Babys First Year Blog
Crying Over Spilled (Breast) Milk.
My senior year of high school I didn’t make Varsity Cheer or dance company. I didn’t win student body elections and I didn’t place in the Utah state high school drama competition. I lost my first iPod due to carelessness on an airplane and I left my most favorite sweater in the world at a questionable hotel. But of all the disappointments in my life none has ever compared to what happened two weeks ago.
I spilled the bottle of breast milk I had just spent 3o minutes pumping.
I was setting my pump back onto my nightstand when I felt this warm gush on my leg. I sat there and stared at it in disbelief. I had been doing superhuman feats of strength patience and endurance to get myself to produce anything resembling a full milk supply and I dumped the whole entire ounce I had just worked so hard to get out on my leg.
An ounce of breast milk in the grand scheme of Vivi’s entire life isn’t that big of deal. But in that moment, even right now, it’s a HUGE deal to me. I wondered if I could convince her to suck it out of my sheets. Or maybe I could wring out a few drops back into the bottle.
After making a few “crying over spilled milk” jokes on twitter to make myself a little less infuriated with myself, I came to my senses and decided shoving my baby’s face into my mattress pad in an attempt to get breast milk into her belly wasn’t in her best interests.
I’d like to say I never spilled another drop of the precious stuff after this unfortunate event but that would be a lie. I’m still too mad to talk about it, but I will say if you think shoving my baby’s face into the bed to get milk is bad? You should have seen where I spilled it the second time.
So how about you? Any spilled breast milk sob stories to commiserate with?
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9 Comments
Liz L commented on Jul 13 11 at 9:37 amWhen I was pumping, that definitely happened to me and I would sob. Pumping would also take me SO LONG, like 40-45 minutes, and the milk I had was so precious. Once my husband, at 3AM in a total haze, went to pour some pumped milk into our drop-in bottle, and he had forgotten the drop-in—I basically watched him pour the milk all over the dresser. Oh, the ANGER! and the TEARS! I can kinda laugh about it now–but not quite:)
Denise commented on Jul 13 11 at 9:39 amWhile I was still in the hospital after having my daughter the nurse was helping me hand express into a plastic tablespoon, it took forever and was fairly uncomfortable. As soon as the spoon was full the nurse spilled half of it! Tears just started running down my face! It was horrible!
MrsBagley commented on Jul 13 11 at 10:20 amOh totally! As a working mom, I’ve pumped daily for both my kids til they were a year old (pumping as I type this, actually!). Spilled milk is TOTALLY worth crying over when we have to work this hard for it. My husband has spilled his share or seen me do it and just doesn’t understand. “Just make more”. UGH!!! Saying that to a woman struggling with supply problems doesn’t help one bit. I’ve often had thoughts of wiping it off the counter into a bottle, but then I think about the last time I cleaned the counter.
I’m right there with ya, mama.
Candace commented on Jul 13 11 at 1:40 pmI pumped once WITHOUT PLUGGING THE TUBING INTO THE BOTTLES. It all went on the floor. Sad, sad, SAD. That stuff is truly liquid gold.
Ashlee commented on Jul 13 11 at 3:27 pmMy husband left out a whole bottle of it once after the baby wouldn’t eat. I found it in the morning and all hell broke loose.
tlcnyc commented on Jul 13 11 at 7:04 pmIt is so weird that you posted this today! I just started back at work and have been pumping. I really struggled at first to BF my twins and had to pump a ton to get my milk supply up. Then it was doing well and I was feeding my babies exclusively via BF for the last month of my maternity leave. Yesterday, I realized that my milk supply was going down again because I was not pumping at work frequently enough (I was trying to match what I did with my babies…every four hours.) The babies were basically getting formula at every feeding. So…though I hate it, I pumped every two hours yesterday. After my second pumping, I was really proud and excited that I had already gotten 5 ounces and that my babies would have plenty of milk the next day (today) and my supply seemed to be already getting better.
The refrigerator at work was pretty full so I foolishly took a chance and put it in the butter container section, thinking the plastic door would be strong enough to keep it in. Two hours later, I get an email from my colleague that said “the little bottle of milk that was in the fridge fell out and spilled. I cleaned it up.”
I was mortified with embarrassment. It was a single, male colleague and I’ve no idea how he felt about cleaning up the milk. Also, I was devastated! That was an ENTIRE BOTTLE! The sense of loss that I felt was so overwhelming that I nearly burst into tears and threw up at the same time. Needless to say, I went in the kitchen and made sure everything was clean and went home to hold my babies and feed them myself for their next feeding. While crying.
bayley commented on Jul 13 11 at 8:15 pmYesterday my cell phone drowned in 5 ounces of gorgeous milk in my purse. And I was sadder about the lost milk than the damn phone.
Durga commented on Jul 14 11 at 10:22 amOh yes Ive been there and cried over it more than once. especially when baby has reflux and throws up all that precious milk that took me ages to pump. im tearing up now…
shannonannon commented on Jul 14 11 at 10:26 amArgh! So sad.
When my son was 6 months old my husband had picked him up from daycare and was home waiting for me. Traffic was bad and I was delayed so he thawed out some frozen milk and fed him. Of course I got home 10 minutes later and was devastated! My pump was at work and I knew he wasn’t going to nurse again until morning. Not surprisingly I woke up at 3am engorged, wet and miserable. I sat on the side of the tub manually expressing 7 ounces from my overzealous mammaries…and then promptly spilled it all over the floor.Finding me on the floor half dressed, covered in milk and crying was all the lesson that the hubs needed. Baby boy had cereal or cheerios next time I was delayed getting home.
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