Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Breastfeeding Bedside Essentials


This is my bedside, completely equipped for night time feeds, changes and life with a newborn. In those first few days I also had a stash of snacks on hand! 

Here are the essentials that I think you'll need within reach when you have a new Bebe!::


The Essentials for your bedside:

Reusable Breast Pads:: In the first leaky stage I used disposable pads, I had extreme flow, but now that things have settled down I'm using Breastmates Reusable Pads , they are soft and fluffy and just as absorbant as they say! You can fly through pads so make sure you stock up on them pre birth, or have reusables that can be easily washed on hand!

Nursing Cream:: I only needed this in the first few days when Katie was figuring out the latch thing. I used Lansinoh and a Palmers Shea Butter cream. They can be pretty pricey, but if you need them you wont regret forking out the cash. Try asking your midwife, mine actually gave me some for free.

Water:: You'll drink A LOT. That thirst is undeniable, you can't restrain it! I had a few treat bottles of flavoured water stored away. They broke the monotomy of all that boring water. You'll go through bottles and bottles so each night I always made sure I had two full bottles at my bedside for night time feedings.

Log Book:: I tracked weeks 1-4 of Katies life with a Breastmates Log Book to try and see if I could find patterns, or answer those annoying questions midwives ask like "How many wet nappies today?" "Er... let me just check my log book!" It made it especially helpful when trying to figure out if I should see an Osteo for Katie's Latch. I thought I didn't need to, but when I looked at the log book I could see in black and white her lack of feeding from my left. Brain Fuzz is real people! Log books have spaces for you to record feeds, nappy contents, moods and sleeps!

Extras you might want on hand:

Snacks: Have some snacks on hand for the first few weeks, you'll be ravenous, especially at 4am! Muesli bars were my snack of choice.

Flannels: I use flannels to catch the big milk flows in the middle of the night if I'm feeding (these days I'm only feeding once or not at all at night, so my let down is quite big right now), they're super absorbant and I just chuck them in the washing pile in the morning.

Spare nappies, wipes and bin: Make life easier and have these on hand. We also have all of Katies clothes in our room in a plastic tub on the floor. Less footwork at night the better.

Reading material: I asked my readers for book suggestions for night time reads, and got a few of them in preparation. I ended up reading my bible on my phone at night with the Olive Tree app. Now that I'm not up at all hours of the night I really miss the extra opportunities for bible reading. It was much more productive than surfing facebook or twitter for hours!

Do you have any tips of "essentials for you" that might be helpful to my readers?! Leave a comment and let us know!

1 comment:

Wowee! Thanks for leaving a comment :)

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