3 Nursing Essentials For The Back-to-Work Mom

When I first became a mom, I had visions of being the motivated, organized, on-top-of-it-all I made baked goods for the whole office, dropped off the baby to daycare and was still the first one in the office mom. Excuse me while I take a moment to stop and laugh at myself.

GOING BACK TO WORK IS HARD. Especially when you’re a NEW mom. It’s hard for a lot of reasons, I’ll save the emotional portion for another blog post, but what really threw me for a loop was finding how to balance baby, job, and my home.

I was 12 weeks postpartum, still adjusting to my new “mom body” (hello, nursing boobs and squishy tummy), and not only was I expected to dive back into work, but also adjust to the learning curve of everything baby. Those first 3 months I was nursing every 2-4 hours morning, noon, and night and I had a personal goal of keeping up nursing for as long as could. That meant I had to pump at work every 2-3 hours. I discovered a few amazing products in my bumpy journey back into the workforce that I thought I could share with my fellow mommies.

3 Nursing Essentials For The Back-to-Work Mom

Lactation cookies. Have you heard of them? I thought this was actually a joke when I first heard about them, one Pinterest search and there’s hundreds of at-home recipes that promise to boost your milk supply. Yah okay…Fast-forward a few months, my milk supply began to drop. Cue: my freak out. Nothing was working well. I tried eating oatmeal, taking fenugreek caused my daughter to get gassy, and it didn’t matter that I drank water by the gallon. In my late night searching on the web I discovered Milkmakers Lactation Cookies, they’re pre-baked, delicious and did I mention pre-baked? I don’t have time to bake cookies every week–remember, working mom? (If you want the option to make them yourself it is available.)

Besides tasting amazing and giving me an excuse to eat cookies every day, they’re packed with tons of vitamins and minerals. All their cookies are baked with oats, Brewer’s Yeast and flax seed; combined these three are a powerhouse of nutrition aiding in boosting milk supply. Another plus? Most of the cookies are fenugreek free, so no fussy baby afterward.  IMO the Oatmeal Chocolate Chip are the best tasting, but I don’t discriminate when it comes to cookies.

Another hurdle I had to overcome was the bottle battle. I read all the stories about nipple confusion and bottle refusal, I had myself so worked up I was convinced I should just bring my kid into work every day. Not great for productivity. After a lot of trial and error and asking for advice on the best bottle for someone who wants to keep breastfeeding I kept hearing about Munchkin’s Latch bottle. Since it’s arrived at my doorstep we haven’t used another bottle.

The nipple on Latch was designed with breastfeeding in mind, uniquely shaped and made to be ultra-flexible, it moves just like a breast would. The unique flexibility allows the baby to control the milk flow by applying pressure to the base of the nipple, which is what makes the transition between breast to bottle and back stress-free. Plus, there’s an anti-colic valve located at the base of the bottle that minimizes air flow through the milk reducing gas and fussiness.

The Latch bottle is also doctor recommended, I don’t know of any other bottle that is actually backed by a doctor and sleep consultant. And the reason why? It’s unique shape and patent-pending features promote healthier feeding and sleeping. Better sleeping! I can actually attest that after using this bottle my daughter was sleeping longer and better.

Last but not least, I experienced leaky boobs…like ALL THE TIME. One side would let down while baby was latched and the other would spring a leak. In the early days, pictures of my baby could make me let down (I wish I was joking). The Latch line makes quite a few accessories that assist with breastfeeding, like Miracle Nursing Pads. Miracle is an appropriate name for them, because most of the time I felt like I was wearing a padded bra with other nursing pad brands. Latch’s version is super thin, yet still super absorbent. They were easy to stick in my bra and I never had irritation.

Going back to work was one of my biggest challenges as a new mom. I’m not the working mom I thought I would be, but I found my groove and successfully hit my breastfeeding goals with a little help from Munchkin.

— Munchkin Team