Hand expression

Hand expression and breast massage combined with breast pumping does a better job of stimulating milk production than breast pumping alone.

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Hands On Pumping Pumps Up Milk Production

Expresso

I'd used the Ameda Pump with my older kids --- many years ago. LOL.

This time around, since I didn't anticipate pumping frequently, I didn't turn to this first. I wanted a really small handy pump. I decided to try out several pumps.

First I used the Avent Isis manual. It worked, but somehow, if I didn't angle the funnels properly, the suction would not be good. *sigh*. And the Avent UNO electric pump? Too noisy - so scary. I then got the Medela Swing, a really handy pump, since I have had good experiences with the Medela Mini-Electric and the Medela PIS. What I found lacking with the Medela Swing though, was that it didn't have any option to vary the speed. And when I increased the suction power, the pump motor just got noisier & noisier, like it was very *strained* to work at that higher level.

Finally, I resorted to the Ameda once again. I use it with batteries only, not the electric outlet plug. Nevertheless, even with the lower power strength of batteries, it worked as I remember it - wonderfully!

For the price, the Ameda is really superb for it's efficiency!

Breakfast

Sharing my breakfast with baby.

Avocados have always been a favourite of mine, even when I was little. I personally like to make up a batch of mashed avocados with chopped onions and cherry tomatoes. The tomatoes keep the avocado from oxidising and turning black/brown. Like this! So yummy!

Nevertheless, I'm quite happy jusy scooping out thin slices and layering it with lettuce or alfafa sprouts as a sandwich too. Keeping it simple like that means I can easily share with baby. Today, I just mashed it all up though, and scooped up some for the baby.

The baby's portion was mixed with some expressed breastmilk to keep it fresh and lessen the chance of it oxidising - hopefully. JR usually eats this mixed with his Oatmeal cereal.

.... and some for me!


TIP:
Putting breastmilk on foods does help prevent them from oxidising or "turn brown"!

No EBM

Hai, the little boy just refuses to have his milky any other way but direct. He'd rather wait for me than have any form of substitute. When he was real little, he took the Avent bottles but didn't quite manage to suck well.


I saw that NUK had new teats that could fit wide-necked bottles (yeah, they do fit the Avent!), so tried them out. Our elder 2 children took their milk with NUK teats, and didn't like any other teats, so I thought it might be worth trying. Oh well, no go. The baby just didn't like those either.


We also tried giving the baby his milk by using a syringe. But the cheeky little one spits out the milk instead, making the caregiver all "drenched" in milk instead. *haha*. As a "last resort", I got these Avent Spouts that are easily used with Avent Bottles. I realised that with these new "no-spill" spouts, the poor baby still needed to suck at it to get any liquid out from the bottle. So I removed the valve below the spout attachment (and yes again - the valves are easily removable). This way, the milk can just flow out of the spout without baby needing to suck. Once again, baby launched his protest by spitting out the expressed milk.

Ah...I think I'll just save my liquid gold and not waste my time expressing milk, lah. Will just either bring baby out with me or just not leave baby for too long away from me. Just for a couple more months.....