Day 112 - Things That Suck

Boots has been doing some good offers recently. I say that like I'd know. When do I ever go into Boots? Perhaps they're like HMV and MFI and have permanent sales on and this is par for the course.

But no; K___ says they're doing good offers at the moment, and so we've been taking advantage. We went down to Kent's Chav-Mecca Bluewater last weekend to pick up a few half price bargains. When we last saw our midwife, she mentioned how babies that are bottle-fed learn a completely different way of getting at the liquid inside than a breast-fed baby. She went on to explain that when breast feeding, the baby places its mouth over the entire areala and uses its gums to stimulate the milk-producing ducts into releasing liquid. With a conventional teat, it's basic physics; cause a reduction in pressure in the mouth and the higher pressure liquid will move to equalise the pressure differential. Completely different. According to our midwife, once the baby has learnt the bottle method of feeding, it's hard to get them to go back to the breast.

With all this in mind, K___ discovered what we hope will be a good solution. A bottle that is designed to work more like a nipple than a teat. Enter the Tommee Tippee 'Closer To Nature' range. There may well be other ranges that work on a similar principle and it's certainly not my intention to act as an unpaid advertiser for Tommee Tippee (the name is awful for a start), but the general principal is good. They are designed to mimic the flexing, movement and softness of a real breast (although, let's face it, it's difficult to imagine Jr is going to be fooled if offered a straight choice between Mummy and some weird plastic stuff). We also had to pick up a microwave sterilizer, which comes with an additional 3 bottles. It's almost as though someone doesn't trust me to do the washing up properly. Honestly!

Oh, and there was one other item. The 'Freedom Breast Pump'. I have to wonder whether this was originally called a 'French Breast Pump' and then it got renamed after the Frogs decided they didn't really want to take part in an illegal war..? I digress.

Now, I'm not going to lie and say I'm looking forward to getting up in the darkest hours and stumbling around with a head full of hallucinatory remanants of sleep to try and feed the baby, but clearly it's not unreasonable that K___ might expect me to do my bit. This is going to require a breast pump. No, not for me, stupid. They don't work on 'moobs' *. The blurb on the box goes on about the ease of use of these things but that was written by someone trying to market these things to poor parents who are too daft to know better, and therefore not to be trusted at face value. I can't imagine being milked by a machine is that great **.

Everything we bought was half price in Boots, and K___'s amassed so many points that they were effectively free. Nice!

It really does pay to give yourself time to get all of these bits so you can wait for a good deal to come up. It also means you don't hammer that final pay packet before the baby arrives and then wonder how you will afford to eat.

* With thanks for Mr S____ for introducing us to that particular phrase for man boobs.

** Admittedly when I was in my teens, I probably used to fantasize about being milked by a machine, but that was only because I would have been too shy to speak to women back then and my arm was tired after the seventh time and anyway, it's a bit different, okay? Plus I'm not saying I definitely did think of this. I plead the fifth. I too am not to be trusted on such things.