Oh and supply is very sensitive the first couple months. Up and down. You can give yourself an oversupply if you pump aggressively the first while. (Aka: Me, on triple feeds for a week!) You can also accidentally tank your supply temporarily with silly things like not drinking or eating enough. (Aka also me, when I got sick at one point). (But I ended up nursing her for 2 years so! Not irreversible issues).
Ummmm I hope some of that helps. And the obvious caveats about not everyone being able to BF and that’s okay too!
Seriously, it is breastfeed, pump, supplement. Since newborns eat every 2 hours more or less, this quickly takes up most of your time (especially with washing the pump parts, one of my least favorite chores).
I did it for like 2 days. Some people do it for weeks. They had me doing it because my baby was technically a preemie, and also because they were worried about her blood sugar both because she was a little early and because of my GD- they wanted a decent volume going in right away rather than just the colostrum.
Thanks for this. I knew some of this stuff, but ack. There’s so much to it! I’ve been watching videos about how to get a good latch but I’m a learn by doing person so I know once the baby is Here it will be a different story
We did in person! A day long class at a place called “doula love” here. And I still have all my notes and handouts saved to an Evernote if you want me to send them to you? Let me know and I’ll PM you a link. the whole thing is too long to post here I think haha.
I have sone thoughts but some I need to rephrase so I need to not offend others. I will say atuff ny maybe Friday!
I think your use case is similar enough to canadians that if I were you I would do either pump in style or spectra plus extra medela parts for the work one
Oh and my concluding thought- if something seems off, find an LC (ideally IBCLC certified) asap. Esp since it’s one of those ACA things I think? So the first like 5 appointments are free? Or it was anyway…
Also super common to have anxiety about if they’re getting enough. Don’t mistake cluster feeding for low supply. Every baby cluster feeds sometimes and that’s totally normal. If diapers and weights are good, supply is good.
I have had the Medela and the motif Luna. I liked the motif better because it had a battery pack and I just didn’t want to plug in most of the time even though I work from home. I also think the Luna worked better.
One pro tip I didn’t know the first time around was that most of the time insurance will also cover replacement parts for a while. I used a company to get my pump from and they sent me more parts each month all covered by insurance.
Did you check at the hospital you plan to give birth at? Our hospital offered like, 30 different classes you could sign up for and the favorite ones we did was breast feeding, new mom boot camp and new dad boot camp. I really think the breast feeding class was the most important one.
Just as a counter anecdote, it was hugely important to me to be able to sleep in longer stretches and spouse did the 2am bottle feed starting around 2 weeks old. This was can issue for my supply (in fact I had an oversupply the first several months). I just collected let down throughout the day using a haaka which was enough for a bottle. But if it wasn’t, I would have done an extra pump first thing in the morning (when supply is generally higher). Your body will get used to needing a bit extra every morning instead of 2am. At least, it worked for me.
It really seems like it’s going to be a wait and see what happens situation but I would love that to be the case for me as well! I got the idea from a YouTuber who did something similar to you.
If you cant find an in-person one, I’ve been following this person for a while and their “Boob School” seems decent; no need to go with them but it covers what I’d recommend to first time parents who plan to lactate. https://thebalancedboob.com/
Oh and I have a second hand spectra (lightly used) and got new parts and it’s been good for the occasional pumping I have needed to do. One tip I WISH I’d gotten is: lubricate your nipples with some breastmilk at the start of your pumping! That hurt me and I only learnt it recently and I feel STUPID because I am an engineer and know about shit like lubricating things
@noodle I used the Medela, the Elvie, and the Baby Buddha for several months each (much overlap). The Baby Buddha ended up being my MVP pump. It’s hands-free and hospital strength. It’s not quite as subtle as the Elvie (you can use it on a video call or while cooking/laundry, but there are tubes/cones hanging out so not good for errands out of the house). It has only been around for a few years so there’s less content about it online, but customer support is great. I wanted to love the Elvie so much; it was a good party trick (pumping on a bike commute! pumping at the coffee shop!) but for me could not be the only pump. Elvie’s suction was just-okay enough that, in combination with my just-okay supply diminished by covid, it really wrecked my supply and I ended up doing a lot of work & supplements to rebuild.
Bright side is, no need to decide ahead of time! Wait and see, or some “if X then Y” plans are also totally reasonable! I would definitely recommend learning some pain management techniques either way though. Epidurals aren’t always a sure thing- they can take a while to get, some people have it work unequally (one side relieved the other not for example) and then there’s rare weirdos like me who they just stop working for. So that’s my main piece of advice with it, even if it’s a pretty sure “yes” it doesn’t hurt to have some contraction management skills in your pocket
. Thank you, would have been a game changer.