The Ultimate Baby Items Guide: Nursing essentials for the new mama

Hi there! Thank you for stopping by.

Here are my tips for some mama/nursing essentials including bottle feeding.

Pre-baby:

Take a breastfeeding class - if you only take one class, take this one. We took our class at the Pump Station. I also recommend infant CPR, we took this class at the local hospital.

Pump: call insurance to get your pump prior to delivering. I have seen that they are delivering them much earlier now, maybe even 2-3 months prior to the baby arriving. I used the Medela advanced pump in style, backpack and had good experiences with that. I was able to use my pump from 4 years ago as a second pump to leave at work. it was a life saver to not have to carry it back and forth everyday. If I were to do it again, I would go with the Spectra. Although I have not personally used the Spectra breast pump, many who have tried both like the Spectra better. So, if your insurance covers it, I would go with the Spectra over the Medela.

At the hospital - ask for a belly binder before you leave. this will help you tummy stay tucked and helps your belly shrink back. I wore mine 24/7 for the first 4 weeks after delivery. I did have a c-section though.

Take some silhouette photos a few days or weeks prior to delivery/due date. They are easy to do with your iphone. I used this tutorial from white house black shutters blog.

tummy butter for mommy while preggo (to reduce stretch marks) i like the smell of this one and it felt nice to rub it on my preggo belly.

Pump Parts: A few tips regarding pump parts: 

1) (Pre-baby) When you have your baby, while at the hospital - ask to pump (you will get all of the pumping parts for "free" and trust me, if you are pumping, you will want all of the extra parts you can get.

2) When pumping at work or at home, refrigerate the parts in a clean ziploc bag between pumpings at during the day. Wash at the end of the day (sometimes I didn't wash until after the 2nd day).

3) have a big bucket with dishwasher liquid water and soak your pump parts prior to washing. this will make it easier to wash. we use seventh general free and clear dishwasher liquid. i like it because it has no smell and feels clean.

For after baby arrives:

Nursing pillow – bring this to the hospital. I used the luna lullaby - it feels soft and comfy, but might be a little too soft for some and might get too hot for some, but i liked mine. I liked the luna lullaby better than my brest friend (i found this a bit a bulky and hard to maneuver) and the the boppy. this is personal preference, maybe stop by a store to try them out.

Freemie for pumping has been a lifesaver at work – use this with my medela pump and go advanced pump. it's nice to be able to slip the cups into certain shirts and pump without the flanges sticking out. sometimes i wasn't sure if i pumped less using the freemie though, but overall i was happy with this purchase. I used it for a year and 4 months.

Lansinoh nursing pads you will likely leak a lot during the first few months if you are breastfeeding. therefore nursing pads are a must. carry extras with you just in case.

Motherlove nipple cream – bring this to the hospital. apply to nipples if you feel chapped or if it hurts. this is ok for the baby to eat, you do not need to clean it off before feeding.

pumping hands free bra if you aren't using the freemie and you are pumping, you must get a hands free pumping bra. some people are able to cut slits into old sports bras and makeshift their own. i used this and it was rather easy to use.

Mother’s milk tea to help breastmilk production. this has a strong herbal taste. if you want you can add cream to it and some honey and that makes it taste a bit better.

Nursing bra – I lived in those.

Nursing tank tops - my favorite one was from muji that i got in japan. however, second favorite would be from h&m. these from amazon look comfortable but i haven't tried them. target also has a selection as well.

Cloth nursing pads – good for later on (6+ months) when you aren’t leaking so much.

Haakka  - collects milk on one breast while you nurse on the other side. I haven’t used this but I heard it works great. I didn’t know about it when I was nursing early on, otherwise I would have tried it.

dr brown bottles - lavender - we had good luck with the dr brown bottles. no gas issues for both my babies. we bought lavender bottles because i love lavender but found it was easy for the daycare to identify their bottles because they were different from everyone else's clear bottles. so, i highly recommend buying a different color bottle to easily differentiate your child's bottles for the teachers.

preemie nipples - start with preemie nipples for a slower flow so that your baby doesn't learn to prefer the bottle to nursing. also, a tip to save money would be to use a fork to poke a bigger hole in the nipple when they outgrow the preemie nipple. :)

bottle brush

bottle drying rack - we have this one and it lasted us through two kids so far. will be handing it down to a friend.

Lawn drying rack - this is the bigger one. the grass is the smaller one. we used both the bottle drying rack above and the lawn drying rack. sometimes both would be completely full of pump parts and bottles to dry.

on the go drying rack this was perfect for weekend trips or longer trips. bottle drying rack with a brush. tip: fill a medela 2.5 ounce storage container with dishwashing liquid to take with you on the go.

medela hand pump was great for on the go or for long car rides or for extended periods of time when you couldn't nurse or get to your electric pump.

hot water dispenser - highly recommend this. we use this to warm the bottles as well as to make coffee, tea, instant noodles, etc.

bottle warmer - none needed. we used the hot water dispenser to fill a cup full of hot water to warm the bottle

bottle transporter - we use the tokidoki fuel cell - i bought mine off ebay because the tokidoki site didn't have the exact print i wanted. they are super cute and they will hold three 8 ounce dr brown bottles or maybe 4? and also they hold 4 regular water bottles. we use this for disneyland or for day trips in addition to everyday at daycare.

Deep freezer to store breastmilk - we got our deep freezer from home depot and now that we ran out of breastmilk, we store our other frozen foods. it's very convenient.

Thanks for reading. Please leave any comments or questions. (please note: affiliate links are on certain links).

Best,
~Alice