Mothering Corner

I’m not a green person, but I will try my best to do my part in caring for our mother earth. Some of my friends are wearing clothes in organic cotton now, and maybe I should give it a try as well. But the thing is, I can’t really find trendy clothes in organic cotton as most of the tops are really not my type. Nonetheless, if you are looking for nursing tops in organic cotton, check out the selection available by Expressiva Nursing Wear.

V-neck Tank with Lace Applique in Bamboo/Cotton

Ruched Split Neck Top in Bamboo/Cotton

But if you are one of those mothers who prefer something sexier, how about this top with bamboo and cotton blend? Personally, I will get this if I’m still nursing.

St. Tropez Top

There’s a sales going on, so don’t miss the great bargain!

My SIL is still breastfeeding her 3 months old baby but it’s not convenient for her to do so anymore at her office. She doesn’t have a separate room and she just nurses by turning her chair away from the rest of the staffs. When the baby is younger, she will nurse with full concentration. But these days, she likes to observe what’s around her and nursing takes longer than usual.

I suggested that she use something like a sling to breastfeed in discreet. That’s what I did and I carried my baby in a sling too. But maybe she just needs a breastfeeding shawl? I haven’t use a nursing shawl before, so is it practical? I think it works just the same as the sling, am I right?

If you are wondering why she’s bring her baby to work, well she can’t find a nanny and she’s not confident in getting a maid. She owns the business so it’s ok for her to bring the baby along. It’s the same as working from home huh?

A mother was asking me about how to transport expressed breastmilk the other day, and I found that I haven’t blogged about techci ice, ice bricks and cooler bag. I thought that everyone knows about this, but I was wrong. So, here are the necessities I would use when I expressed my milk away:

For short distance or time span less than 6 hours of storage:

There are cool pads too if you buy the set from Avent, but I don’t like to use it. It’s not cooling enough.

Techni ice is useful but I don’t recommend it if you storing for up to 10 hours. I found that it melts by then.

For long distance or longer time span of storage:

I prefer to use the ice bricks as it keeps the bag cold for about 12 hours. Besides that, you can use it with Techni Ice if you want the bag to be colder.

My Coleman mini cooler bag. It should be enough for a day’s of EBM. That grey bag is for storing my breastpump between pumping session. I don’t wash it if I can’t find a hygiene place to do so.

If I was away for a few days, I will use the bigger cooler bag to transport my milk. There will be a few ice bricks and techni ice in the bag too, I will make sure that the bag is as cold as possible. I have another Coleman cooler box, but I can’t find it anywhere in the house. My maid must have kept it away. :PI’m using bottles to store my EBM for short distance. But if I’m away for a few days, I will use the plastic storage bags. It’s best to keep them upright with these holders:

I’m not sure if they are still available now, I’ve not been a moo for so long!

I bought some bras again a few days ago and once I reached home, I threw away all my nursing bras. I still wore them after weaning because they were comfortable. But I think it’s time to throw all of them away and get myself more pretty bras that I used to have. Besides that, our breast size changes during pregnancy and breastfeeding, it’s quite hard to have the same size if I’m going to be a moo again.

Frankly, don’t you miss those pretty bras when you are wearing only nursing bras? I did. And I regretted that I didn’t keep any of my old bras behind once I became a breastfeeding mother. But then again, I can’t fit in my old bra size. LOL!

A year ago, I would be shopping for nursing tops for Chinese New Year by now. I visit most of our close relatives during the first few days of Chinese New Year and not everyone is comfortable with the idea of me breastfeeding my gal in the gathering. Thus, I tried my best to nurse my baby in discreet, unless the host offered me a room.

If you are a breastfeeding mother and if you have worries about breastfeeding in public like I did previously, check out those nice nursing tops from mothersenvogue.com. They offer a lot of pretty and trendy nursing clothes, and I used to buy a lot from their website. Just take a look at this nursing top…

Once you get used to breastfeeding in nursing tops, you can practically breastfeed everything. You don’t need to get back to the car and cover it with car cover to nurse your baby in it. You just need more practice and breastfeeding in discreet will come like a bliss.

I thought about getting a Nursing Nest Breast Feeding Pillow when I was expecting my second baby. Hubby thought that it’s not necessary so I didn’t get it. But a lot of mothers will worry about nursing lying down as sometimes we might snooze off. If you want to prevent baby from suffocating, this is the product you can consider about .

If you are interested, you can check out more details about the pillow from AllegroMedical.com, which is an e-commerce website selling medical supplies and other maternity and baby care products. There are some breastpumps from the store as well and they are from Ameda. It’s a great site for medical supplies, so if you need anything related to health and wellbeing, you can take a look at the selection offered by the site.

One of the new mothers asked me about which breastpumps to get, but I have only tried 2 brands, which is Avent and Medela. There are a lot of brand names out there, but you can try to choose the one that is suitable to you by reading about how to choose a breastpump first.

Based on my own experience, if you are a working mother, and you are determined in breastfeeding your baby, try to invest in a good pump. Some of the breastpumps are expensive, and I truly understand that. However, try to think about how much you might be saving up for formula milk and doctor’s consultation fee as breastfed babies are generally healthier. However, I spent a lot on breastpads as I don’t use washable pads. I always prefer disposable pads, and I only stick to brands like Pigeon and Avent. So, using them for more than one year, I don’t think I save up a lot of money.

When I was a full time breastfeeding mother, I shopped a lot of nursing tops, especially when I was having my first child. I had to breastfeed in public or in front of other family members at some gathering and since most of the people around me don’t breastfeed, I try to be discreet so that they will not criticized me for being exposed. Besides, they were surprised to see how discreet breastfeeding can be with the nursing tops!

I shopped a lot from online sites, both local and oversea. All of them have ecommerce software which is really convenient and make my shopping experience a wonder one. If you are thinking about getting up a web store, besides looking for the right products, you will have to look for shopping cart software, such as the software from Ashop Commerce.

Without a shopping cart software, it’s not easy to operate a web store in larger scale. But I stopped buying a few months after my second child. I found a way of making my own nursing tops, and it’s more trendy too. It’s actually a mix and match skill where I put on the tube and top as a set of nursing top. So, I look much better with my own “designs.”

I still receive some subscriptions from a few shopping sites that sell nursing clothes as I bought a lot of them when I had my first baby. At the time, I thought it would be easier to breastfeed with nursing clothes, and I had not thought of how to make one by myself. Frankly, not all the designs are convenient. You need to try a few different companies to find out which one suits you and baby better. My second baby doesn’t like it when I nurse her with nursing clothes as she prefers to have skin to skin contact, even if she’s a toddler now. Thus, I stopped wearing them for a very long time.

It’s not easy to find nursing clothes here. So, I only shopped online. Don’t worry about fraud or exposing your card details as most of the websites have shopping cart software which is hacker free. Shopping cart software like Ashop are user-friendly to customers, and it is always very easy to be integrated by the merchants. Well, if the shopping cart software is lousy, I won’t shop there!

So, what am I going to do with all my nursing clothes? They are still hanging there in my wardrobe.

I saw the boppy pillows on Oprah when she was organizing a show for military pregnant mothers. The pillows were given out free, and I was curious about how good they are. I have a nursing pillow which I got before having Isabelle. I was mentally prepared for Cesarean due to placenta previa, but then I didn’t go for it. But the pillow I have was not as comfortable as I thought, so if you are looking for nursing pillow, you may try to get one of those boppy pillows from .

I ‘m not sure if they are available in our stores, but I certainly cannot find one here. However, you can try to get them online and use the coupon from Keep Cash. You will be getting 15% Off Any Boppy Pillow Purchase. If you are still unsure about the pillow, Google for the product review. If Oprah was giving them out for free, I think they should be very good.