Breast Feeding and Pumping…
They say that breast milk is best, it is specifically made and tailored for each of your different children and best of all, it is free. These things and the bond that comes with breast feeding are the reason’s I decided to breast feed. It is also said by various breast feeding resources that if you breast feed then you already have all that you need to feed your newborn. This is true, to a point.
You see, you will need nursing pads to prevent leaking and they are not cheap. You can get a box of 60 for about $7.00 but after being home for 2-3 days you will quickly realize that one box will only last for 30 feedings and if your little one eats 8-12 times a day, well, they aren’t going to last more then 3-4 days. This is a scary prospect to think that you will be spending $50.00 a month on nursing pads.
The next thing is that I decided to just double pump every 6 hours (Aiden eats 8 times a day) and that would give me enough milk to get through each day. This made me realize that I would spend another $40.00 a month just to buy enough breast milk storage bags. AGGGHHH!
Here is what I have done to reduce our costs in the feeding world. First of all I bought 2 yards of white flannel at Wal-mart, cut it into 4 inch squares, stacked 6 squares on top of each other and serged the edges together (if you have no serger zig zag around the edges). Traditional pads are round but the thought of sewing around 25+ circles was, well, not going to happen. If you cut creatively you can get 31 squares. I ripped 4 inch wide strips of fabric, cut off 24 inches and folded that in half and then thirds for one nursing pad. I then took the extra length, stacked 6 of them on top of each other and then cut that into 4 inch squares.
As for the milk storage bags, after reading about the special bags (medela, lansinoh, etc.) I learned that they are made of a special virginized plastic, and sterilized. The special plastic protects against the plastic stretching and isn’t prone to get weak spots if dropped or banged against the table, etc. Well, we decided to try regular freezer bags from the store. They are sterilized and we will just be careful not to drop them or bang them on the furniture. We haven’t learned yet how they will work but I think they will work well and you can get 100 of those for $3.50 or so. This is a MUCH better and more affordable solution. 😉