Comments on: High Tech Breastfeeding

By: Lisa

Lisa — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 23:53:44 +0000

Because my son was gaining weight and stayed in the high percentiles (which, even our percentile charts are rather ridiculous, but that’s a different topic) I never tracked how much he ate, how often, etc.

I went back to work part-time at 3 months and pumped (a high tech gadget that makes bf possible for working mamas) so I was able to guage/guess how much he ate on a typical day. Which turned out to be totally atypical everyday – it varied by 15 ounces on the days I was at work. I learned to stop worrying about it and be glad on the days he ate less so I didn’t have to stress over pumping so much…

At any rate, I think anything that helps mom bf is worth it. I know one of the biggest struggles for bf mama’s is “is my child getting enough?” and this may be too much stress for some mamas that don’t have a lot of bf support or have dr’s that don’t guide them and support them in bf-ing. If another gadget keeps a mama bf-ing longer and that is what she needs, then hooray for one more app!

By: Ellyn

Ellyn — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:47:58 +0000

LOL, you’re gonna flip when you read this. I’m a lot like FC Mom. I LIVE by my phone. Of course, I know I’m unusual, but I work in Ecommerce, so it’s a part of me.

To give you an idea of how much I use my phone: I have can take photos & videos with my phone. There are over 1,000 files in his folder on my phone. He’s 10 months old.

I also have all 3 of my email accounts attached to my phone. Yes 3. And all 11 calendars (one for each member of family, one for each brand @ work, plus other special calendars). I’m a bit CDO (like ocd, but alphabetized) as you now know. But it works for me.

So when my son was born I downloaded a nursing app. It was wonderful! I didn’t compare notes with anyone. I didn’t look at any trends. I just looked at when he’d last eaten, what side, and for how long. The great thing? I was able to take that back to our ped who was concerned about him loosing weight & if breastfeeding would be enough (she made sure they’d shown me how to supplement before I left hospital, & had sent formula with me!)

I also downloaded a contractions app, before he was born. It was 2am when my labor started. I hit the button when the contraction started, when it stopped, and when the next one hit. It was so easy to just hit a button (rather than write it down). I didn’t know how quickly I was progressing with my contractions were until I got to the hospital & could see that I’d gone from 5min to 3min in 1.5hrs! And know what? The nurses LOVED it. They grabbed other nurses & showed it to each other. Said they wished all moms had that much REAL info for them. Validated me (& I got to say nyer-nyer to my hubby :p)

By: Amber

Amber — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 19:07:03 +0000

I think this would have been awesome if I had known about it a few months ago (and it was for blackberry). Our little guy had terrible trouble keeping weight on. We had weight checks for him every week for the first 3 months. We had to wake him for feedings all the time and track everything. My hubby was a huge help b/c he knew when he was last fed, helped me to wake up etc. We did it the old fashioned way with a pen and paper, but this would have been nice. Btw, DS is healthy and happy in the 18% for his weight at 6 months.

By: Melodie

Melodie — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 05:53:46 +0000

@FC Mom – Thank you for seeing I didn’t mean to offend anyone. I hate it when I think I may have.
I get what you mean about the nursing bracelets being kind of ugly. One mom I knew as an acquaintance had one and always dressed so well. The bracelet looked very out of place on her wrist. She would have done much better with one of the more expensive types. Anyhow, I’m starting to see why some moms would choose to have this app, especially on their phone. If one is spending a lot of time on it anyway and it’s a part of their everyday life, then why wouldn’t it be convenient? Like I said, I guess I’m just a bit old fashioned.
.-= Melodie´s last blog ..High Tech Breastfeeding =-.

By: FC Mom

FC Mom — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 03:01:12 +0000

Gotcha, Melodie! I know you were not being critical.
I used an iPhone app for the first week or so bc it was way easier to drag that around than a piece of paper and pen! I was constantly photographing the baby with the phone, talking to family, and just pressing a button to track how long I did left or right. Easier than remembering to look at a clock (I’d let the kid nurse as long as he wanted, so I’d often lose track if it was 20 minutes or 40 minutes on a side- I tried to switch after 30. I was pretty serious about letting him nurse when and as much as he wanted.)
Bracelets didn’t work for me. The ones that were easy to switch were so UGLY and I am SO VAIN. I was puffy and in pain, and the last thing I wanted to do was wear a plastic bracelet.
A tecchie thing doesn’t have to mean you are overanalyzing and have control issues… for spacy people like me, something on a cool handheld thing just kept me a little more focused.
.-= FC Mom´s last blog ..My Sister Talks About Poop =-.

By: Melodie

Melodie — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:52:09 +0000

I support mothers using whatever they want to make their breastfeeding life easier too. This is probably the first, or at the most my second post, in which I somewhat snarkily (Did this have a snarky tone?) voiced my opinion on a gadget that some people do indeed find helpful. I guess it is just that I personally have never run into a need for tracking feedings and have not encountered anyone who needed to track feedings. But obviously the need exists for some people in the first few weeks or months and this is fine to me. I’m all about supporting the breastfeeding mom to breastfeed, by whatever measure she needs to to do so. If this came across as too snarky and unsupportive to some, I apologize.

By: Sarah @ BecomingSarah.com

Sarah @ BecomingSarah.com — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:42:02 +0000

I can see how you might want to track your baby’s feedings, but I never did. Maybe I’m a slacker, but I sort of figured that she’d let me know when she felt hungry. And she did. That’s what worked for us.

That said, what worked for us does not work for everybody. I know nursing mothers who schedule their feedings or who schedule pumping sessions (I just pump when she’s asleep), and it seems to work for them. Soooooo even though this whole breastfeeding application thing makes me feel old, and even though I don’t see the need for it…if it works for someone else, I fully support their use of it.
.-= Sarah @ BecomingSarah.com´s last blog ..So here’s the deal. =-.