Pleasant Pumping

I'm going to talk about pumping here. Some people might not find that super pleasant even though I don't intend to get gory or anything. So... yeah. Be warned! lol Basically, these are just the things that I've found work for me personally to make pumping tolerable. It's dull, it's tedious... it's all the time suck of breastfeeding with none of the benefits and twice the clean-up. But sometimes you just gotta do it.

• Get a double electric pump. Medela has the fanciest, best ones, but they're pricey. You can rent them from the hospital, but they're $80 a month. Or for that same $80, you can get a Playtex. Mine's taken the abuse of going from home to work every day for eight months now.
• This is actually just more for breastfeeding or pumping - get yourself some reusable nursing pads. I wish I'd done that sooner. I felt kind of dumb when I realized how much money I would have saved, plus less filling up of landfills. 
• Find something that makes the experience tolerable for you. Personally, I refuse to do anything productive if at all possible. I read fan fiction, I play Angry Birds... whatever. My Kindle Fire has been an absolute godsend, as was my phone before that. Because I'm not even going to attempt to hold a regular book open and hold pumps on at the same time. Uh uh. 

Those are the big ones. You're already working if you're pumping - by which I mean that the pumping itself is a productive activity. So try not to let yourself feel like you've got more important stuff pressing or you should be multitasking. Give yourself that fifteen minutes or whatever guilt free. You deserve at LEAST that for doing it to start with. 

And if you don't pump or breastfeed... that's FINE. And if someone gives you crap for it, flip them off for me. Things like this are personal, and as long as you and your baby are taken care of, that's all that matters.