Entertaining a baby (or 3) while pumping.

My twins have never been exclusively breastfed.  We've struggled long and hard with breastfeeding and milk supply issues.  (It's a very long, very frustrating story you can read about here if you're interested.)  Because of all of our issues, I've spent more time than I'd like to admit hooked up to my lovely breast pump.  At one point, I was pumping every 2-3 hours around the clock, plus nursing and bottle feeding.  That doesn't leave much time for anything else.  But unfortunately it's what my body requires to keep up my supply.

It's time consuming and having 3 little boys under 3 is also time consuming.  With the exception of the first 3 weeks of the twins' lives, I don't have any help during the day.  So being hooked up to a pump for 20 minutes is not exactly ideal.  When the boys want attention while I'm pumping, 20 minutes can seem like 2 hours.  A visitor recently asked me when I was disappearing to my room to pump how I manage doing it when I'm here by myself.  After clearing up her assumption that I pump in my bedroom when I'm here by myself, I started thinking that it might be fun to list my crazy tips for keeping my children entertained while I'm hooked up to the milking machine.

Booooooobs.

I've been thinking about writing about my breastfeeding journey for awhile now.  I've become quite the pro at troubleshooting issues, have lamented to many of my girlfriends along the way, and have been a sounding board for many others.  When my friend Lorryn wrote about her experiences making "skim milk", I decided that it was time to get it down in writing.  It's a long post kids, so hang in there.  And if talking about boobs and nipples makes you squeamish, this is totally not your post.  Go back and read the one about how daylight savings time sucks or something.