our breast-feeding employee is spending too much time pumping

by Alison Green on April 7, 2026

A reader writes:

We recently hired a nursing mother with the understanding that she would be taking time to pump three times a day for about a year. She is being paid for the time used to pump. She was provided a comfortable private space in which to do so and she logs the time as “general overhead” on her timesheets (unbillable); it comes to about 90 minutes per day. We’re just now, a few months in, realizing how quickly this time adds up – in the last billing period (five weeks) it was nearly 40 hours! Is there a tactful, legal way to ask her to make up some of this time (50%?) so that we get more billable hours from her?

Ou company is pro-family, but having done the math this comes out to about 10 full work weeks per year in paid pumping time, time that we cannot bill to our clients.

I answer this question — and two others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

  • I’m not included in meetings about my team’s work
  • Can I borrow language from other job descriptions?
{ 251 comments }

{ 251 comments… read them below }

  1. Amy*

    I ended up exclusively pumping for all three of my children for about 12-13 months each. I can confirm it is incredibly time-consuming. Skipping pumps risks decrease to supply and/or mastitis, which can be incredibly serious. Pumping milk is usually 15-30 minutes per session and that is not counting set up and take down. I get that this is inconvenient for the employer, but this is the reality.

      2. Abundant Shrimp*

        I had mastitis, it is no joke. Ended up in the hospital with an IV in my arm and a 103 degree fever.

    2. GovernerdsUnited*

      Thanks for confirming. I was like…doesn’t pumping take like 20-30 mins per session?? I would think she’s spending the right amount of time pumping and the employer just has no clue how much time it requires. I like Alison’s comment that it’s an expensive lesson. I hop ethe employer doesn’t use this against the next person, tho!

      1. A Reader*

        Yeah, my office mate is currently pumping (like, in general, not right this second), and they’re usually actively engaged in it for about 20-25 minutes, plus there’s set up and clean up. I honestly had no idea about the time it took before they started, and even seeing 90 minutes in the question, I was like, what?!? And then I did the math, LOL.

    3. Lab Lady*

      Yeah, 90 minutes sounds about right for 3 pumping sessions. I do really wonder what they were envisioning.

      1. Lab Lady*

        This is going to be highly employee dependent, but when I was pumping at work, I would save tasks that I could do by staring at a computer screen and talking.

        These included any recorded videos that I had to watch for training purposes. Anything I had to read (I could dictate notes). I set up my computer to be voice responsive (it didn’t work great, but it was better than nothing) I found pumping extremely boring, so when I could multitask even a little it made it easier.

        I wouldn’t tell her that she ‘had’ to do it. But you could add the functionality to her pumping space, and if she gets as bored as I did while pumping, then she’d welcome the distraction.

        1. Loony Lovegood*

          Yeah unfortunately pumping is one of those highly mind-body connection influenced things – so while sometimes I could get some work done, I went through periods of time where stress really decreased my supply, and I had to do things like look at photos or videos of my baby to actually pump some milk. It’s so dependent upon the person! I am not unhappy to be done with this phase of my life and biology!

          1. llama mama*

            Yeah, I was unable to do pretty much anything else while I was pumping because it required both my hands and my attention. It is tedious and not at all something I enjoyed.

          2. Arts Akimbo*

            Same. Pumping was awful for me. I had to sit there meditating and staring at a picture of my baby in order to get anything to come out at all. Letdown was normal with the actual baby, but with the pump? Nope!

          3. Crooked Bird*

            What really got my milk flowing was that nutty “They’re taking the Hobbits to Isengard!” Youtube video. (Repetitive LOTR clips in a weird rhythm set to peppy music, for those who haven’t seen it.) Every time. True story. I think it helped me relax…

        2. EPluribusYourMom*

          I don’t know how you stayed awake. Breastfeeding was like taking two doses of nyquil for me. I could barely keep my eyes open. But watching training videos? Oy vey. You are better than me!

          1. Lab Lady*

            I think the answer is that everyone is different.

            Also — I took a year off for Mat+Parental leave (Canadian Mom), so this was me pumping AFTER I came back. The hormones feel very different at 12 months than at 3 months. The first 6 months of my daughters life I struggled not to fall asleep on the couch while nursing her (and had the luxury to do so because of where I live).

          2. CR*

            I absolutely fell asleep in the pumping room a few times at work. It had a very comfy chair and it was dim and warm…what was I gonna do, *not* nap?!

    4. VermiciousKnid*

      I would budget 45 minutes for each session (actively pumping and setup and clean up) and was pumping at least 2x per work day, sometimes 3, depending on the day. That said, I was usually able to spend the majority of that pumping time firing off emails or doing other admin tasks that didn’t require speaking to another human. It’s really unlikely that she’s sitting there staring into space while pumping, so I don’t understand why they’re categorizing this as wasted time.

      1. Lee Plum*

        That admin time might not be billable. When you work on a billable hours model, you are supposed to only bill time spent working directly on a project. Things like filing papers or reading emails might not count. If you are filing project documents or reading project emails, that counts. If you are reading emails from your employer that are not project related, that does not count.

        1. Arrietty*

          But she would be doing those tasks anyway, no? It’s not like lactating causes an increase in unbillable tasks.

          2. Sneaky Squirrel*

            On a billable hours model, it’s possible she would normally be expected to not have that much time designated for non-billable work. There’s often a target amount of time your company expects you to be billable which can be dependent on your role. Your time on each project would be tracked, such as through a timesheet.

            1. H3llifIknow*

              Yes. As a government contractor, I have always been expected to maintain a target of ~96-99% “utilization” (billable hours). Anything else would go under either General Admin or Training or Marketing/Bus Dev, or Overhead.

        2. fhqwhgads*

          When I worked in a billable world, we were expected to have no more than 2 hours “general admin” per day. So if I were a person pumping and using pumping time to do admin tasks, then theoretically I’d only spend 30 minutes of non-pumping time on admin tasks and thus my billable time wouldn’t be affected.

          If OP’s scenario is more like “as close to 8 hours/day billable as possible” and thus the employee’s 90 minutes is a sudden yikes for them, well, I understand why they’re asking and concerned, but also that’s management’s problem for not understanding. Not the pumping-person’s problem.

          1. Coverage Associate*

            There’s an additional wrinkle that some billable timekeepers are hourly, and some are exempt. Exempt timekeepers usually either make up time spent on personal needs and admin tasks or negotiate a reduced billable target for the time they have increased personal needs. Different people and businesses do this differently, some as intermittent FMLA leave, some as an extended partial maternity leave, etc.

            Hourly timekeepers, such as paralegals by regulation in California, have both billable hours targets but also have to be paid for all time spent working. Smart employers therefore set lower billable targets for hourly timekeepers who have almost no flexibility to make up billable time. The 2 hours admin 6 hours billable allocation sounds very generous for a paralegal though. At my last job, I think it was maybe half that.

            And that’s setting aside whether it’s reasonable to expect someone (including yourself) to do anything work related while pumping. As many have said, that varies from person to person, and probably from post natal period to post natal period.

            1. fhqwhgads*

              I should clarify I have never pumped and will never be in a position to do so, and also am not/was not a paralegal in the example above. It was just a hypothetical based on my personal experience with billable hours, in response to something someone said above about doing admin tasks while pumping not helping on the billable hours front. Not suggesting anyone should need to work while pumping, but if someone chose to, that’s my math for how keeping with the letter’s scenario of “90m per day and it’s coded to admin” would work out iff the acceptable amount of “admin” time were comparable to my previous situation.

      2. Yellow Springs*

        As a previous pump-er, productivity can be highly dependent on the physical space (among other factors). I note the letter writer seems to imply that the pumping space is NOT the employee’s regular office. The setup may not provide an appropriate desk space, in addition to pumping-related challenges that might limit working ability.

    5. Unauthorized Plants*

      Paid time for this does sound amazing! I cobbled together breaks/lunch and pumped in my (locked/blinds-drawn) office so I could work through it. The fact I could keep supply up while doing email is definitely a privilege that other pumping parents may not have.

      The fact they were surprised that is 90 minutes/day tells me that this “pro-family” company could use a bit more diversity in its administration/hiring decision makers.

        1. Emmy Noether*

          Nor paid any kind of attention to someone breastfeeding/pumping*. What, did they think this is a 5 minute task? That boobs work like taps (I wish)?

          *It’s normal for people who don’t have kids to not be aware of what it takes to feed a baby. But they’re “pro-family” and nobody in leadership has kids? Doesn’t smell right.

          1. ghost_cat*

            Can we not? Yes, it is possible to be pro-family (without putting it in “quotes” even) despite not having children. This sort of comment does nothing but encourage division.

            1. agonist*

              Yes but a decision-making team that includes *no* parents whatsoever says something about company culture.

              1. What_the_What*

                I mean, they gave her paid pumping time, which sounds pretty pro-family to me. We also don’t know what she told them regarding how long it’d take? She said 3x a day, and they thought “oh cool, minimal impact” but did she say, 30min per session? They may not have thought to ask, but she also could have said, “On average, I’ve been pumping 3x per day at 30 mins each,” and they’d have known. Can’t blame them for not being familiar with breastfeeding, can blame them a little for not asking for more details, but maybe that felt invasive to ask a woman “so how long does it take you to fill a bottle?”

                1. Sara_bellum*

                  And I think the point is… if someone on that team actually had kids, the time involved wouldn’t a surprise. They’d know what they were agreeing to. If they didn’t could also do research! Or ask her!*

                  But just blindly saying yes, without thinking it through, and then being frustrated does not feel particularly pro-family to me.

                2. Davey*

                  @ Sara_bellum:

                  Not everyone who has kids pumps, so yeah, even some parents are unaware about the nuances of pumping, like the time it can actually take.

                3. Purple Tiger*

                  Yeah I am a working mom with 5 kids and 90 minutes a day was a surprising number to me too. My experience for the one baby I pumped for while working full time was that if I fed the baby before I left and when I got back I could get away with one pump per day. I know I’m atypical in that respect, but I have a lot of friends who say it takes them 20 minutes to pump (even though that isn’t my experience) so I would have guessed 45 minutes – 1hr/day would be a typical range (2-3 pumping times, 20-30 minutes each). Obviously 3 pumps at 30 minutes is also a normal pattern, but it wasn’t where my head went immediately, so I can see how this doesn’t have to mean that they don’t have any women or parents in leadership.

          2. Ally McBeal*

            “Nobody in leadership has kids”

            It’s probably more likely that no one in leadership has ever been a MOTHER (or didn’t have to work when her child/ren were babies). Plenty of dads have no clue what breastfeeding entails.

          3. Slugcat*

            Parents who don’t breastfeed and parents who adopted after the breastfeeding stage exist. Assuming no one has kids based on their lack of knowledge of pumping is universalizing your own experience.

        2. Ellie*

          Breastfeeding is totally different to pumping. Pumping sucks. Nobody knows what it’s like except those who have done it, and most people don’t (because it sucks).

          OP – you should talk through the problem with your employee and work out if there’s anything else she can realistically do while pumping. Is it possible to move some of your other employees admin tasks to her temporarily? You need to support her pumping but that doesn’t mean you can’t work out a way to make it less of an impact on your business. Just make sure you approach her with empathy and a few suggestions, and you should be ok.

      2. Eden*

        Yeah. 30 minutes/session sounds normal to me. She isn’t spending too much time pumping, they just didn’t think through what they were agreeing to.

      3. FattyMPH*

        This part! The only way to be blindsided by this reality was to have 0 women as part of the decision-making process (and also 0 life experience with new moms outside of work). I’d be embarrassed! Then again, i’m not a man.

        1. Troubadour*

          Not all women are mothers (hi!) so they could definitely have women as part of the decision-making process but still not know anything about breastfeeding. What they clearly didn’t have as part of the decision-making process, however, is people who do their research before making decisions, which is a different kind of concerning.

          1. cchrissyy*

            yeah, it’s ok if nobody knew off-hand how much time is this going to take, but it’s weird that the company makes decisions without doing a couple minutes of research.

            if the company wants to keep this image of being pro-family, and does not want to take a few minutes to google the question of what is a normal amount of time, well then they should expect these types of surprises!

        2. Dancing Otter*

          I nursed my daughter for almost a year. I was even a member of the La Leche League. So I think I can claim some life experience on the subject.

          But I have zero experience with modern pumps. The old hand-powered pumps didn’t take that long, so I’d be surprised, too.

      5. daffodil*

        To be fair, I was not really forming memories well during the time period I pumped at work, due to the lack of sleep. 30 min/session seems reasonable to me but I couldn’t tell you how long mine were. I also wasn’t on a billable hours system so I didn’t really track it.

    6. Ash*

      Yep! I have to wonder how many ppl don’t realize it Takes Time. You can’t exactly just turn the milk off & cut it short. And yeah, can’t forget setup & cleanup. Trust us, there were soooo many times I was unbelievably frustrated when pumping and/or nursing. I had to do it every 3 hrs, day n night or risk mastitis.

      1. fhqwhgads*

        Every time this topic comes up in a letter I think of the episode of New Girl when Cece is pumping at work. Brilliant comedy in a sad-it’s-realistic way.

      2. Momma Bear*

        People who have not experienced the pain (or embarrassment) of being engorged should keep their mouths shut. That’s even before mastitis or any other condition.

      3. SimonTheGreyWarden*

        Me too – I had an oversupply and exclusively pumped and it was without a doubt the most miserable thing in the world to me, and I did that for a year.

      4. CityMouse*

        Aroujd 8 months and after a bout of mastitis, I actually switched to going down to the daycare and nursing (it was in building) because it took less time and was easier on my body. I hated pumping.

    7. some dude*

      90 minutes a day is…how long it takes to breastfeed.

      I get that ‘losing’ ~7.5 billable hours a week is less than ideal.However, given that she won’t be doing this forever, it allows her to be present and at her job the rest of the day, and she is producing food from her body to feed a growing human being, I’d caution against not paying for it. A loss of 7.5 billable hours isn’t a massive price to pay to be ‘pro family.’

    8. Momma Bear*

      This is why it needs to be legally protected. I had a manager who would go find me when she thought I was gone too long, and it stressed me out, which made it even worse. I started taking materials to the pumping room to review sometimes, which also wasn’t great. Stress can lower your output. I beg LW and their company not to see it as a loss, but as an investment in a good employee. How much would it cost to replace her? This is temporary and will ease up as the baby gets older. Please don’t make this harder on her than necessary. I pumped for my baby at work for a year. It’s hard enough to leave your baby home, and for many mothers that starts as early as 6 weeks because of crappy maternity leave policies. If you have not literally cried over spilled milk, take a seat. Support your employees when they start families. I guarantee you that there’s coffee break chatters that use more time than you are aware of, too. At least she’s being productive.

    9. Just Me*

      Yes to this. The former head of HR at my company (cis-woman, no kids, and definitely did NOT want them), thought a maximum of 10 minutes, 2 times a day was more than sufficient. Typically it took me 20-25 minutes just to pump, plus 5-10 minutes for set-up and shutdown. Thankfully my manager at the time, a dad to 3 kids, knew 10 minutes wasn’t enough and since I’m exempt and didn’t need to clock out, he just conveniently “overlooked” how long I was away from desk when I pumped.

      Same HR manager also insisted I had to use the multi-stall bathroom to pump. Before I could protest, a high-up (cis-woman w/o kids, but loves children) found out and insisted I got a small locker room space with a sink that wasn’t used very often.

      It’s frustrating how much my HR manager made my pump breaks seem like such an inconvenience. Meanwhile the number of co-workers who spend the first 30-60 minutes each morning chatting about sports or their weekend or whatever or take 3-4 smoke breaks each day, were not scrutinized at the same level I was.

      1. One drink wonder*

        When I had our first child over 30 years ago, the only place to pump WAS the restroom in a stall. It was revolting. By the time I had our second I at least had my own office. I’m so glad many women today have lactation rooms but it’s sad how many clueless supervisors there are.

      2. STEMProf*

        That last part right there!!
        I became SO efficient when I had kids because I needed to deal with pumping and pick up. I spent way less time chatting with colleagues (and at least one senior faculty member would get annoyed about it, saying “I never see you anymore!” Yes, because I’m in my office getting my work done instead of listening to you talk about your weekend!)

      3. Capybara*

        This comment shows that not all feminists are women and not all women are feminists.

          1. Katie Impact*

            No nesting fail here; you put the post in the correct place, this is just how it looks when there are multiple replies to the same post.

      4. anon for this*

        I mean that’s crappy behavior…whether or not the cis woman had or liked kids is irrelevant, and continues to drag down child free people, as if the only valid way of being child free is if you still like kids (I mean I guess that’s progress? Better than all child free women have something wrong with them?). I’m child free and absolutely do not enjoy kids. I vote to increase taxes to fund public schools, more paid family leave, better working situations for new parents, etc. This framing the ones who did or did not like kids is unnecessary.

    10. bamcheeks*

      I only pumped after going back to work at 7 months, but my experience was that the amount of time needed to express changes significantly over the course of the baby’s first year. Babies typically start solids at six months, and some babies switch pretty quickly to getting the majority of their calories from food. My younger daughter stayed predominantly breastfed until 12 months, but pretty consistently refused expressed milk in a bottle after 7 months and just waited until I got home for a massive feed.

      So give it three or four months, and you might find the amount of time spent expressing milk drops to 2 x 20mins, and two or three months after that it stops completely, without you needing to do anything that damages the employee’s trust in you. Even if it does stay at the higher end, the need to pump for longer periods is *very* unlikely to
      last beyond the baby’s first birthday. It’s just such a very short time of someone’s working career: if the business can afford to eat it for 8-10 months, it’s almost certainly cheaper than losing an employee and replacing her.

      1. Heirloom Tomato Heiress*

        That’s hilarious to me – I still pump at 2.5 years most days one time lunch adjacent because if I don’t, I can’t go for a run, thanks to my “booby monster” (who would still prefer to nurse than eat solid food most days). It’s not really what I want to do for 20 minutes plus prep/washing. At one point I was pumping every 2 hours and my boss didn’t care since she knew this was short term in the scheme of things.

        1. bamcheeks*

          Which bit is hilarious? That sounds pretty much like my experience! I’m not saying that people never express longer term, just that it’s pretty unlikely for 3 x 30 min to last more than a few months!

      2. Media Monkey*

        this was my experience too (although wasn’t back at work – thanks UK! – so I didn’t really pump much). she started on proper solids at 6 months, was on 2 meals a day with a lunchtime feed and maybe a top up in the afternoon by 7.5 months, 3 meals a day and formula in a bottle in the afternoon by 9 months (feeding morning and evening which obviously wouldn’t disrupt the working day). I stopped BFing about 9 months and swapped to formula and then cows milk at 1. depends if you have a good eater though.

        however the company could offer decent mat leave instead of complaining about pumping if they were truly family friendly….

    11. E*

      Exactly – this is NOT an unreasonable time for pumping, and there is NO WAY you can accelerate it or go any faster.

    12. Not Tom, Just Petty*

      I always think, “we exceed the minimum requirements of the law to give our staff everything they need while breastfeeding.”
      followed by
      “Wait. Not like that.”
      Kind of the way “unlimited vacation” turned into Lord of the Flies-esque, “Bob took off THREE DAYS last month!”

    2. Autumn*

      That seems harsh! LW is asking a legitimate question. They’re not trying to stop their employee from pumping or punish her for pumping. They just realized the set-up is taking an unexpected toll on the business and are hoping to mitigate it while remaining fair to the employee.

      I’d far prefer employers ask questions like this than jump straight to a discriminatory, unfair, or even unlawful “solution”.

      1. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

        I think employers should refrain from calling themselves pro-family when they are only pro-family if it doesn’t affect their revenues.

        2. Householder*

          Yes. This very much read to me as “We’ve discovered that trying to be understanding and compassionate towards our employee is too costly. How do we get out of that?”

        3. bamcheeks*

          Yeah, I also think you’re probably not that pro-family if this is the first time you’ve had a breastfeeding employee, unless you’re a tiny or brand-new company. This is just “not actively anti-family”.

        4. What's that in the road - a head?*

          “I think employers should refrain from calling themselves pro-family when they are only pro-family if it doesn’t affect their revenues.”

          Came here to say this. OP’s employer wants to be seen as pro-family, but not if it’s slightly inconvenient for them?

      2. I'm Just Here for the Cats!!*

        It’s 90 minutes a day. The way they make it sound is like she is pumping for hours at a time.

        1. Momma Bear*

          I personally also cut short/used my lunch break. Bearing in mind that many people take 15 minute breaks after x number of hours (two 15 min. breaks + an hour lunch) she might actually be in line with everyone else. She’s just documenting it.

          1. Midwestern Communicator*

            Most people are not 100% productive for 40 hours a week. It’s misleading – the LW doesn’t say anything about this woman’s productivity, just that she is billing 90 minutes less.

            Moms and babies are necessary for a society to thrive and survive. If they really are “pro-family” they need to let this go.

          2. duinath*

            maybe so, but it is the reality and it is something they agreed to. you can’t be pro family and also anti feeding babies, and you don’t get sympathy from me for agreeing to do something without doing a bit of research into what it entails and then finding it too expensive after the fact.

            tbh i’m reminded of business owners who feel betrayed at not being told the person they just hired was pregnant until after they hired them.

            can we stop punishing people for giving birth sometime this century please?

      3. Unauthorized Plants*

        I don’t think it is harsh. I think rage is a pretty logical emotion to have when reading about how unexpected this *very normal* amount of time to pump was to this LW. I’m also glad they asked, but the fact they had to ask because they didn’t do the math or think through what they were agreeing to when negotiating when there’s a glut of resources they could consult? Kinda enraging!

        1. Bathyphysa Conifera*

          This is 4th grade math. Yes, 3 30 minute sessions is 90 minutes per day. That’s just under 8 hours/week, and so 40 hours in 5 weeks. Why is anyone surprised?

        2. Jill of All Trades*

          It’s frustrating that they didn’t check the amount of time pumping usually takes. That’s on the employer.

          …but I really feel like everyone posting here truly does not understand billable hours and the culture those usually bring. The letter writer needs a bit of a reality check: Toxic Job has, as we’ve seen before, altered their perception of what is normal. For the commentary, here’s our reality check: billable hours often mean a very challenging industry culture where you are a cog in the wheel and your purpose is to spin and directly produce money.

          At my old job, someone billing 90 extra minutes a day to admin time meant that they weren’t meeting targets. Sure, if they had an agreement to get paid, they were. But that reduction in billable hours would hit them during the next annual review because their targets weren’t revised to account for the extra 90 minutes of admin time. If you don’t produce enough money, you don’t get a raise, and you don’t get promoted.

          If you’re furious, I think that’s reasonable; but rage instead at the culture that has created this scenario while offering more gentle corrections to the letter writer themselves.

          1. sb51*

            Yeah. “We thought pumping was 15 minutes a day when we made that offer, because we’re silly geese and didn’t actually research; we need this to be unpaid time rather than paid. Would you prefer to step down to 3/4 time and have a similar workday or stay late/come in early?” is not the nicest thing to have to say to an employee, and you could lose her, but if it’s really going to break the bank, or there’s no way to make it not tank her next performance review, maybe it’s the right answer.

          3. Pineapple Colada*

            I don’t need a reality check, nor do I feel a lot of the other commenters do.

            I absolutely understand and empathize with the stress of working in a billable hours culture. However, this means that as the company operating in said culture, the onus is on them to do the (very basic) math required, to make sure it works for them financially—in ADVANCE of offering it and then contemplating rescinding it.

            Theres no amount of stressful culture that makes it okay for a company to essentially “wing it” on an employee’s compensation package, which is what this is.

          4. Beth*

            I have billable hours. We take them reasonably seriously. If I’m not meeting expectations, I wouldn’t expect a merit raise and definitely wouldn’t get promoted. Under normal circumstances, if I wasn’t meeting expectations, I’d be worried about low performance ratings.

            But my employer would never agree to something that lowered my billable hours and then hold that arrangement against me. If I was in this employee’s shoes, with the agreement about pumping that she had, I wouldn’t expect a promotion, and I wouldn’t expect it to be an “exceeds expectations” kind of year. (Personally, that wouldn’t be my priority with a new baby!) But assuming I was meeting the hours we agreed to and my work was of good quality, I’d expect to get a “meets expectations” rating and a raise that corresponds to that level.

            If my employer wasn’t up for that, I’d expect them to have reviewed the potential arrangement seriously, raised their concerns during the discussion process, and not agreed to anything they weren’t actually on board with.

          5. Householder*

            I don’t think it’s misplaced. The culture of predatory greed is not exclusive to billable hours, but regardless, a compassionate person would approach this from the standpoint of “How do I shield the employee from this?” Not “How do I backtrack on what we promised because I didn’t do the math beforehand?”

            Just because the culture is insane doesn’t exonerate the LW for their priorities and approach.

      4. AngryOwl*

        “I’d prefer employers not be discriminatory” is a pretty low bar. That low bar doesn’t mean LadyAmalthea was harsh.

      5. Resume Please*

        Whether the question is legitimate or not doesn’t negate the fact that people can and do have emotions about this, and they are valid. Also, “hoping to mitigate it” in this instance means trying to lower the employee’s time pumping while claiming to be “pro-family” and after explicitely telling her she could pump three times a day.

      6. What on earth*

        But the *entire* vibe of their letter is so discriminatory. It’s completely “we never would have hired her if we knew how much her pumping would impact us”.

        Also, if you negotiated for something, like a certain per hour wage, and then weeks after you started the company said “Wow, your salary is really starting to add up! Can we pay you less?”, you would also be furious. That is what is happening here. The employee negotiated a benefit (that her pumping breaks would be paid rather than unpaid) and now the company is trying to walk that back.

        This is the kind of thing that only happens to women, is utterly shameful, and why it’s so hard for us to work while having children.

        1. Pineapple Colada*

          Amen!

          I’m flabbergasted. All the people proposing they just renegotiate the agreement with her; should imagine if they agreed upon a certain salary and took a job depending on that salary; and then 3 months after starting the company proposed lowering it.

          1. Householder*

            This exactly. You’re functionally dealing with a situation where an employer is saying “We promised to pay the employee X, but turns out we’re bad at math so how do we decrease it after the fact?” It’s reprehensible regardless of what their reasoning is.

            1. potato rock*

              It’s frustrating, and a terrible situation for an employee to be in, but it does happen – all the time – that people get laid off 3 months in, or furloughed/salary reduced, or the company is bad at planning and hired a llama groomer, then realizes they really need a llama mechanic and fires the groomer.

              A good person – and a good company – should take the negative effect on the employee very seriously and try very hard to mitigate it, including with $$$ (for example, paying generous severance). If the company in this case *can* swing the reduced billable hours, they should do it. If they can’t, they should do as much as possible (can they meet halfway?). But having a specific deal in your employment arrangement, or a job at all, isn’t set up as an ongoing guarantee in the US system. Maybe it should be closer to that! But it’s not.

              1. Pineapple Colada*

                This does not happen “all the time”. This happens in extenuating circumstances that cannot be planned for.

                This was very much known and something that could be planned for. It’s not comparable to a situation where market conditions changed drastically and so remedies were taken.

                Your example of “oh oops we hired a llama groomer and we need a mechanic so let’s fire the groomer” is an example of another type of crappy employer, but there’s no need to normalize it, just like there’s no need to make what this company is doing okay.

      7. fhqwhgads*

        The part where it was unexpected to the business shows a real lack of knowledge on the business’s part, like unreasonably so.
        Absolutely yes better to ask and aim to do it right than jump to something discriminatory. But the company still gets some side-eye for being caught off guard in the first place.

      8. Ginger Cat Lady*

        No more harsh than the question itself, which absolutely shows that they don’t actually support their employees, and put money over people. The “is there a tactful, legal way to get out of being a good employer and extract more profit out of a new mom to whom we made promises we can’t profit from?” is a harsh ask.

      9. Beth*

        LW says their company signed up for this with the understanding that the employee would be taking time to pump three times a day for about a year and would be paid for the time used to pump. The arrangement is for her to use unbillable hours for it. What they’re getting is exactly what they signed up for. The ‘unexpected toll’ here is only unexpected because they didn’t bother to do basic math before agreeing to this setup.

        It’s really frustrating for them to take their own mistake and respond with “how can we legally extract more hours from this employee?” instead of “okay, we shouldn’t have agreed to that, we’ll ride it out and take the lesson for next time.” The employee did everything right. She communicated her situation and needs, proposed a solution that would work for her, and came to an agreement with her employer. It would be really unfair to her for her employer to renege on that agreement just because they didn’t think it through.

    3. Lee Plum*

      Federal law allows employers to expect nursing employees to work during paid nursing breaks.
      You can feel rage, but the reality is that the LW is not wrong to want that work to be billable hours.

      1. Ask a Manager* Post author

        Except that wasn’t their agreement with her. And not every woman can work while pumping; some need to stay fully relaxed or focused on thinking about their baby for their milk to let down.

        1. Jill of All Trades*

          A common theme in your blog is that ethics =/= law. Employers legally retract negotiated employment benefits all the time; we see it in remote position postings frequently. Legally, LW may be in the clear to retract the agreement. Ethically and professionally, I would say they definitely need to abide by the agreement they made, but if we want to rely on the employer to make the most ethical and professional decision, I won’t be holding my breath.

      2. Rex Libris*

        Federal law allows employers to fire people because they don’t like their shoes. What’s legal and what’s ethical are not in the same universe, particularly in the U.S.

    4. Midwestern Communicator*

      I agree. Especially as a working mom in the United States – where you have almost no societal support in the first year – a company acting as if this was not going to be the very normal case is quite frustrating.

      Moms everywhere are inundated with messages that breastfeeding is the best way to feed their baby – and our country has such little actual support for this being the case. Pumping is mentally exhausting.

      The LW’s letter came off as if the employee was doing something wrong – and they are not. 90 minutes a day is very reasonable.

      Think about the time it would require them to train a brand new employee instead of just earning the loyalty of the pumping employee who is likely to stay with them because they are “pro-family”.

      My company has earned my loyalty to stay because they are flexible with family and have mandates about making sure managers give flexibility to pumping parents.

    5. Ginger Cat Lady*

      Same. Especially once I read the details and saw that this woman is using a very reasonable amount of time to pump. How long did they THINK pumping would take?

      1. badgerdog*

        They were supremely confident in that way that so many people are when they have never attempted to care for a baby or small child. On some level they realise they don’t know what it entails, but they go ahead and make assumptions regardless. It never occurs to them to look it up or ask anyone because, well, surely it can’t be that difficult. Surely the impact will be minimal. After all, this is work chiefly done by women, mostly out of sight where real people don’t have to see it happening. It can’t be hard.

    6. Thegreatprevaricator*

      Same same. Burn late capitalism down and you can take the (I’m assuming) USA toxic productivity cult too. I’m just :o at this. In the grand scheme of things, how much does this policy cost and has the employer calculated improved retention and other associated benefits? Family friendly my eye.

    7. Laser99*

      Every time I read a post regarding pumping, I think about what it would be like to…well, not have to do it. If we yearlong paid maternity leave. I just googled it and apparently at least 120 countries do.

  3. HannahS*

    Hard agree with Alison on #1. How did the company not ask how long it would take and realize that this time would cost them money? Pumping 3x a day for 30 minutes each time is frankly pretty efficient. If they didn’t know the time commitment, they should have asked before agreeing to make it paid time.

    When I was expressing milk, I had to leave the communal workspace, go to where I stored my stuff, get my equipment, go to the bookable private space, set up, be tortured by the stupid horrible pump, unhook everything, go to the kitchen, cap the bottles, stuff everything into the travel bag, put it in the fridge, and THEN return to work. And then repeat several hours later. I couldn’t get work done while expressing milk, both because a lot of my work-tasks are client facing and because I found pumping so uncomfortable that I couldn’t focus on computer work. In my case, I’m salaried and there was no reduction in my work; I just worked faster efficiently/finished things late at night to make up for the time I spent pumping. It sucked.

    1. JustaTech*

      I couldn’t work while I pumped at work because they room that was designated for pumping had these chairs with itty bitty attached side tables, and no other tables. So there was exactly enough room for the pump and nothing else.
      And it’s not like I could have my laptop on my lap while I was pumping (that space was occupied with bottles).
      So I froze my chest off (air handling issues) and read parenting books or played sudoku.

      1. Meganly*

        The room I pumped in didn’t even have a table for the pump lol. I would put the pump on one arm of the (admittedly very cushy and comfy) chair and my laptop on the other arm. I could have used the counter, probably, but it would have been uncomfortable. There was a fridge, sink, and storage though, so I didn’t have to waltz around to gather mythings together or put my milk or pump parts away. I was not a fan of the dude who would lock the door to the pumping room so that he could sit in the comfy chair and watch anime, though. He stopped after I very thoroughly humiliated him once.

        1. HannahS*

          Good for you! I pumped in three hospital worksites: one was a bookable office (that was fine,) one was a dirty, decomissioned lounge space in a wing of the hospital that was about to be demolished and was never cleaned, and the third was in a call-room, which was a contract violation. I’m in Canada so my maternity leave entitlement is generous, and next time I will not be returning to work until baby only needs nursing in the morning and at night. No pumping at work again.

    2. Specks*

      They’re also freaking out about something that 1) may not be for as long as they’re imagining and 2) is guaranteed to reduce in frequency. Again, without talking to their employee. Any nursing mother will tell them that the pumping will decrease from 3x over 8 hours to 2x soon, to 0-1x during the workday by a year old for most kids. And many don’t make it to a year at all, because pumping sucks and we should all be given decent maternity leave instead to be with our kids while nursing, like we live in an incredibly wealthy country that loves to talk about how pro-family it is and that could easily afford it if we just stopped bombing kids in other countries and funneling money to whomever lobbies hardest.

  4. A pumping mom*

    Being a pumping mom in a field with billable hours is so hard. They have to let me pump, but they don’t have to reduce my charge hour goal for the year because of it. I just pump while I work (I work from home) because I don’t want to make up the time. It’s hard :-(

    1. Ellis Bell*

      As someone who has never worked in a billable hours field; is this something that’s just impossible to do? Or is it just something these companies shirk from doing because they can? It seems from other comments like there’s no way to avoid dinging nursing mothers under these systems which seems contrary to spirit of the laws set up to protect their rights.

      1. Anon attorney*

        they could simply reduce your target – the number of chargeable hours is just a choice the business has made – but they probably won’t!

      2. HBJ*

        It’s not dinging nursing mothers specifically. It’s dinging anyone who takes multiple extended breaks during the day for any reason. So if you had, I don’t know, narcolepsy and had to take 3, 30-minute naps during the day to get rid of sleepiness, you’d also have to make up that time.

      3. Cmdrshprd*

        “It seems from other comments like there’s no way to avoid dinging nursing mothers under these systems which seems contrary to spirit of the laws set up to protect their rights.”

        IANAL but my understanding is they have to give you time/space to pump but they don’t have to necessarily reduce goals/target. That is why hourly employees are not required to be paid, they have to be given the time to pump but it can be unpaid time.

        Kinda like FMLA that they are required to give you the leave, but they don’t have to pay you for it, I would say it is a half measure.

      4. Malarkey01*

        It depends on the scenario and the staffing. Billable hours is how the company gets paid and then pays employees. So for some services if you bill 7 hours instead of 2 you’re missing 2 hours of revenue that were previously expected.

        In other setups your client is entitled to x number of hours per week or month. If Jane is short 5 hours she normally puts into client, someone else has to be pulled over to assist.

        In a lot of places billables are the only performance metric and any list of billable time is a huge deal. Other places it’s more accounting but you don’t live and die by them.

      5. A pumping mom*

        You either work more to hit your goals or you don’t and you might miss out a little bit on raises, bonuses, promotions, etc. depending on how your company handles all those things.

      6. Ann*

        I think this time is typically unpaid. When I pumped, I lost about an hour’s worth of work every day, and had to make it up from home at nights or on weekends. Mixed blessing that I have almost no supply when I pump, so I cut down to one feeding a day and then to no daytime pumping without too much guilt – it’s not like the two ounces I brought home were making a big difference…

  5. MC*

    The LW absolutely cannot backtrack on their agreement, but could check in about how she logs her time and remind her that, while she’s in no way obligated, if she is reading work emails, engaging on Slack/Teams, or reviewing project materials etc while pumping, she should be logging that as billable time.

    1. Resume Please*

      This might be the way. They could suggest that she responds to emails, etc, but no obligation.

      Also, do the employees at this company take lunch for 30 min to an hour each day? Perhaps she could work during lunch, only if needed?

      1. Dahlia*

        Seems unfair that she wouldn’t get a lunch because she’s breastfeeding… which is when you need to eat even more.

        1. Resume Please*

          Completely fair, only spitballing. Wish we could edit – i wrote it and went “ugh…not what I meant to convey…”

    2. Ann*

      She probably knows and the scramble for billable hours must be very much on her mind. When you have a baby you lose billable hours left and right – got out the house late because they’re crying, child care fell through, child care ends early, sick day, this, that. I’m sure she is already billing everything she can, and the suggestion, while meant kindly, will come across as pressure to stop wasting the company’s time on this pumping nonsense already.

  6. Required*

    To LW1, do you also track all the time that people stop and chit-chat? How much time does that add up for each individual person that they may or may not be charging to clients anyways under the guise of networking? I’m betting you’re spending more than 10 weeks on other employees that are also not being productive. I’m also willing to bet the nursing mother does NOT want to spend 90 minutes per day pumping at work but does because she needs to.

    1. Antilles*

      This is what came to my mind too. If you actually added the time people spent chit-chatting, checking personal email, grabbing coffee in the break room, reading website, etc…she’s probably not that far out of line with everybody else.
      It’s just that she’s line-iteming it out on her timesheet so it’s noticeable and trackable while other people’s just gets buried.

    3. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      She may well spend the same amount of time chatting and having coffee etc as well as pumping, or each day would be a stressful grind.
      (As with smoking !) these breaks are likely in addition to normal breaks, or in a pressured billing environment I’m sure they would have told her to bill them partly to clients.

      1. Required*

        Probably not even close to as much as everyone else because she still needs to get her work done and is trying to. The work that needs to get done doesn’t magically go away.

    4. Claire*

      I’d be curious to know what industry allows “networking” time to be billed to a client. It certainly wasn’t when I worked for a consulting firm.

      1. Required*

        Maybe networking isn’t the best term, but for example, you and a colleague are both working on a project. You meet up to discuss stuff on that project. There may be a decent amount of non-productive conversation in that meeting. I’m not saying that everyone does this, but I do know of people who are very chatty and can spend 90 minutes per day discussing random stuff that may even be work related but isn’t productive while also charging a full 8-hour day (and not staying more than 8-8.5 hours). Unless LW1 is ALSO on these people (because they exist everywhere), then I’m not sure they have a moral high ground.

    5. potato rock*

      But those employees aren’t billing chitchat hours to overhead.

      In a billable hours field, if you are a chitchatter/break taker, you either are working more than 8-5 to hit your billable target (after deducting your non billable time); or you’re billing clients for that time – and then you either are productive enough the rest of the time that clients feel like they get their money’s worth, or they don’t and you get fired.

      None of that changes that this company made an offer to a valued employee, the employee has relied on it and planned on it remaining in place, and the company should honor it if they can. But it’s unusual for a billable-hours company to offer to cover pumping time & this is why.

    6. Abundant Shrimp*

      Ha! I absolutely sat next to teammates in the many cube farms I’ve worked in who never as much as paused for a breath, chatting chatting chatting nonstop during the workday. Not doing any work themselves and distracting everyone in earshot.

    7. Nodramalama*

      I mean seperately to the question of breastfeeding, unless those people are chit chatting about a matter, they shouldn’t be billing for that. Or billing for “networking”. I don’t know a single client who would be happy to get a bill and see “got coffee” on there.

    8. MeepMeep123*

      If you’re tracking billable hours, no you don’t track chit-chat and “networking”. You track ONLY the work time that the client is willing to pay for. That’s how you can end up at work for 8 hours and only bill 5, for example. So no, breastfeeding time wouldn’t be billable, and neither is chit-chat time.

      Now, if the nursing mom could answer emails or do some low-level stuff that could be billable, she could count her nursing time as billable hours.

  7. Yallidarity*

    As a 33 year old woman wanting to start a family sometime soon, what a nightmare we are living in… I will keep it non-political given the forum, but it is so scary to have all your safety nets and security tied exclusively to a job that can arbitrarily decide they want change it. You can’t just…. Not pump. So I guess her other options are taking a pay cut in the way of unpaid pumping time, cut into her time with her infancy (requiring more pumping) to finish the work, or decide to leave because neither of these are great options.

  8. Anna*

    Yes, as a breastfeeding working mom, I can confirm that 90 minutes per day (3 x 30 minute sessions) sounds exactly right for the time required to produce enough milk for daycare feedings. Some moms are able to use wearable pumps and work on their laptops during pumping sessions; others don’t respond as well to wearables (decreased output) and/or have trouble with their letdown if they try to work the whole time they’re pumping. The decision to feed breast milk or formula should be made by the mom, not her employer pressuring her to pump less (which will result in decreased milk output as Amy said). I really get what a huge time penalty it is, but it’s not forever. My baby turns one very soon and the past year has flown by. My employer gained more by me being here, working, since 9 weeks postpartum versus me being on leave all year, even with my 3x per day pumping breaks.

  9. Someone Else's Boss*

    LW1: Focus on other non-billable hours you can adjust. For example, is there any grunt work that a lower level employee could take on so that the employee doesn’t have to bother with those types of tasks? Taking away her paid pumping time will not serve you well in the long run.

  10. Robin*

    It took me exactly 90 minutes per day for a whole year: three half-hour pump breaks at 9:30, 12:30 (half my lunch), and 3:30. The timing went:

    10 minutes: Grab bag and go to pumping space; disinfect countertop and shared hospital-grade pump; set up equipment.
    10-12 minutes: Pump. I couldn’t work during this time because it stressed me out, which reduced output. I could get a second letdown around minute 10-11 if I was lucky.
    8-10 minutes: Clean up and return to office.

    Each pump session was a tight 30; no less. Three sessions a day would give me enough milk to feed my kid for the following day. I protected that time fully. This is simply the time it takes.

    1. JAnon*

      And this is generous! I pumped for 13 months and I needed to pump for at least 20 minutes, sometimes 30 depending on output.

    2. Peanut Hamper*

      Thank you for the breakdown. I’m familiar with breastfeeding, but pumping has equipment to deal with and that takes time. I honestly thought 90 minutes a day was pretty realistic, and if anything, a bit on the short side. I was thinking about two hours throughout the day.

    3. Abundant Shrimp*

      This is a great breakdown and I hope LW sees it and understands that at 8 hours per workweek, his employee is going as fast as she humanly can.

      I never pumped, or even saw a pump. I was in my country of birth, out of work, and with my kid attached to my boob for most of my waking AND sleeping hours.

  11. Green Great Dragon*

    LW, just so you know, if you make her feel stressed about pumping it may take her longer because some people need to be relaxed for the milk to come.

    1. nora*

      I’m literally never going to be in this situation but if I was LW’s employee and they treated me like that, I’d take twice as long just to spite them.

  12. My nipples are for decorative purposes only*

    From the comments, it certainly sounds like this is a very reasonable amount of time to spend pumping. But as a guy, I had no idea whether it was reasonable or egregious until I read the comments. So from that perspective, I can understand how an employer might not have realized what they were offering. “Paid time to pump” sounds like a reasonable thing, until they realized the employee would be nonbillable for almost 20% of an eight hour day. From a budget perspective, it’s like saying, “you can just work 4 eight hour days per week”.

    That being said, Allison’s advice sounds correct to me: the employer can’t revenge on the deal. They should be grateful that nursing is a temporary thing and not a permanent condition, so the cost of their miscalculation is finite. But as another commenter pointed out, it does highlight something about the diversity of their chain of command that there was no one who could recognize the full implications of what they were offering.

      1. Lady Lessa*

        Same here. I’m glad that the mothers who have pumped are filling us in with the details.

      2. Victoria*

        Yep, I didn’t know. I actually don’t know anyone who pumped but that’s probably most of my friends took a year for mat leave and weren’t breast feeding after that, or made other choices for feeding their babies. And they don’t tend to discuss their breast feeding experience with me because what would I bring to that conversation except nodding?

        This is not to excuse the employer, who should hold up their end; children are a social good and parents should be supported. But this doesn’t feel like “universal” knowledge.

        1. badgerdog*

          It’s not universal knowledge, but that’s exactly why people to whom it becomes relevant need to go find out rather than make assumptions.

          1. GammaGirl1908*

            … and eat the mistake** when they make it, instead of trying to punish / renege on the employee who is already breaking herself in half to do this.

            There probably even were people in the conversation whose spouses nursed their children, but, once again, the amount of time and effort it took was invisible to (and undervalued by) most people except the one doing it, so they figured it was no big deal and would stay invisible. Now that it has a dollar value, it’s suddenly a huge deal.

            **This wasn’t a mistake. This is … how long it takes to pump. I have never had children, and I’m not surprised by this. It’s a LOT of time and effort.

    3. Happily Retired*

      “…But as a guy, I had no idea whether it was reasonable or egregious until I read the comments. So from that perspective, I can understand how an employer might not have realized what they were offering.”

      This is kind of the point.

      When the company was working through this understanding with the new hire, did any of the decision-makers have any experience with using breast pumps? If not, why on earth did they believe that they could just spitball it without asking several experienced people how this all worked?

      This smacks (once again) of people in power making decisions for women without having a clue of what women actually experience or bothering to involve them in the process.

      I (a woman) nursed my three kids, but I never had to pump, as I was at home at the time. But if for some reason I had had to set policy for this, I sure as hell would have picked up the damn phoned and asked those who actually knew what was involved.

      1. Sara_bellum*

        YES. I also nursed over two years, but from home while freelancing. Even with all my breastfeeding experience – I couldn’t tell you how long a pumping session at work takes, so I would research!

    4. Jill of All Trades*

      Thank you for offering up a measured response to this letter that points out both the “20% of an 8 hour day” and the diversity point – a lot of other folks above are very angry. Frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if LW’s job was in jeopardy over this. The corporate culture is the overarching issue in my opinion; the LW is trapped by their mistake of negotiating uninformed and is now anxious about how to deal with it in the context of their toxic corporate culture. Going back on the agreement with the employee is the least ethical way to handle it in my opinion, so they really need to find another option.

      1. Ginger Cat Lady*

        If they fire her for pumping when she was promised time for pumping they have a massive lawsuit coming. Her job should NOT be in jeopardy for breastfeeding and for billing the time exactly as agreed.

        1. Filthy Vulgar Mercenary*

          I mixed this up too. But the LW is the boss of the pumping employee, not the pumping employee. They may have messed up by promising more than they realized (paid pumping time) since they didn’t know how long it took.

        2. HannahS*

          I don’t think the anger comes from not understanding what a significant amount of paid labor the company is missing out on–it IS a significant amount of time, and therefore money! The anger is at the company’s foolishness in agreeing to something without understanding it, and then wanting to penalize the employee.

          It’s as if they’d heard an applicant say, “I need to leave early to pick up my child from school” and gone, “Oh, sure, great, no problem” without bothering to ask, “What time will you need to leave?” and then being utterly shocked when the employee leaves at 3:30 each day.

          Lots of people don’t know lots of things! I don’t expect the people to know much about what’s involved in expressing milk (or having regular medical appointments or having caregiving obligations) but I do expect them to ask before entering into financial agreements about it.

        3. potato rock*

          Legally, I simply don’t think you’re correct here. They are legally required to give her UNPAID time for pumping. They are not required to give her PAID pumping time, and they can legally fire her for something like not meeting monthly utilization reqs (% of hours worked that are client billable); or require her to add billable hours in the evening or whatever.

    5. Anna*

      I love your username!

      Your comment illustrates how in the modern world, particularly in the corporate world, basic understanding of breastfeeding is no longer mainstream knowledge. Before it was relevant to me, I was also pretty clueless lol. One does find oneself wishing LW’s employer had done even just a minimal amount of researching the topic – so much great information is easily findable.

      1. STEMProf*

        There’s also a big time difference between breastfeeding and pumping. It was way faster for me to breastfeed than to pump the same amount of milk.* With my second, post covid baby, I worked from home for a year after he was born. I had childcare at home, but just nursed him rather than pumping. So much time saved. Pumping is a particular kind of hell that you wouldn’t necessarily know about unless you or a loved one have lived through it.
        *unless baby was cluster feeding

        1. Anna*

          Oh sorry – yes, to clarify I used “breastfeeding” as a catch-all term to include both nursing and expressing breast milk via pumping. I agree, nursing is much more efficient. I pump during the workday and nurse when I’m at home, and I totally agree with you about pumping being hell!

        2. WS*

          Yes, I had a co-worker who breastfed her first baby at work: her mother-in-law lived literally across the street, looked after the baby in the day and would drop in with the baby when she needed to be fed. But her second baby had some health issues and had problems latching and had to be fed with a specialised bottle, so she needed to pump. That was much, much harder and more time-consuming and she ended up having to extend her maternity leave, which is obviously not an option for US workers.

    6. hypoglycemic rage (she/her)*

      right – i am a 34 year old cis female who does not have or want kids, and i had no idea how much time breastfeeding took. i can def see where the employer was coming from, too, especially if the time is billed. I’d like to think the question came more from ignorance than telling a mom she can’t pump to feed her kid.

  13. Lee Plum*

    “Is there a tactful, legal way to ask her to make up some of this time (50%?) so that we get more billable hours from her?”

    LW isn’t questioning whether it takes 90 minutes to pump. LW is looking for a way to continue paying the employee for pumping breaks while reducing the financial burden to their business. This is completely fair.

    This is an old letter, so the LW will not be able to act on any advice. For other people reading this and wanting to be pro family while reducing a possible burden on their business, legally speaking, you can require your employees to work during paid pumping breaks. If you have billable hours, you can require that some portion of the paid break be billable hours. If the breaks are unpaid, you must completely relieve the employee of all of all of duties.

    I would advise engaging the potential employee in working at the solution and offering options such as a combination of paid and unpaid breaks. If it is impossible to do billable work while pumping, is it possible to find overhead work that already exists that can be assigned to the pumping employee for the paid portion of their breaks?

    1. Dahlia*

      And if she’s a person who can’t work and pump, that may simply be impossible.

      Also you cannot go back on an agreement like that.

    2. middlemgmt*

      but *is* it “fair”? they’re not looking for a way to let her continue to have paid pumping breaks- which is what they agreed to. they’re looking for a way to reduce her breaks by getting work out of her because they didn’t google “how long does it take to pump?. a change to the deal that only benefits the employer is not what i’d call fair.

    3. Chimney*

      Would you consider it fair if part of your negotiated compensation was reduced after hiring?

    4. Ellis Bell*

      I think the proposal of discussing affordable ways to pay her for the pumping sessions would be great if she had initially agreed to unpaid pumping sessions in the first place, and saw that the deal was no longer working for her. But trying to reverse the agreement after giving their word, purely because it’s more expensive for them than for her, is not at all reasonable! Basically they assumed her boobs were like the free refill taps at fast food restaurants. If they’re assuming that then not only do they lack diversity but clearly they haven’t paid their dues by supporting other similar employees before. They can not only afford to learn this lesson, but they need to. It’s cheap at the price.

    5. Ginger Cat Lady*

      There IS no “completely fair” way to ask “how can we legally go back on our agreement to our employee in order to extract more profit?”
      The fair thing to do is to uphold what they promised and take responsibility for their own ignorance. Or, you know, be supportive of a new mom. But we both know that’s not gonna happen in this case.

  14. municipal*

    This is what I found, too. And asking her to make up some of that time is a no-go because (at least in my case) the baby is already at day care from opening to closing. It’s hard! Please don’t make it harder.

  15. Kiitemso*

    90 minutes is a solid mid-range time, some people could probably pump 3 x 25 mins, but I don’t know anyone who got everything out in 10-15mins. Breastfeeding simply doesn’t work that way. I often found myself pumping for 45 mins.

    Some jobs you could probably do some light email sorting on the side, other jobs even thinking about work during that time could cause you to stress and lessen your milk production. I absolutely hated every minute of pumping and I have the utmost sympathy to everyone who does it.

    If the company wants to be pro-family they would look at the upside of this person staying on the payroll and being a good, longstanding member of the team in the future by the time they’ve stopped breastfeeding. I don’t know what stage this mother is at, but I personally stopped around 9 months for both of my kids and it was a good time for both of us. This stage doesn’t last forever.

    1. Amyll*

      I seriously could get 20 oz in 10-15 minutes. Only pumped 1x A shift. It was very uncomfortable.

  16. (Former) Retail Lifer*

    Having a pumping mom on staff may be an inconvenience, but what if she decided to take a long maternity leave? Would they have to hire a temp? Pile the work onto someone else? Decline new business? The temporary cost for a “pro-family” company is minimal here compared to what it could have been.

    Reading through all of the previous comments, it seems like she’s taking exactly the amount of time would expect. They can’t fault her now for failing to determine the actual cost ahead of time.

  17. Darcy Mae*

    “A deal’s a deal” for this employee – the paid pumping breaks are part of the compensation package for this employee. Consider it a lesson learned, and create a pumping policy NOW before you have this or another employee planning their next baby with the same treatment in mind.

    Right before your new policy is rolled out (whatever you decide that policy to be) let the current employee know that you’ll be honoring the deal you made when she was hired and that she can continue the current arrangement through this baby’s first birthday; after that, she’ll need to conform to your new policy. Be honest – let her know that she’s done absolutely nothing wrong but that you didn’t realize the billing hours hit that paid nursing breaks would have and that you’re going a different policy direction in the future.

  18. MrsThePlague*

    Sigh. Babies are so very inconvenient to billable hours, right?

    I have so many angry, rage-y thoughts that would probably just come out in a word jumble of fury. Instead I’ll just say: wouldn’t it be lovely if we collectively worked towards a society in which work is structured around the needs of people instead of the other way around?

  19. Relucia*

    *cries in over-producer* I pumped 4x a day for 30 minutes, (for 9 hours in office). The pump was on for 30 minutes, that didn’t include washing my hands, setting up the pump, getting everything back in the fridge, etc.

    I was able to work while I pumped, which really helped. I also continued pumping until my kiddos were two and no one at my office said a peep. This is why women have fought so hard for pumping time to be legally protected, LW. I work at a firm with billable hours too, so I understand the pressures there. In the grand scheme of things, this is a small price for an employer to pay to retain a good employee and frankly do the right thing.

  20. Mr. Shark*

    As a man, I guess I don’t have any idea what the setup is for women who need to pump, but I find it incredible that there isn’t a paid allowance to pump and that anyone should be worried about this at a job.

    A company should provide the time and the space for a woman to pump for her child. It may be a burden to not charge that 90 minutes, but…tough? It’s a reasonable thing that any company should make accommodations for.

  21. A Single Piece of Feral Rice*

    I recently returned from my second maternity leave and a coworker asked me what was in my extra bag every day. I said it was my pump bag, and asked her if she chose to pump after returning to work with her girls. She looked at me and gently reminded me that she’s originally from Canada, and since she weaned by 12mo, it was a moot point by the time she returned. It really brought home to me how cruel the US is on our maternity policies. (I can only make time for 2 pumping sessions a day right now at the office based on my workload and I don’t make enough for my baby’s next day at daycare. It’s SO stressful and I may have to supplement with formula to take the pressure off. Fed is best of course but it’s demoralizing to possibly make the choice to combo feed purely because of work capacity.)

    1. Catherine UK*

      Being in the UK it’s very eye-opening seeing threads like this, as I’ve never come across a situation where a mother has returned to work soon enough to need to pump. I’ve never been aware of any spaces in my workplace that are advertised as pumping spaces – not sure if our country has any laws about it at all!

      1. bamcheeks*

        We do. I don’t think they’re as strong as in the US — we have a right to a space to express milk, but looking at ACAS and hse.gov.uk we don’t have any specification about breaks and whether or not they are paid. We also don’t have much of a “culture” of expressing milk, because it is fairly unusual for anyone in employment not to take at least 6 months maternity leave (even though the statutory pay is so low!) The only people I know who had electric pumps were people who were determined to feed their babies breast milk but struggled with feeding, and we don’t have the kind of consumer knowledge of electric / hospital grade / wearable pumps that seems to be pretty common for American parents.

        I expressed milk for a couple of months after I went back to work, but I just had a little hand-operated pump. My elder child was mix-fed from 6 weeks, so in her case I just expressed a bit for comfort / supply, and didn’t keep the milk, so I did that privately in the loo and never mentioned it to anyone. My younger one was exclusively breastfed, and I did request a private space and access to a fridge for her. My manager had two kids the same age as mine and his wife had breastfed, so he was very unfazed by it, and contacted Occy Health who had a space already set up. However, I only kept that up for six weeks or so after I went back to work (at 7 months), because the stubborn little madam refused to drink it out of a bottle, so we just adjusted to being away from each other for 8 hours 3 times a week and she made it up overnight and on the other 4 days.

      2. Thegreatprevaricator*

        Yeah, I had to work this out because I was still feeding when I went back to work when my child was 9 months. I tried expressing intermittently throughout but never got on with it. Eventually because of age I just fed when we were together, and skipped pumping.

        Because we were a micro company I was in charge of finding myself an appropriate space for breaks etc. But I also gave myself flexible hours :D

        The flames on my face to read a family friendly company saying ‘how can we not pay breaks for a new mother’. If you read the guidance from hse and nhs, there is very good reason to support new mothers in the workplace. Focusing on billable hours feels somewhat shortsighted but it tracks for my understanding of USA approach to mothers at work.

      3. Emmy Noether*

        I think it’s an unfortunate combo in the US of mat leaves being very short and cultural expectations being to value breastfeeding and do it for a longish time (both comparing to Europe here, which is what I have experience with).

        For example in Germany, official advice is to introduce solids starting at 4 months, and by 9 months, milk is pretty much reduced to once/twice a day (often evening/morning outside work hours) or several smaller comfort feeds if that’s the established routine. There are people breastfeeding longer, but more for comfort than nutrition. Since mat leave is up to 1 year, pumping at work doesn’t come up that often. In France apparently most don’t breastfeed past 3 months.

        I only pumped because my son was an inefficient nurser and also kept falling asleep (nothing like gently shaking your docked infant awake to keep eating every two minutes). Most people I know who couldn’t get direct breastfeeding to work just used formula.

        1. allathian*

          Yeah, it’s the same thing in Finland. The only time I tried to pump was when I was still in hospital after giving birth and our son was in NICU. My milk hadn’t fully risen yet so it didn’t really work.

          My son was born hypoglycemic and underweight and wasn’t allowed to lose any of his birth weight, so he received donated mother’s milk at the hospital and a combination of breastfeeding and formula at home. I loved the fact that I wasn’t the only one who could feed him, and was never interested in trying to nurse 100%. He weaned himself and stuck to formula at 3.5 months and we started him on solids a few weeks later.

          None of my mom friends continued to breastfeed past one year even if they didn’t return to work yet, the vast majority stopped when the baby got their first teeth, and I’m sure I would have done the same.

          The idea of nursing a toddler who can talk and who can potentially remember it later (my first memories are from when I was about 2.5 years old and “helped” my mom by carrying a box of diapers around the house when my sister was a tiny baby) grosses. me. out. Shades of Robin Arryn if not quite that extreme.

          They’ve changed the system somewhat to give more parental leave to the non-birthing parent. Both partners in lesbian couples, whether or not one of them has given birth, are also entitled to leave, as are both partners in gay couples who adopt. They also changed the trans law recently so that sterilization is no longer the required first step in gender transition, so trans men can get “maternity” leave as the birthing parent.

          This means that unlike under the previous system, more breastfeeding parents will be working while the non-birthing parent is on leave and employers will need to deal with that appropriately.

    2. Ellis Bell*

      Yeah, it’s just simply not an issue for mothers in the UK because they tend to still be at home when breastfeeding, so workplaces just don’t need to navigate policies to handle pumping at work. It’s just not a thing that happens at our workplaces. (It’s not that the UK is a utopia or anything; a friend of mine battled to change workplace policy when she missed out on a promotion while on mat leave but most of the time it works just fine). Reading this it made me think of all the work that goes into hiring a temporary maternity cover person and then the back to work period when the person who was out for a year is not at full speed when getting back into things. These things are considered standard though, because you get the best out of people when you treat them as humans. Surely missing out on 90 minutes a day is so much easier for companies in comparison to hiring a whole new person for 12 months!

    3. Overproducer*

      With the disclaimer that fed is best and supplementing is totally fine– depending on how much you produce, you could try using a Haakaa on your off-side when you are nursing at home. I found that especially for the first several months, just the night feed (when I was most engorged) would produce 4-8 oz. The Haakaa can be a little fiddly to work out at first, and worked best when I had the baby in a football hold to avoid having it kicked off by tiny feet (though it looks like they now make some different shapes and some tethers to avoid that).

    4. Innie*

      In Canada mothers get 15 weeks maternity leave (55% of your salary) and parents get 35 weeks parental leave (55% of your salary) to be shared between them. Almost every couple I know chooses for the mother to get the entire leave, so 52 weeks. And yes they wean by the time they go back to work. I’ve never seen a woman pumping at work, it’s just never been necessary.

      1. Hazelcat*

        You’re allowed to take the same funding and spread it over 18 months now. It’s true there is no ‘pump at work’ culture, but it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t help some people.

    5. Bess*

      Late comment and I don’t know if you’ll see this, but go easy on yourself–I stopped at around 7-8 months because it was just so hard, I was pumping every 3-4 hours including traveling pumps, and it still wasn’t enough. Your stress and quality of life matters, too. I felt so guilty but was a much better parent weaning that early, because I felt like a person again.

  22. Georgia*

    Years ago my workplace hired an assistant to be on the road almost all day with us who was pumping at the time. She only rode with female employees (the majority) and would just pump on the road which I was pretty amazed by. I honestly don’t know how she did it, but there wasn’t any way to accommodate 60-90 minutes a day of pumping in a private space when we might be over an hour at a client’s home at any point in the day. I’ve always wondered where the law would come down on this when the job is on the road and there aren’t exactly roadside pumping rooms. I did whatever I could to make her comfortable with it.

    1. Dawbs*

      it’s a headache for the mom involved, but they’ve managed to make it work for city bus drivers in my area.
      (the ‘relief’ driver brings a transport (car or van). Mom pumps in said car while the relief driver does 2 round of her route. Repeat.

      (I did SO much car pumping. I think it’s the first thing I’ve told everyone who is pumping-pump during the commute)

  23. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

    It’s the employer’s/HM’s fault if they grant a benefit without quantifying the cost beforehand
    Careless failure to do due diligence.

    An employer should never renege on a deal, or they’ll get a very pissed off employee. Also other employees will note they can’t trust you to keep your word.

    An old letter, but I suspect she was the first and last person at that firm to get unlimited paid pump time.
    However, I hope the policy was modified, not abandoned, e.g. 30 minutes paid time allowed per day plus unlimited unpaid time plus reduced billing targets – crucial so women don’t get dinged in their reviews for not meeting expectations due to pumping.

  24. mbs001*

    The company should definitely allow for reasonable pumping time – which needs to include the set up and break down — but it should be unpaid. Unless the employee is doing it during an already paid break of their own or using some break time. But the company should not be paying the employee to perform this personal task.

    2. Dahlia*

      So you think that this pumping employee should either take a paycut or she should work 10 hour days?

      1. Jennifer Strange*

        Based on their previous comments around parents (specifically women) yes, that’s exactly what they think.

    3. Anon Attorney*

      This is what federal law requires at baseline, so it’s not like what you’re suggesting is outlandish, but if you take it too its logical conclusion, bathroom breaks shouldn’t be paid time either.

      1. Katie Impact*

        I’m sure there are employers who’d require their employees to clock out for bathroom breaks if they were legally allowed to do so, but the FLSA prohibits it. (I *have* done contract work that expected me to track my time down to the minute and explicitly required me to clock out for all breaks, including bathroom breaks. It sucked.)

    4. CallYourMother*

      So should employees be docked for using the bathroom? That is also a personal task.

      I understand that folks likely don’t spend 90 mins using the bathroom. But the point remains. This is similar to providing toilet paper and not providing menstrual products. Why is one a personal issue and the other standard?

  25. Freelance Bass*

    I’m going to a full day client meeting at their office tomorrow, and I’ve never pumped in an office before . I’ve had a great working relationship with this client and their pumping room is apparently very nice, but I’m sweating bullets worrying that they’ll think I’m taking too long pumping. Besides the pumping itself, I’m going to have to be EXTRA careful not to spill on myself or have milk leak in the cooler. But skipping a pumping session is just not an option.

  26. Mark This Confidential And Leave It Laying Around*

    This letter vividly brought back the pumping time pressure. The pumping room at my office was also the prayer room (a Muslim employee had asked for a private place to pray, and apparently this room was the only private room the company was willing to make available for anything). In a 500-person company with a fairly young and fertile contingent, scheduling time in that room was a nightmare. HR refused to help on the grounds that it would violate our privacy if anyone knew who was pumping/praying and when, so we evolved a post-it-notes-on-the-door system that miraculously worked. I was so incredibly stressed, always, speed-walking back to my desk. Six months of that, yikes. It was awful and hilarious at the same time.

    1. Anon Attorney*

      That is awful. I worked at a very large government organization with hundreds of employees that at least had a system where you requested a schedule through HR, and HR did the scheduling. No one needed to find out any specifics, HR would let you know if the time slot was free. It’s honestly ridiculous they could not do that for you.

  27. Nilsson Schmilsson*

    If men were breast feeding, they’d get a half a day paid for it. And probably nap time too. Kinda sorta kidding.

    1. JAnon*

      If men got pregnant, gave birth, breast fed, etc., they would get the entire time off to handle that and then come back to work with a promotion for being ‘such a good dad for taking that time.’

      1. shaw of dorset*

        For the record, to both of you, sometime men DO get pregnant. Let’s not pretend anything is magically better for them.

        1. Bella Ridley*

          You know exactly what they intended to mean. The fact that a very, very, very small minority of men get pregnant, carry babies, and then breastfeed them does not negate that 99.9% of men do not do those things and that biological differences have created a system in which men use that as a cudgel to keep women “in their place.”

  28. Cat*

    I’m from the US but live in the Netherlands, and employees in the union I’m a part of are entitled to use up to 25% of their hours for pumping for 9 months and be paid. I don’t have children yet but I know it can be incredible time-consuming, the letter-writer is being unreasonable. 90 minutes per day is nothing.

  29. Anonymoose*

    Let the woman pump in peace. The time is worth investing in employees. In fact, you should make accommodations for every employee that you can, billable hours be danged.

    1. Dancing Otter*

      Billable hours be damned?

      Without hours to bill to clients, where do you think the money will come from to pay those employees? Not every company with a billable hours business model is the size of Accenture. A lot are small partnerships with limited working capital.

      If the business goes under and everyone loses their jobs, is that a reasonable accommodation?

      1. chimney*

        If you took a job with a stated compensation and that was reduced afterwards, is that a reasonable accommodation? Would you be fine with a salary reduction to keep a company afloat? A decrease in vacation or sick time?

  30. Saturday Manager*

    This is one of those business expenses that can be made to sound like A Lot of Money but in fact if you can’t find a way to factor it in to your cost of doing business you maybe can’t afford to Have Employees. Geez. Yes, human needs and functions can be inconvenient and cost an employee money. Figure it out and don’t hassle the employee. As everyone has said, this is well within the bounds of reasonable.

  31. One drink wonder*

    When I had our first child over 30 years ago, the only place to pump WAS the restroom in a stall. It was revolting. By the time I had our second I at least had my own office. I’m so glad many women today have lactation rooms but it’s sad how many clueless supervisors there are.

    1. Anon Attorney*

      It’s actually federal law now, thank goodness. It’s specific in the law that the place to pump *cannot* be a restroom.

  32. Anon Attorney*

    OP should also keep in mind that some states (shout to NY) require that pumping be paid time. Federal law requires it be at least unpaid time, but I think it’s important to note that that means the employee cannot be working at that time. If an employee is pumping while working on emails, etc., it’s considered time worked for FLSA purposes.

    From a moral standpoint, it’s a health accomodation like any other. What if someone needs long bathroom breaks throughout the day due to a GI condition? Would you have the same reaction? As other commenters pointed out, it’s a physiological need, not something that a working mom can skip or delay.

  33. Cathcarbs*

    But like… how long did they think pumping took in the first place? Is this the first BF staff this company has had, ever? Can they not google? This is a rather odd question.

  34. JAnon*

    Ooooo boy. As a former exclusive pumper, this was enraging. Most women need to pump for at least 20-30 minutes during each session. Then take into account set up, clean up, etc. and 90 minutes a day is impressive. You cannot be pro family and want to go back on this agreement. If this is an employee you value, you can figure out how to manage this in the short term.

  35. leeapeea*

    New York State’s paid lactation breaks are revolutionary, honestly. I work in the AEC consulting industry, in a professional office setting, and even here it made a huge difference for parents that pump at work. Even salaried employees were pressured to spend “less time” pumping and “make up” their work. Now the state enforces 30-minute paid lactation breaks for up to THREE YEARS following the birth of the child (amazing!!!) and includes specific language around individuals having unique needs and employers must accommodate employees whenever they reasonably need to take a break to pump. We adopted company-wide paid break policy that confirms with the NY law, and while there have been hiccups (I’ve had to remind managers and some payroll employees of our obligations as an employer) for the most part it’s made pumping at work FAR more accessible and somewhat less stressful for those parents.

  36. 2 Cents*

    Breastfeeding exclusively for a full year is a full-time job. That’s why the U.S. has one of the lowest breast feeding rates after mothers go back to work because it takes so much time. And why countries that have more paid leave (like … all of them) have better rates.

    (No, I am not discounting anyone who pumps in addition to, exclusively, supplements with formula, formula feeds only. Fed is best!)

  37. Raida*

    The answer is “No.”

    Sorry LW, the company offered paid pumping time, this is a very normal amount of time, if the company didn’t understand what it was agreeing to then this is a contract they’re gonna have to eat the costs on.

    In future the company could certainly change the wording to “Up to X hours per week” or some such, and include that over that time the employee needs to work the difference.
    But THIS PERSON’S contract is Paid Pumping Time.

    The time is not large enough that the company could claim it’s an unreasonable number of hours and therefore this contract should be invalidated – the company was simply ignorant of what is STANDARD.

    So! This is really a quite simple (if not easy!) decision based on two options.
    The overall answer is:
    IF your company wishes to maintain claims of being Family Friendly, then 90 minutes per day should be the expected amount of time for Mums to be pumping, and eat the unbillable hours.
    IF your company doesn’t really give *that* much of a shit, then go ahead and change the offer and don’t ever whinge about the blowback from staff including overall perception of Family Friendly claims.

    There is no magical “we make the most money and everyone pumps and everyone takes zero minutes pumping and we are family friendly” option, alright mate?
    But you certainly can frame this as how the company is *grateful* for this Learning Opportunity that this new Mum has provided, for the company to baseline expectations around the realities of pumping breast milk ;)

    (Oh, and if there’s KPIs around Billable Hours, unpack those and figure out if the pumping room is actually unintentionally setting up breastfeeding Mums to have their careers stall due to lagging in billable hours – that’ll be bonuses, opportunities, career progression, etc. Seeing as you lot didn’t know pumping times, I’m gonna guess you also didn’t think of this either?)

  38. Raida*

    Just separate to the whole logistics question:

    If there’s KPIs around Billable Hours, unpack those and figure out if the pumping room is actually unintentionally setting up breastfeeding Mums to have their careers stall due to lagging in billable hours either as totals or as proportions.

    That’ll be bonuses, opportunities, career progression, etc.
    Even if missing bonuses isn’t much of a big deal, missing them due to the company’s offer of paid pumping *and then having it recorded like it’s a skill issue in performance reviews* would really set the company up for some serious Family Friendly pain down the road.

    1. Dahlia*

      Great idea!

      And some employees would still want to work, and you would still need to accomodate them pumping!

      1. Purple Tiger*

        Yeah as someone who does not WANT to be a SAHM and works by choice I really do not like the way “let’s just make sure we don’t have new moms in the workforce” is being framed as a solution.

    1. Raida*

      I would say more accurately “They are pro-family but not fully cognisant all the factors involved.”

      1. Media Monkey*

        pro family as long as you work like they don’t exist (or are a man with a wife at home)

  41. Code Monkey Manager*

    I don’t love the advice of “next time don’t offer this much paid pumping time” honestly. As other commenters have noted, extensively, this is a pretty standard amount of time to need to pump. Offering less time or asking the employee to make up the billable hours is functionally removing the ability for people to pump while being employed at your workplace. Legal? Definitely. And yet it still has the effect of forcing the employee to chose between breastfeeding or working.

  43. 2ndBestLawyer*

    I was a custodian when my daughter was a baby, and I had to use my 30 minute lunch break to pump–using a hand pump in a basement bathroom that I spent the first 5+ minutes disinfecting.  Since it was my lunch break, I’d also try to eat a sandwich at the same time.  Ended up choking on my sandwich at one point and had to do the self-Heimlich since there was no one else on the floor.  

    Now I’m a lawyer, so this question is pretty hard to stomach in multiple ways.

  44. Metal Gru*

    If LW (rather than “the company” more broadly) offered this without thinking of the consequences for lost billable time, perhaps LW could make up some of the lost billable hours since they have caused the situation.

  45. DramaQ*

    This letter is insane to me and I also cannot fathom the idea of putting into a employee handbook that you are only allowed X amount of time to pump or else.

    I worked for an actually friendly company when nursing. It was a hospital/university and it’s a wee bit hypocritical to push your patients to exclusively BF and not allow your employees the same courtesy.

    It was stated that your manager could not count pumping time against you and for my employer I was to be considered still on the clock when doing so (not that my boss personally would have dinged me for it he was great about it). I pumped three times a day which involved a two block walk across campus and three flights of stairs to the nearest pumping station.

    We made it work. Did things get done a little slower? Sure but they got done. It was not an employee perk that my manager could decide to yank away from me when he decided I wasn’t being productive enough. It was a right and I could have gone to HR if he had written a letter like this about me.

    This is yet another way moms can’t win. You get told breast is best and to nurse/pump exclusively for the first year and ideally up to year two. Yet you have to go back to work after 8 weeks barely enough time to get the hang of it and then face your employer wanting to penalize you because how DARE you be human and not be making them money every second you are on the clock! So now you face a choice: have your career tanked or quit nursing.

    Here are the laws regarding pumping. I would think an employer would at least use Google to look this up

    Yes, pumping breast milk at work is protected by federal law in the U.S. under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), as amended by the PUMP Act. Employers must provide reasonable break time and a private, non-bathroom space to pump for up to one year after a child’s birth.
    U.S. Department of Labor (.gov)
    U.S. Department of Labor (.gov)
    +3
    Key Legal Protections for Pumping (PUMP Act/FLSA):
    Private Space: A dedicated, shielded space that is not a bathroom must be provided.
    Reasonable Breaks: Employees are allowed reasonable, unpaid break times whenever they need to express milk.
    Compensation: If an employee is not completely relieved of duties, or if the company offers paid breaks, the pumping time must be paid.
    Coverage: The law applies to most employers, including those with fewer than 50 employees, teachers, and farmworkers.
    Protection from Retaliation: Employers cannot penalize, fire, or discriminate against employees for exercising their pumping rights

    The LW could end up in a whole bunch of legal trouble if they decide to try to yank away the paid pumping breaks. They would also be in a world of hurt trying to limit how many times or how long can be spent pumping. I get that most employees unfortunately, especially new moms, aren’t in a position to fight their employer if they choose to ignore the law but I am rooting for the employee in the LW’s letter to raise heck.

    1. Caro*

      I have had 3 babies, all quite different experiences (c-sections, but otherwise under quite various circumstances) and the notion of going back to work full time at 8 weeks post-partum is wild to me. Nevermind breastfeeding, that is ofc one aspect but there are many others, for example, you have a tiny newborn baby and (in my case, all 3 times) you are bleeding and exhausted and (checks notes) caring for a newborn baby.

      I think people should go back to work whenever they feel ready (within reason, obviously) and if they are good to go in 6-8 weeks, great, good on them, they have my admiration, but man, it seems so, so harsh and unkind on everyone concerned.

    2. MeepMeep123*

      That’s really the only answer needed here. Pumping is legally protected and the employer can’t just go “Oopsies, it takes too long!” If they can’t do basic math, it’s really on them, not on the employee.

  46. Caro*

    I do not pretend to understand the lunacy of minimal paid maternity leave that seems quite common in the US, but this is an inevitable outcome for the women who are trying, desperately, to do the best they can for their babies and also not lose their jobs.

  47. phira*

    I think in fairness to LW1, it doesn’t sounds like their letter itself contains the statement that they think the employee is spending “too much time” pumping. With the actual language of the letter, I can get the sense that they just didn’t realize how much the time would *add up* over time. From the title, I felt like the LW was going to be asking how to approach the employee about reducing the time spent pumping, and they just needed a reality check about how long pumping takes. That doesn’t seem to be the case.

    That being said, Alison’s advice is still right–you can’t reneg on this agreement, and frankly, the agreement is the most appropriate one. This employee shouldn’t have to decide between taking a pay cut just because she’s nursing, or stopping nursing altogether. I would treat the entire situation like a temporary disability you’re accommodating and move on.

  49. Working Class Lady*

    I never had kids, but women I know who breastfeed told me it was about ~30-ish minutes each time to pump.

    The new mom was completely up-front and honest with her new employer. It would be wrong to backtrack.

    And the employer would need to reconsider whether they can truly call themselves family-friendly if they are truly shocked about how long pumping realistically takes and can’t handle that.

  50. Dog and Dahlia Lover*

    I’m curious why the pumping time couldn’t be billed to clients… I’m kinda surprised that the employee isn’t billing pumping time proportionally to their normal time allocations. I’ve seen vacation, holiday, and sick pay work that way – if an employee is 75% contract A, and 25% contract B, then if there is PTO they bill those hours according to that same percentage.

    If it’s not just a billing issue but also one of the employee’s workload/capacity, that’s a separate issue. But I dunno if losing 90 minutes a day, especially if it’s in three 30 minute chunks, is really a productivity hit for an in-office job.

    1. Dz*

      My company does technical consulting on legal matters (the consultants are computer scientists, not lawyers) and our workplace does not do it the way you’re describing at all. People may work on up to 3-4 projects overlapping at a time and they bill the actual time they spend working on those projects in 15-minute increments. There’s no percentage of them being assigned to a project. Their billing comments generally have to state what they did during that time. Any “general” time checking email, attending trainings, time off, does not get billed anywhere. Our highest paid consultants bill at $750/hr. Smacking a client with an itemized bill full of their vacation time is a hilarious thought. (I understand other workplaces are different.)

  51. HonorBox*

    Here’s the thing, LW1: You knew going in that the employee would be pumping 3x/day for about a year. While it may be more time than you envisioned, this should not be a surprise. You agreed to pay her for that time. It wasn’t based on her billable hours. It was time that was going to be paid. Period. While that might be challenging for your business and change some of the client billing, you can’t change the situation now without a much larger problem than those unbilled hours.

  52. Generic username*

    As someone who pumped, this is basically the minimum for someone pumping 3x a day. I took ever longer – 45 min per pumping session once you factored in prep and cleaning up. It doesnt last forever

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