WFMW–Calling Nursing Moms

I am finding blog hops to be very fun. Today I am joining one over at We Are That Family–Works for Me Wednesday

I know I don’t hold any records here, but I am proud I have been pregnant and/or nursing a baby since November 2005. I nursed my first baby for 11 months, until she weaned while I was pregnant with my second, who nursed until 28 months when she weaned herself during my pregnancy with my newest.

Nursing and pumping for my first went okay, but I found a lot of great resources while nursing my second. Here are a few of the things that Work For Me.

One great website is Kellymom. It has great resources, including how to figure out the amount of milk baby will need when being bottle fed away from mama, info for caregivers of breastfed babies on how to not overfeed with the bottle and ideas on how to pump hands free without having to buy special bras.

I have done tons of hands free pumping. It allows me to type this blog :), play video games, read, hold my other kids, lots of things, all while pumping. Here’s the instructions I put together on the hands free pumping:

“Hands-free pumping

You can buy bras and apparatus specially for hands-free pumping, and for some that may be the way to go, but after pumping 9 months with my oldest and 15 months for my youngest, I had to find something cheap and easy! Searching on-line I found two methods—a pumping bra and hand-free pumping with any nursing bra.

Pumping bra—buy a cheap sports bra, preferably one that latches in the front. Based on the size of your pump bottle flange, cut a hole in the bra where it needs to line up with the nipple. Make sure to make the hole smaller than the flange so the material hugs it and keeps it in place. This works well if you are home and are not needing to go out. You can tuck a nursing pad in the hole when you are not pumping so you don’t leak. You can also unhook the bra to nurse the baby.

Note: with a lot of movement the nursing pad will move around making odd shapes under your shirt and may even fall out, so I found it undesirable to wear to work, etc.

Hands-free with any nursing bra—this is even cheaper than the first. You need 4 regular size pony tail holders (not scrunchies). Take two, loop them together to form a figure 8. Put the bottle and breastshield through one loop so the loop is just at the bottom of the widest part of the breastshield. Hook the other end of the loop where the nursing bra unhooks from. Position at the nipples. You may have to lightly hold them in place at the beginning of pumping, mainly the let down mode on the pump-in-style advanced. Once the pump settles in rhythm or there is sufficient milk to weigh it down, it should stay in place well.

Hands-free pumping cuts down on neck and back pain and allows you to type, read, write, even pick up a small child while pumping. It also tends to lead to longer pumping sessions which will get you more milk in both the short and long-term due to the supply and demand principles that govern your supply.”

*As an item of disclosure, I need to let you know I am a Medela Mom Maven. I do not receive any compensation from them, but do get info and newsletters from them in exchange for sharing my experience using their products when pumping for my kidlets.

Another wonderful resource I found was a recipe for more milk cookies. These are yummy and somewhat good for you and a great way to get the calories you need to keep up your supply. I originally found this recipe on Babyfit and have modified it some for my tastes:

Housepoet’s Famous Lactation Boosting Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip & Flaxseed cookies ™

Ingredients :

* 1 cup butter or marg
* 1 cup sugar
* 1 cup brown sugar
* 4 tablespoons water
* 2 tablespoons flaxseed meal*
* 2 large eggs
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 2 cups flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 3 cups oats, thick cut if you can get them
* 1 cup or more chocolate chips
* 2 tablespoons of brewers yeast* (be generous)

Directions:

Preheat oven at 375 degrees F. Mix together 2 tablespoons of flaxseed meal and water, set aside for 3-5 minutes. Cream (beat well) margarine and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, mix well. Stir flaxseed mixture and add with vanilla to the margarine mix. Beat until blended. Sift together dry ingredients, except oats and chips. Add to margarine mixture. Stir in oats then chips. Scoop or drop onto baking sheet, preferably lined with parchment or silpat. The dough is a little crumbly, so it helps to use a scoop.

Bake 8-12 minutes, depending on size of cookies.

Serves: 6 dozen cookies

Preparation time: 15 minutes

*can be found at any local health food store.

*NOTE* IT MUST BE BREWERS YEAST, NOH SUBSTITUTIONS.

You can substitute for carob chips, raisins, butterscotch chips, whatever.

Don’t cook too long or they are dry and too “healthy” tasting. Leave them a little moist and they are GREAT!

I hope what works for me will work for you too!