[shackles]

My husband has won a trip with his job to a location where we need to take antimalarial tablets, meaning that I need to stop breastfeeding while taking the antimalarial tablets and for a month afterwards. I've expressed enough milk so that for the 5 days that we are away my mother can give her my milk and then I was going to give her formula for a month and express and throw away my milk until my body was clear of the antimalarial drugs and then reestablish breastfeeding. However yesterday when I saw the nurse to have my travel jabs it seems that in order to take the typhoid and Hep A jab I need to stop breastfeeding earlier - two weeks time! This would mean I would have to express and throw away for 7 weeks.

It was a very difficult decision to agree to go with my husband as breastfeeding was very difficult at the start but I've now got to the stage where its now longer agony. My daughter is 14 weeks old and has nothing but breastmilk up until now. Am I a bad mother even considering going away for 5 days when my baby is 20 weeks and to compound this stopping breastfeeding and moving her to formula? My husband is happy to cancel the trip as I'm concerned about the breastfeeding but part of me thinks we need some time together and we are leaving my daughter with my mother who will give her the best possible care.

Has anyone expressed and thrown away milk for 7 weeks or longer and then been able to reestablish breastfeeding? Any advice would be gratefully received.