Ah yes the world of exclusively pumping. A world they don’t really tell you about on those little leaflets they give you are your appointments or on the posters on the walls of the waiting rooms. Seriously, its true I may be misremembering but at the min, I only remember: “breast is best” leaflet/posters, “mix feeding” and “formula feeding” . Now I know exclusively pumping means your baby does intact only get breast milk but it also well for the baby involves no breasts.
This is the first of my 4 children whom I have been able to do this for. Having (it turns out) crazily inverted nipples means latching on is pretty much impossible for my lot. In fact after 2,3 and 4, when I’ve told the midwives my problem, I’d had some of them trying to give advice. Don’t get me wrong- I would have loved one of them to be able to wave a magic wand and make me be able to feed my kids my self but alas, I just have memories of midwives pulling at my breast trying to get the nipple out. Once after my second, one midwife even cut a syringe tip off to try and be able to draw the nipple out… yeah didn’t work. All that being said I am really thankful I have been able to pump and was very nicely given a double pump to help me on my way. You see in my naivety I bought a single pump… wow! 30 min to not even empty both of them was so annoying. Seriously if you are even thinking about pumping at least some feeds get a double pump. Don’t want to buy a £100 thing you may not use often? I was given this and its great. Its bulky but for the same money as a SERIOUSLY noisy tommee tippee one (when its on sale) buy the spectra 3.
My 2 year old is potty training (later than I would like but things have been busy if I’m honest). Pumping while your 2 year old is potty training is not fun… let me tell you. Today I’m sitting on the sofa doing my, what a friend of a friends calls: “daisy bit” when my 2 year old goes “POTTY!”. Yeah for him this words does not mean I need to go to the potty but rather, its gushing down my leg please. Sigh…. I’m strapped to this device so I just tell him sit on the potty ( have one in the living room for now) he does, well turns the thing around a few times and ends up sitting on it backwards. He’s on it for about 1 min “finissss…” and he gets up, but obviously his pants and shorts are wet so he kicks them off “yukkky” and sticks his tongue out. Following this my little man runs around the room half naked, dancing to the theme tune of Dino Trux. Thankfully I was nearly finished my pump and was able to deal with the whole situation quickly but this is one of the lovely things about exclusively pumping. You just have to deal with whats around you. Now I know there are pumps where you are able to be mobile and you can get these magnificent bras that the pump bits can be in but alas money is not yet available for either of these items. And so pumping for me is a 2 hand, exposed, sit on the sofa for 15-20 min mini events of my day. Fun huh?
Pumping also throws up another problem: storage. Now on pintrest are these magical pins of these supper organised frozen milk supplies. Ones where these women have made dispensing boxes from gift bags. Now don’t get me wrong these look great and I wish I could do them and I would do them if it wasn’t for one thing: space. They all seem to be done in these HUGE America freezers or a spare freezer in the garage or something. Neither of these exists in our flat in east London…. sigh…