Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Baby Monitors
Can I just say how much I hate our baby monitors? They are seriously the worst. I don't know if it is just my particular brand or if they are all like the ones we have but I want to smash them into tiny little pieces every night. We have the Motorola ones with the little video screen. If the babies make noise, the screen lights up with a video and sound of what is going on in their room. When they come on they BEEP once loudly, and after a short period they shut back off with another annoying BEEP. Now supposedly you can adjust the sound of the beeps, but they are all very loud. I guess that is to make sure it awakes me (from the few times I actually fall asleep) so I know what is going on with my babies. This sounds like a great monitor right? The problem is, it is constantly disconnecting from the camera in their room for whatever reason. EVERY time it does this it beeps several times, shows the video and then beeps again as it shuts off. I tell you this happens it seems several times an hour. So when I finally lay down to sleep I get woken up by screeching in my ear from it being disconnected. NOT because my babies are awake. Ohhhh but the sound is so loud that I can hear it all the way out in my living room even on the lower sound settings. So lets keep our fingers crossed that the babies aren't in a twilight sleep or your lovely monitor will wake them up. To make it worse assuming the monitors are actually working correctly, my girls have to be making a lot of noise for them to actually pick it up. In fact, I can almost always hear them before the monitors go off. It seems to pick up the cars driving by better then one of my girls crying. The only positive I have to say is that I can click a button and it will give me a current video of them in their beds. I want to say they cost around $100. For your own sanity pay a little more and get a better one so you can get a little sleep.
Thursday, December 10, 2015
Buying a Breast Pump
To buy or rent? Well it all depends on how long you intend to breastfeed. Either way I would recommend renting one from your local hospital to see how you like it; especially if you are on the fence about breastfeeding. I want to say it cost about $50 a month to rent the one at my hospital. The pump they had was the Medela Symphony, which in my opinion is fabulous. I didn't know it at the time, but it is seriously amazing when compared to just about any other pump.
When I switched down the road to my Medela Pump in Style (advanced) I was shocked at the difference. I eventually got used to the pump in style, but the symphony is much more gentler on your sensitive skin. For that reason, if you only plan to pump short term, I would recommend just renting that one for a few months. The nice thing was that I could still use all my accessories when I made the switch. The Symphony is very large and bulky so it is hard to go places with it (but doable). The pump in style is very compact and easy to bring along with me to work.
Whatever you do, make sure the pump you buy has the Let Down option. According to my lactation consultant, if you do not have that option it will negatively effect your supply. I was told that was why when so many mothers go back to work, their supply will tank. So when you are searching for your pump make that a must have option.
Did you know that your insurance will pay for a pump? I searched reviews on the particular one my insurance wanted to give me and from what I could tell it sucked. So here is a bit of advice that you may not be aware of. Some insurance companies, or the places that you get the unit from, let you upgrade from what the insurance paid for, to a better pump. That is what I did. I believe it cost maybe $25 to go from a super sucky unit to the Medela pump in style with the let down option. To me that is huge. Even if you plan to exclusively breastfeed, I would still take your insurance up on the offer and get a pump. You never know, you may have some sort of emergency where you might need it as a back up.
On that note, if you live in an area like I do, when it storms we tend to lose power. If you are an exclusive pumper make sure you have a hand express pump just in case your power goes out. The hospital gave me one but if yours doesn't they run around $30 at the store. When my girls were in the NICU and I was pumping at home for them there were a few times we lost power and that was no fun.
A few side notes I have learned along the way:
If you don't feel like you are getting as much milk from pumping as you were, and nothing has changed in your diet/health, check your machine. A few times the white plastic valves have torn on me. If that happens the suction doesn't work right and you won't get much milk out.
Always have extra storage bags on hand. You don't want to be stuck at work and realize you don't have any bags to put that liquid gold in. I have heard in an emergency like that, buy a water bottle, clean it out, and store it in there for the day.
Having an extra set of pump parts is a must. Don't wait. You don't want to be up cleaning pump parts at 2am, trust me on that one.
If your skin is getting super sore from pumping it could be from the breast shield not fitting correctly. Check this website out to make sure you are using the correct size. http://www.medelabreastfeedingus.com/tips-and-solutions/13/choosing-a-correctly-fitted-breastshield
Get a hands free bra. Yes they are somewhat expensive but you'll regret waiting on this one. It seriously sucks sitting there holding those things to your chest multiple times a day. Free up those hands. I got mine for about $45 from the hospital.
I tried to make my own with a sports bra, cutting the wholes like I saw on Pinterest (see below).
For me that didn't work out. Once the milk started filling up the bottle, the weight would pull the material and the breast shields wouldn't stay in place very well. It might depend on how much you normally collect, but with twins, it didn't hold up.
For those of you not strictly pumping and don't want to waste any milk these are pretty cool. Under $30 so not bad.
What is your favorite pump? Let us know in the comment section below.
Whatever you do, make sure the pump you buy has the Let Down option. According to my lactation consultant, if you do not have that option it will negatively effect your supply. I was told that was why when so many mothers go back to work, their supply will tank. So when you are searching for your pump make that a must have option.
Did you know that your insurance will pay for a pump? I searched reviews on the particular one my insurance wanted to give me and from what I could tell it sucked. So here is a bit of advice that you may not be aware of. Some insurance companies, or the places that you get the unit from, let you upgrade from what the insurance paid for, to a better pump. That is what I did. I believe it cost maybe $25 to go from a super sucky unit to the Medela pump in style with the let down option. To me that is huge. Even if you plan to exclusively breastfeed, I would still take your insurance up on the offer and get a pump. You never know, you may have some sort of emergency where you might need it as a back up.
On that note, if you live in an area like I do, when it storms we tend to lose power. If you are an exclusive pumper make sure you have a hand express pump just in case your power goes out. The hospital gave me one but if yours doesn't they run around $30 at the store. When my girls were in the NICU and I was pumping at home for them there were a few times we lost power and that was no fun.
A few side notes I have learned along the way:
If you don't feel like you are getting as much milk from pumping as you were, and nothing has changed in your diet/health, check your machine. A few times the white plastic valves have torn on me. If that happens the suction doesn't work right and you won't get much milk out.
Always have extra storage bags on hand. You don't want to be stuck at work and realize you don't have any bags to put that liquid gold in. I have heard in an emergency like that, buy a water bottle, clean it out, and store it in there for the day.
Having an extra set of pump parts is a must. Don't wait. You don't want to be up cleaning pump parts at 2am, trust me on that one.
If your skin is getting super sore from pumping it could be from the breast shield not fitting correctly. Check this website out to make sure you are using the correct size. http://www.medelabreastfeedingus.com/tips-and-solutions/13/choosing-a-correctly-fitted-breastshield
Get a hands free bra. Yes they are somewhat expensive but you'll regret waiting on this one. It seriously sucks sitting there holding those things to your chest multiple times a day. Free up those hands. I got mine for about $45 from the hospital.
I tried to make my own with a sports bra, cutting the wholes like I saw on Pinterest (see below).
For me that didn't work out. Once the milk started filling up the bottle, the weight would pull the material and the breast shields wouldn't stay in place very well. It might depend on how much you normally collect, but with twins, it didn't hold up.
For those of you not strictly pumping and don't want to waste any milk these are pretty cool. Under $30 so not bad.
What is your favorite pump? Let us know in the comment section below.
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