’s definitely easier to fly with it that way, but for what it’s worth, even if you’d gotten home and it was a little slushy, you can still refreeze it. As long as the milk still has ice crystals it is okay to refreeze!ReplyCancel

    • Kim11.7.18 - 8:31 AM

      Thank you for saying that, Sara! During the power outage, my frozen milk was slushy around the edges but frozen in the very middle. A lot of Googling confirmed the same that it was okay to refreeze. Great tip!ReplyCancel

  • Bethany Serafine11.7.18 - 9:03 AM

    This is hands down one of the most useful blog posts I’ve ever read on any topic (of course I’m currently very biased as I have a 3 month old and am already stressing about short trips away). Thank you for sharing this wealth of information!!ReplyCancel

  • Hannah Gokie11.7.18 - 9:38 AM

    Another thing worth mentioning: of course, throwing away breast milk can be *painful* with the hours spent pumping, storing, etc. But the most important thing is keeping up your supply! In desperate situations I’ve pumped and dumped just to keep my body producing until I could be reunited with babe. Again, it’s not ideal — but if babe still nurses from you, it totally works for when you’re back together as long as you’ve pumped a similar schedule while away!ReplyCancel

  • Tess11.7.18 - 9:52 AM

    Just a tip about power outages or traveling and pumping (I live in an area that loses power often) – a lot of newer cars have outlets and if your car doesn’t or if you have a rental car there are accessory socket plug converters that you can buy at any type of autozone store or amazon so you can plug in your pump and pump in your car. I’ve done this on long road trips and when we’ve lost power many times.ReplyCancel

    • Kim11.7.18 - 10:06 AM

      YES! Thank you for mentioning this! Our rental car didn’t have an outlet, and neither did the cars of our Airbnb guests. That was our first thought as we were sitting in standstill traffic on PCH. We were also too far from any place that might have had an outlet adapter. That manual pumped saved me when all other systems failed!ReplyCancel

  • Naomi Lee11.7.18 - 9:55 AM

    It may be the first time mom hormones (7 months old!) But wow this post made me tear up!! You’ve given me such a gift – confidence! Previous to this post, my biggest hope to traveling was simply to not lose supply, thinking I’d have to dump most of my milk but at least when I returned I would still be able to breastfeed — This. Is. A. Game. Changer. THANK YOU!!ReplyCancel

    • Kim11.7.18 - 10:04 AM

      Okay, now you’re making me tear up!ReplyCancel

  • Kristin F.11.7.18 - 10:07 AM

    I might have cried a little reading this post. That could also be because I’m pumping at work while reading. I have an 8 week old and I feel like my life revolves around nursing, pumping, and making it all work. This gives me hope!ReplyCancel

  • Katie Crook11.7.18 - 10:15 AM

    I splurged for the Spectra pump that has a rechargeable battery. It has been amazing to use while on-the-go! Highly recommend!ReplyCancel

    • Lauren11.7.18 - 7:39 PM

      Yes!! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve pumped to and from work and it is such a time saver. It’s amazing how long it holds a charge!ReplyCancel

    • Julia P11.10.18 - 10:52 AM

      Yes. I also bought the blue Spectra and it’s battery saved me several times. I strongly recommend spending the extra $30 since manual pumping can be a real pain.

      Also, I just want to point out that skipping pumping sessions can easily lead to clogged ducts and potentially mastitis in the worst case scenario I’d theyre not resolved quickly.ReplyCancel

  • Amanda11.7.18 - 11:16 AM

    Amazing! Go mama! Also, can we talk about your sleep training tips and tricks!!? My babe is generally a good sleeper but I know we could be better with the right training!ReplyCancel

    • Kim11.7.18 - 11:46 AM

      We found these articles from Julia and Molly helpful:

      https://www.chrislovesjulia.com/casual-friday-pollys-sleeping-eating-schedule-6-months-old/
      http://almostmakesperfect.com/2018/01/30/sleep-training-our-6-month-old/

      We also talked with our pediatrician about this method, and we all agreed that we should give it a shot. We followed the time chart in the article almost exactly. By the third night, she slept the WHOLE night. There have been bumps in the road with teething and some regression here and there (and the first night was so hard, I cried), but she caught on quickly! Any time there IS a bump in the road, we have to be super diligent about getting her back on track. She does so, so well with routine, and I thin a big part of it is because we don’t stray very far. Even driving to Michigan a few times a month (which is in another time zone, even though it’s only 1.5 hours away, haha!) has become normal to her, because we keep her on ‘Chicago’ time.ReplyCancel

      • Amanda11.7.18 - 2:48 PM

        Thank you thank you!!!ReplyCancel

    • Lana11.24.19 - 2:57 PM

      I can recommend a sleep training by Susan Urban, her method, Hold With Love and all the concept of fourth trimester is so great! I’ve never heard about how important is this first period of baby life in an ability to self sooth!ReplyCancel

  • jenn Mahon11.7.18 - 11:25 AM

    This is amazing! I got a little teary when you said it all made it safely back to your freezer #pregnancyhormones Thank you for sharing and begins so diligent in your research for us!!ReplyCancel

    • Kim11.7.18 - 11:48 AM

      I get teary anytime you guys say that YOU get teary! :’DReplyCancel

  • Emily11.7.18 - 11:52 AM

    Great post! Two things: I also have a Spectra I use at home and take when we travel HOWEVER I also bring a spectra s9 on trips because it can be charged and used without an outlet. It’s great for pumping on planes (I’ve done this now twice) as well as if you somehow get stuck in a situation where you don’t have access to electricity (like you did)!

    Another thing I’m thinking of doing when I travel sans baby (mine is currently 6 months old) in February for a trip with friends is to offer up the milk I pump while away from her on a Human Milk for Human Babies page. I don’t make a ton of milk pumping, however that way I know it would go to a baby in need and I wouldn’t have to worry about the hassle of transporting it back (we have a pretty solid freezer supply at this point). Just another alternative.

    Finally, I’ve travelled with fresh milk through TSA and it really just depends on who you get! I’ve always made it through but there have been times my milk just kept setting off their scanners. I was ready to fight for that milk (baby was with me so they knew it was her lunch) but luckily it never had to get that far.ReplyCancel

    • Kim11.7.18 - 3:44 PM

      Emily, you’ve made a lot of great points, thank you! I think your idea for donating milk is HUGE, and I’m glad you brought that up. We actually looked into that, but the places that we found that wanted donations needed a massive amount. So even though I was going to have almost 130 ounces of milk at the end, that still didn’t meet their minimums. We were confused, but had to move on from that being a possibility. I still think it’s an amazing idea though!

      And the more I think about, the more I think you’re right about who you get stuck with at TSA. It takes all types, good and bad, so that can really make the difference between a great interaction and a terrible one. My hope is that this post helps prepare moms for the worst so that there are no issues when it all comes down to it.ReplyCancel

  • Liz11.7.18 - 1:39 PM

    Thank you so much for this post, I’m a nursing mama here and I was wondering what I need to do in case of I need to travel because in the last 2 years my office sent me away for one week, but this post is amazing with the info.

    And also I didn’t know that if milk is slushy in some part but the rest has crystal it can be refreeze, another great tip.

    Thank you so much and congrats on your breastfeeding journey and your AnniversaryReplyCancel

  • Ann11.7.18 - 1:44 PM

    I SO admire that you made such an effort to make this work. I think I would have given in to the stress and gone to formula.ReplyCancel

  • Sara11.7.18 - 5:30 PM

    Bravo mama!!! I am so impressed by the research and lengths you went to. This will be such a huge help to so many women. I EBF my now-3-year-old for 20 months and he never had any formula. But I never built up that deep of a freezer supply before he started daycare, so I was always just having enough for him . I could go away for a night or two but nothing longer if I wanted to avoid formula (nothing wrong with it, but I’d gotten so far it kind of became a challenge.) My son just turned 5 months on Sunday and i have a few 100 ounces frozen from pumping at least once a day. He starts daycare Monday and I’m hoping that my husband and I can get away for a trip alone this spring. He’s still not sleeping well and we’ve given in to all the bad habits. We did try to let him CIO the other night but he went for like 20 minutes and we caved. I know that it is worth it but I find it hard when they’re still so little.ReplyCancel

    • Kim11.8.18 - 10:20 AM

      Wow, that’s quite the backup! Yes, you deserve a trip alone this spring!ReplyCancel

  • Laura11.7.18 - 7:38 PM

    My daughter will be one in 11 days and I have been pumping since she was born, she was a preemie and they often struggle to nurse, so after months of trying, I finally gave in to exclusively pumping! This post is awesome for breastfeeding mommas everywhere! I use the spectra S2 but also have a medela pump in style that I travel with cause it has a car charger and a battery pack, you may want to look into something like that if you travel again! Just think about how great those 130 ounces will be for date nights now! Way to go momma ?ReplyCancel

  • Aliz11.7.18 - 9:17 PM

    We had to go on multiple trips without my baby and TSA has never given me any problems. For multiple day trips, I couldn’t freeze the milk. I would always call TSAcares before my flights to give them an fyi that I’d be travelling with breast milk, etc and ask if they had suggestions. TSAcares is the best.

    Manual pumps are great when travelling, especially because you can get clogs more easily when travelling.ReplyCancel

  • Hilary11.7.18 - 10:21 PM

    I LOVED my manual pump. Even hospital pumps never worked for me but the $20 medela was my hero. Used in the middle of Disney Land while waiting at a ride and no one was the wiser! Great for car pumping too (when someone else is driving of course :)).ReplyCancel

  • Krystal11.8.18 - 10:11 AM

    I am not a mom at all, but I am an auntie (with my second niece on her way in just a few more months!) but I still found myself completely fascinated by this post lol! I have no idea why, but I just couldn’t stop reading. So interesting. So thanks for sharing, from a non-mom perspective. :)

    (and yes, I totally emailed a link of this post to my sister. Because fascinating lol.)ReplyCancel

  • Rachel11.8.18 - 10:14 AM

    Not a parent, but I just wanted to say this is an awesome use for an IceMule… we have the same one and love it (although ours is mostly used for beer and LaCroix while on kayaking adventures or going to friends’ houses :))ReplyCancel

    • Kim11.8.18 - 10:18 AM

      Hahaha, totally! We knew that after this trip, our Ice Mule would be perfect for trips to the beach when we’re staying at Tree House.ReplyCancel

  • Katherine11.8.18 - 10:34 AM

    Kim, so glad you can keep nursing as long as you and Lucy want without a trip forcing weaning. I breastfed my daughter for 2 years and it was the best thing in the world for her! I had originally thought I would breastfeed for 6 months. Some things you just can’t plan. So happy that you’re enjoying motherhood so thoroughly!ReplyCancel

    • Kim11.8.18 - 10:39 AM

      Thank you, Katherine. I remember entering nursing hoping that if I could do it, great, and if I couldn’t, that would be okay, too! We prepared ourselves with classes and reading up on books, and it worked for us. I feel lucky about that every day. I told Scott that if I could keep it up for 6 months, I would be happy! I think I’ll start weaning at 1 year, but we’re also going to follow her queues. :)ReplyCancel

  • Beth11.8.18 - 11:31 AM

    Bravo!! Milk is liquid gold. We went on a 3 day trip when our son was 6 months old and left over 150 oz of frozen milk for him. My MIL used it all and I almost cried when I saw the freezer empty. I have no idea how he would have needed so much. He is 8 now and to this day I remember that.
    Also- everyone pumping should have this(it allows you to just use AA batteries to power your pump).
    https://www.amazon.com/Medela-Battery-Style-Advanced-Breast/dp/B000HL2JOC
    Keep it up!!ReplyCancel

    • Caitlin Rose Low11.9.18 - 5:09 PM

      150oz in 3 days!!!! I would have cried too!!! Research shows us over and over again that breastfed babies from 1-6 months take 25-32oz of breastmilk per day from the breast. I totally understand still thinking about this! You worked hard for that!ReplyCancel

  • Michelle11.8.18 - 10:07 PM

    Yes! I weirdly love this kind of detail. I had to exclusively pump for my daughter for 6 months because of medical issues. One night I slept through my alarm to pump, and then when I woke up totally engorged, the power was out!! I cried and manually expressed for as long as I could stand it and bought a manual pump the next day. I recommend them to every breastfeeding mom now.
    So glad you made it!! I’m done nursing now but I breathed a huge sigh of relief with you :)ReplyCancel

  • Caitlin Rose Low11.9.18 - 4:57 PM

    Just a quick word of warning for mamas reading this post, though I do believe there is very good information in here. I’m an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC). There are countless research studies that show that sleep training causes weaning earlier than a mom had desired due to decreasing milk supply. Milk making follows a circadian rhythm and the most important time to empty the breasts is between 2&4am as this sets the volume for the next 24 hours. Now, I will say some mom’s have breasts that have the capacity to allow for a baby to sleep all night, but the vast majority of women do not. I take countless calls from women with 3-4 month old babies who are loosing milk supply. The first question I ask is what has change with baby sleep. Almost always I am told that they used some form of sleep training. Now, nature is a funny thing and generally if a mom has a baby who starting sleeping long stretches on their own, generally that mama’s body was made to handle that. It just breaks my heart to see women not be their breastfeeding goals because of this.ReplyCancel

    • Rachel11.22.18 - 12:10 PM

      A woman’s breastfeeding goal should be to keep their baby fed, regardless if it’s breast or formula.

      My daughter was sleeping through the night at 12 weeks and I breastfed her for 17 months, when I chose to stop. My supply was plentiful. My mother also did this with four of her children (breastfed until 12-14 months).

      Please post actual studies of this issue before trying to deter moms into instilling good sleeping habits for their children.

      Sleeping on your own and through the night is NOT a skill you just pick up. Babies need help learning how to sooth and sleep through the night. Sleep training shaming is ridiculous. If moms want to get up multiple times a night, let them. If moms want to have a full night sleep, let them.ReplyCancel

  • shannon11.10.18 - 9:05 AM

    This is a wonderful post! Thank your for sharing! I’m a counselor who leads mom-baby support groups, and I’m going to pass this along to them. They are always looking for tips on traveling while nursing. The cooler rec is particularly helpful!

    Happy anniversary – I’m glad you enjoyed your trip!ReplyCancel

  • Ashley - The Gold Hive11.26.18 - 10:11 PM

    “If you’ve read this whole post, it might mean that you’re also a parent that has fallen down the internet rabbit hole”

    Perhaps. Or it means that I’m a SEVERE over-planner! I without kids for now, but I will read EVERY word you write on the topic – keep ’em comin’!ReplyCancel

  • Ana Martha11.25.19 - 4:58 PM

    Wow! I just came back from a work trip this past week. Reading this would have made a BIG time difference. Thank you so much for sharing!ReplyCancel

  • C.J.7.27.21 - 9:05 PM

    Before my first trip without my baby I found this blog 3 years after it was originally posted. My baby is only three months, so I had to pump pretty frequently while traveling. I used all of the tips, including using the Ice Mule and 12 hours after packing my milk was still frozen! Some bags were slightly slushy, but as someone noted below, as long as there are ice crystals the milk is still fine. I’m so thankful that I found this blog as it was a huge stress reliever to find this solution. I highly recommend following the advice if you’re flying without baby! ReplyCancel

    • Kim7.28.21 - 9:11 AM

      I love this so much!! I couldn’t find the advice I needed and I hoped it would help someone else.ReplyCancel

  • Jean6.28.23 - 7:36 PM

    Just wanted to say thanks for this post. Last week I traveled to Chicago (how appropriate!) for an 8 day business trip without my husband and 8 month old daughter. I remembered your post and found it helpful in my planning.  It was troublesome at times, but I was able to store my breast milk in the hotel’s executive freezer and pack it in a cooler backpack for the flight and 12 hour travel day and brought home ALL 8 days of my milk!  Thanks so much for sharing!ReplyCancel

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