My Nursing Tools

The Breastfeeding Blog Hop is a weekly hop dedicated to exploring the many facets of breastfeeding.  Over the past year we have grown a great group of bloggers from all walks of life, each with vastly different experiences who have been supportive of each other in their nursing journey in more way that you can imagine.

This hop is hosted by Erin from  The Slacker Mom and co-hosted by Marah of Happiness Redefined and Lori from The Gnome’s Mom

This week's topic is "Tools of the Trade". I have to say I had to think about this one to. Thanks to the Slacker Mom for making me think on these weekly topics. I LOVE it! I definitely think that my tools changed over the past 18.5 months. So I think I will break my post down by a few different phases.

I have no idea what I am doing phase: It was definitely difficult when I first started. I had NO idea what I was doing. I was flying by the seat of my pants and luckily had the support of my husband and the support of the lactation consultants. The first few days what got me through were the nipple shield and the cooling packs. My nips were so sore and I was so engorged from over supply that I thought I was going to die when I had to nurse. Of course my sweet little peanut pie was wanting to nurse like every second of her new little life.

The I sort of know what I am doing phase: It did get better for me and I really was getting the hang of it. Around 2 months or so I was done with the nipple shield (Luckily that only lasted a few days) I was definitely using my pump 2 times a day. I would pump for 20 minutes after nursing her the two sessions in the morning. This was mainly to build up my supply for when at 11 weeks I had to go back to work. I didn't need the cooling packs anymore because they were finally used to nursing and THANK GOD! I don't know if I could have taken anymore of that. 

I am confident I know what I am doing phase: At this point I had been nursing for about 6 months. I was still needing to have another fun tool of the trade which was a receiving blanket or towel handy. This goes to an earlier post that I did on breastfeeding.   You never really know how far you can spray milk until it happens and Peanut just so DID not like having me spray milk in her face 6x a day. So thus why I had the receiving blanket. I would let her latch on, get going and then pop her off and spray the let down into a towel or a bottle (to save) and then have her latch on again. Honestly that was the biggest thing I learned from the Lactation consultant. It allowed me to have my fast let down into the towel so I wouldn't drown my child and also allow her to get the fattier hind milk.

I totally know what I am doing and I am a pro at this phase: I honestly don't have many tools of the trade anymore. The only thing that I still use every single night when I nurse Gabby to sleep is my boppy pillow. I love that thing. It wasn't quite right height when she was little but now that she is older and a toddler it's perfect. It helps hold her into me a little better, especially when she is being a wiggly worm.


So there it is, as you can see some things stayed the same over my 18.5 month journey. The boppy, my pump was my friend for an entire year. But there are things you don't always need.

What were some of your tools of the trade???