Some people say raising a child cost a bajillion dollars. It doesn’t have to, if you use cloth diapers, wear hand-me-downs, and exclusively breastfeed. But it all changes when “breastfeeding” actually means pumping milk 6-8 times a day and bottle feeding the baby. In the past few months, I have bought never ending amounts of breastpump and bottle feeding accessories!! Here’s 10 things baby Lioness uses every day, but her big sister never needed.
1) Pressurized Valves. The feeding specialist at the hospital gave us two of Dr Brown’s Speciality Feeding Bottles made for babies with cleft palate. Each of the bottles came with 2 “magical” blue valves, so I have four valves, and so far I haven’t lost one.
2) Bottle Nipples. The bottles came with stage 1 and stage 2 nipples. The baby bites the nipple rather than sucking on it, so those need replaced every few weeks or whenever the baby ends up wearing more milk than she’s swallowing. Optimal springy-ness of the bottle nipple in a key part of feeding this baby. Lately I’ve been replacing the nipples weekly!
3) Glass Bottles. I’m not a fan of using plastic bottles, so upon discovering that Dr Brown makes glass bottles, (and the magic blue valve fits in them) I “had” to buy a set of the 4oz bottles. Those things are heavy! After a while, I’ve gotten used to them, and my wrists have become stronger. Who knows, maybe someday we will up-grade to the 8oz size! If Lioness is going to be one strong little baby if she wants to hold her own bottle all by herself.
4) Bottle Sleeve. If you have glass bottles, it’s good to have a silicone sleeve so the bottle doesn’t break when you (or big sister) drop them. The only color options are blue or pink. I don’t like pink, but if people see her pink bottle, I should help clarify she’s a girl, where-as blue bottles could cause confusion. I have seen green and purple sleeves on e-bay for ridiculously high prices. But if I ever find purple (or orange) for a reasonable price, I’m going buy one.
5) Bottle Brush. The hospital gave us the “munchkin” brand bottle scrub brush. After a couple months the sponge part has disintegrated. Needing a new one, I read some reviews and discovered it’s normal to replace the brush every 2-3 months. Ours was over 4 months old! So I bought the “Parent’s Choice Bottle Brush” for $3 at walmart. Next I’m going to try the “Dr Brown’s Bottle Brush.” If I’m going to buy a new bottle brush every few months anyway, I might as well try them all out so I can be the expert on bottle brushes, right?
6) Bottle Drying Rack. For the sake of organization, I needed a bottle drying rack. The one I was given satisfies my OCD, and it always arranged exactly like this, unless I forgot to finish washing things after pumping. In that case the drying rack is mostly empty, because everything is still in the sink.
7) Bottle Warmer. We were given a bottle warmer, which has been a life-saver! Apparently it’s normal for babies with cleft-palate to prefer their bottles to be warmer than room-temp. Even freshly pumped milk is not warm enough for our little princess. This particular bottle warmer makes it easy to get her bottle to the exact right temperature for the picky princess.
8) Night Lights. This picture reminded me we bought night-lights which turn on automatically when it gets dark. We have them in both bathrooms and the kitchen for when I get up in the middle of the night to clean milk-pumping parts and warm bottles for the baby.
9) Milk storage bags. For freezing all that extra milk, I bought a variety of milk storage bags from our local baby thrift store. I’ve used Madela, Lanisnoh, Up&Up, Ameda, and Nuk. Now I only buy Nuk brand bags, because it has the best reviews on amazon, due to it’s thicker plastic, double zip lock, and holds 8oz of milk.
10) Freezers. After filling our small chest freezer with milk, we bought an up-right freezer off craig’s list. That’s probably the most expensive item this baby has required, but we wanted one anyway and will continue to use it long after the milk is thawed.
That’s the main items this girl uses all the time, but as I think of more things she “needs” I add them to Lioness’ wish-list.
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