Breastfeeding. I do believe it is the best for a baby, especially a preemie. Now when I found out I was pregnant, I thought I might try it & as the pregnancy wore on, I decided probably not. Then all of a sudden my son was here & I had to decide fast. I decided to give it a try. He was in the NICU & way too small to latch on, so I had to pump the milk out and that is what I did for the next 18 months. Once he was bigger, I did latch him on, mainly towards the end of his hospital stay & the first week he was home. The first week I triple fed: latched him on, then bottle fed to make sure he had gotten enough, and then pumped the rest out. Tell you what, that was a pain in the ass. So I decided to pump & then bottle feed. So much easier. I could pump while checking email or catch up on reading. If need be, somebody else could feed my son and he was still getting the benefits of breastmilk. I think it really worked out great. I did supplement with formula 2 feedings a day just as a fallback in case my supply was down.
A schedule is very important if you are going to solely pump out your breastmilk. You need to be very disciplined. If you don't stick to the same schedule, your supply will drop. In the early days, my son would eat every 3 hours, so I would pump for 20 minutes before every feeding. As each month passed, he would drop a night feeding & I would drop a pumping session. The first month was really tough, but it got easier as each month passed.
The breast pump you use is also very important. You need a good quality hospital grade pump. A cheap $40 pump just won't cut it for full time use. For the first 2 months of pumping I rented a hospital grade Medela breastpump, $60 a month. My insurance ended up not covering it. I didn't know how long I would be pumping for, so I figured I would be better off buying my own pump. I did a whole bunch of researching on the internet & settled on the Medela Pump In Style. Great pump, excellent! I really gave it a workout & it never failed me. The Pump In Style comes in 2 versions, the original carry along version or a backpack version. I opted for the backpack version, only because the pump is not removable in the other version. Turns out, I very rarely removed the pump, so I probably could have gone with the other version. The backpack version does cost a few dollars more. I haven't been able to find a link to it though, just the back pack advanced version, so you may have to do some searching. I got a good deal on mine at BestBuyBaby.com.
One thing you might want to buy is the car charger. I don't have one, but there were times I definitely could have used one.
A schedule is very important if you are going to solely pump out your breastmilk. You need to be very disciplined. If you don't stick to the same schedule, your supply will drop. In the early days, my son would eat every 3 hours, so I would pump for 20 minutes before every feeding. As each month passed, he would drop a night feeding & I would drop a pumping session. The first month was really tough, but it got easier as each month passed.
The breast pump you use is also very important. You need a good quality hospital grade pump. A cheap $40 pump just won't cut it for full time use. For the first 2 months of pumping I rented a hospital grade Medela breastpump, $60 a month. My insurance ended up not covering it. I didn't know how long I would be pumping for, so I figured I would be better off buying my own pump. I did a whole bunch of researching on the internet & settled on the Medela Pump In Style. Great pump, excellent! I really gave it a workout & it never failed me. The Pump In Style comes in 2 versions, the original carry along version or a backpack version. I opted for the backpack version, only because the pump is not removable in the other version. Turns out, I very rarely removed the pump, so I probably could have gone with the other version. The backpack version does cost a few dollars more. I haven't been able to find a link to it though, just the back pack advanced version, so you may have to do some searching. I got a good deal on mine at BestBuyBaby.com.
One thing you might want to buy is the car charger. I don't have one, but there were times I definitely could have used one.
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