Tip #44: Make pumping as fun as possible

I know..funny title huh? But, I have found that pumping is a drag. I love nursing, but could do without the hassle and stress of spending about 40-minutes a day (sometimes 60minutes) in a little antechamber off of the women's bathroom in the building next to mine. There's not a lot of work I can do while pumping, so I've tried to make that time as relaxing and stress-free as possible. Here are some of the things I do (by the way I bought a netbook specifically for this):

• Blog
• Watch Netflix streaming
  
• Listen to podcasts (This American Life and Planet Money are my favorites)
• Knit
• Read a book
  

Tip #36: Put a shirt around the bottle to help a breastfed baby take a bottle

Sometimes a breastfed baby has a hard time adjusting to a bottle when you decide to introduce (or re-introduce) one. One tip I've heard is to wrap mom's shirt (one that's been worn and smells like her) around the bottle while someone else gives it to them.

Source: Lactation Consultant

Bonus Funny Story: Hopefully, the person who told me this story won't mind if I share it here (it's anonymous right?). Her husband was having problems getting their baby to take a bottle and so she set a tank top out for him the night before for him to use to feed the baby her bottle in the morning. When Dad came back into the room in the morning, mom said "Why are you WEARING my tank top?" Dad said: "But you told me to use it when I gave her the bottle!"

Tip #27: Keeping formula/milk cold on an airplane

We just returned from our first big journey with baby..so you'll be seeing a few traveling tips we have picked up along the way....

They say to keep a baby's ears from hurting during elevation changes on an airplane, have them suck something during takeoff and landing. We specifically bought a seat for him for the most dangerous parts of the flight, takeoff and landing, and the little dude will NOT due a pacifier. So on the way up I would give him a bottle of expressed breast milk and on the way down a bottle of water. However, we had two legs on the way back and four ascents/descents, so I had to keep the milk cold. This should work with either expressed milk or formula (although with formula, you just need to get water on the other side of security before boarding..but just in case you have something ready but don't need right away...).

1. Make sure to declare the liquids, have them in a separate bag and put them through x-ray on their own.
2. Ice is allowed by FAA regulations, however, some security agents didn't know this. So to be prepared to avoid the hassle if you have one of these agents, pack ice around your milk, but keep an extra ziplock so you can dump the ice and get more ice on the other side of security. In the end I kept the ice but got more at Starbucks anyway.
3. On the plane, those little bags for motion sickness are a great way to pack a bottle in some ice (the flight attendant told me this one).

Tip #21: My favorite clothes for nursing

I was given a couple of 'hootie hiders' as gifts, which in theory are a great way to discreetly breastfeed in public. In actuality though they are usually brightly covered and my little guy loves playing with them so much when he's under them that it's more like he's flagging a jet plane onto an aircraft carrier than he is eating. Therefore, I've had to decide on clothing that I find comfortable and discreet. My favorite has become stretchy style tops (my favorite are from LL Bean), one size larger than I would normally wear and a nursing tank top. The tank top ensures all my skin is covered (in case the shirt in the back gets hiked up pretty good) and whatever skin is exposed around the boob area is covered up by the nursing baby. It was recommended to me once by a lactation consultant to use nursing tank tops and button down shirts. This didn't work for me because once I actually did it I realized I felt really exposed. Once you pull the cover down on the tank top your entire boob is exposed and a open button-down shirt won't cover it up!

Source: Personal experimentation

Wanted: Tips on what to do with a distractable baby! Since covers don't work, I don't know what to do when he rolls off the boob while eating to look around. Also, when I want/need to feed him just before I leave for work, he's often too distracted to eat!

Tip #18: Your body will make milk..even when you are sick

Sorry I've been offline for a while now. I came down with a very nasty stomach virus that had me in bed for a full three days. On the third day of not keeping any food or much fluid down, I was restocked at urgent care with three IV bags of fluid! However, I learned a valuable lesson about milk production, even in the face of limited resources, your body will continue to prioritize production of milk! I also learned that no matter how hard it is, getting and keeping fluid is the most important thing you can do when you are sick.

Also, the answer from the pediatrician is that I should continue to breastfeed if I felt up to it. Viruses and bacteria aren't transmitted in breast milk, but important white cells that can recognize the virus are.

Tip #4 - Keep your baby used to the bottle

If you breastfeed and decide to introduce the bottle at the recommended time (4-6 weeks, after breastfeeding is well established), make sure to keep your baby used to it by giving them the bottle every other day or so.

Source: Unknown, but I've met many moms now who introduced the bottle early and then dropped it, just to find at the end of their maternity leave they wouldn't take it anymore.

Local Resource: Postpartum Support Groups

There are free drop-in postpartum support groups and/or breastfeeding support groups every day of the work week in the Arlington/Cambridge/Somerville area:

Monday

2:00pm-3:30pm Mt. Auburn Midwives Support Group .
Vineyard Church Meeting Rooms, 2nd Floor
15 Notre Dame Avenue, Cambridge, 1 block south of Rindge Ave., between Middlesex and Sargent Sts.

You don't need to have delivered with the Mt. Auburn midwives (or at Mt. Auburn at all) to join this group of women. Each week there is usually someone in addition to a midwife, a lactation consultant, a baby massage specialist, etc.

Tuesday

10:00am to 11:30am Jewish Family and Children Services: Cambridge Group
Congregation Eitz Chayim 134-136 Magazine St, Cambridge

You don't have to be Jewish to attend JFC&S groups!

10:00am to 12:00pm JFC&S Breastfeeding Support Group: Cambridge
Cambridge Health Alliance , 8 Camelia Avenue , Cambridge

Wednesday

3:00pm-4:00pm Isis Maternity Drop-in BreastFeeding Group: Arlington
397 Massachusetts Avenue, Arlington

Thursday

11:00am-12:30pm JFC&S: Somerville Group
Somerville Family Network, 42 Prescott Street (Cumming School), Somerville

Friday

10:00am-12:30pm JFC&S Arlington Group
Calvary United Methodist Church
300 Massachusetts Avenue, Arlington
I've heard great things about this informal group of women from a friend.

Tip #1 - Make pumping more efficient

Refrigerate your pump parts in between uses so you only have to wash and sanitize them once a day.

Source: Friend (and I think I remember seeing this reiterated in a Medela pamphlet as well)