So, my coworker had her baby last October and when she came back... she required pumping sessions every 2 hours. She would go to the mothers lounge every couple hours for anywhere from 20 minutes to 45 minutes. So when I had my daughter in July and came back to work, I figured I could take as much time as well. The difference was that I could NOT wean my baby onto a bottle to save my life! She refuses it and continues to refuse it. I live 2 minutes away from my workplace, so every couple hours, I would run home & feed her with a 25 minute timer then return to work. One time I came back, my manager pulled me into her office and said she noticed I left work for 20 minutes. She said she checked with HR and was informed that I’m not allowed to leave the property to “pump”.. which for me, I’m not pumping, I’m actually feeding my Baby directly. I work in a dispatch center so breaks and lunches don’t exist... we get paid for the full 10 hours each day. We are pretty flexible about leaving everyday though to do a food run. For example, someone will leave for 30-45 minutes to get everyone food from a restaurant and then we all eat at our desks while working.

I’m not exactly sure what the issue is and why I’m being singled out for leaving to feed her when we all leave everyday for longer than the time I require to feed my daughter. I take the same amount of time (sometimes LESS) as my coworker would take when she would pump in the mothers lounge.

I guess I just need help putting words together because my manager is making me sit down with her and the HR manager this Tuesday to talk about it... and I’m freakin NERVOUS! I’m never one to make waves about anything so this just sucks.

UPDATE: My manager found out it was up to her whether or not I could leave and obviously she wasn’t gonna tell me I can’t feed my child. She just said every time I go, I just needed to clock out each time. That went on for a couple weeks and after working very hard with our daughter, I’m proud to say she has finally taken a bottle so I can just stay at work & pump. And my husband gets to have that one on one time with her while I’m working. So everything worked out in the end! 😌