Breastfeeding-Friendly Online Shops

Last week, I decided to add another page on my blog which is about parenting. I talked about my pregnancy story and how I dealt with it.

After giving birth, I decided to breastfeed my baby exclusively. It wasn’t successful at first, but when I discovered a group from Facebook which promotes the advocacy (it’s Breastfeeding Pinay), I decided to fully invest my time, effort and money in it. Not that it’s expensive, but it’s actually the other way around. You get to save more if you ditch the formula milk, plus you’re giving what’s best for your baby. Breast milk has a high number of antibodies and it’s totally clean and healthy so it’s purely safe to give to our little ones.

I also joined the bandwagon and started my advocacy on breastfeeding. To further pushed breastfeeding my baby, I invested on different breastfeeding essentials which helped us on our journey.

STORAGE BOTTLES

Six weeks after birth, I started pumping and storing my milk on storage bottles. Instead of using storage bags, I opted to use bottles because for one, I cannot store my milk on the freezer in fear of contamination with the frozen meats inside it. Our freezer was full of milk. Using these bottle also makes me save on plastic so it’s environment-friendly. The only downside is the time frame when the milk can be used because it might get spoiled after 6-8 days.

The storage bottles I purchased are from Mom & Baby and Looney Tunes. It’s a lot cheaper and handy to bring. I purchased mine around P150-200 for 4pieces at SM and Robinsons Department Store. Currently I have 12 bottles and I usually have 10 pieces full whenever I left home and I have 2-3 which I bring at work. It’s usually around 5 oz each and I usually fill it up to 4oz each bottle. Planning to buy 4 more. J

BREASTPUMP

There are different kind of breast pumps in the market: manual, electric and those hands-free ones like Haakaa. I used a manual breast pump before and I like it.  However, I need to be hands-free most of the time at work because I need to multitask. I need to do DLL, check papers and prepare for the day’s lesson. Yes, I have a separate time to pump but since my job requires more paper works, I need to do multitasking several times a day. Sometimes, those free two hours  from our regular class time requires us to attend to parent meetings or other emergency situations like student problems and the like. 

Because of that, I started using Haakaa breast pump from Twelve Little Cabins. This is a little costly than the manual one but cheaper than the electric type. What I usually do is that I hand express my boobie and it somehow triggers the flow of milk and I just the Haakaa suck it. When at home, I use this on the other side when baby’s latching because it catches the letdown so nothing is wasted. This is very easy to clean and use too. Totally recommending this. 

However, I really recommend hand express. Practice makes perfect in hand-express so keep on practicing moms. 

NURSING COVERS

A very much-needed in my breastfeeding journey. Since I work in school, we always have students who goes in and out of the faculty room. I pump in our faculty because I can do my paper works there while pumping at the same time. We don't have lactation rooms but the school is very flexible for breastfeeding moms. We can do it in the clinic, faculty, or wherever we may like it to be. That’s where nursing covers is a huge help. Of course, we still need to be cautious because there are junior and senior high school students everywhere.

I'm wearing a cover here. 

Mom & Little will answer your worries on nursing covers. They have a lot of different designs to choose from. They also sell Chewelries too which is helpful for babies teething stage. 

NURSING CLOTHES
This is totally a MUST in every mom's breastfeeding journey. When I got back from work after my maternity leave my uniform won't fit anymore so I used my maternity dresses at work instead. However, it was too difficult to pump with those dresses so I got myself some nursing clothes from Kaypee Baby. I then realized how convenient it was to use nursing clothes while pumping and/or while baby is latching. I especially use these clothes in public places as there's easy access in the breast area. No problem if there are no breastfeeding stations nearby as I can immediately nurse my little one with the help of these clothes.  Whenever I am wearing some nursing clothes, I don't use nursing cover anymore so you can say that it also makes me save.

LACTATION FOOD

This is general. There are different food that aids in having more milk. I usually start my day in drinking Milo which has malt and was known to boost milk supply.  Other moms drink malunggay capsules or eat lactation cookies. Drinking lots of fluids and soups with greens also help. I personally take Fenugreek whenever I feel that my supply is low. It's the Fenugreek from Puritan's Pride which sells at Healthy Habits. 

What I listed above were just some of the essentials which can help mommies out there in pursuing their goals in breastfeeding. When I was pregnant, I promised myself to support the advocacy. I know I started wrong because the hospital asked my family to buy formula for my baby. I gave birth via CS and was sleeping after the operation. The hospital advised my family to buy formula which was completely wrong. I've learned my lesson and that won' happened again.

There are other things that can help breastfeeding moms but these are just some which I personally use. So to share my love for breastfeeding, I am hosting a giveaway on my FB Page and IG where you can win nursing tops, nursing cover, fenugreek, storage milk bags and some baby essentials too. You can visit my IG or my FB page for more details.