two DYI mama hacks

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Some DIY hacks just aren't repeatable, hence the proliferation of pinterest fails. But these two super simple ideas are pretty much impossible to screw up, so let's go save a little time, money, and breastmilk.

1. You can buy a fancy Faucet Extender for $10 on amazon, or you can use a shoe horn and a rubber band for free (or for almost free if you don't already have a random shoe horn sitting around). 

I know. It isn't that expensive to buy this gadget, but hey, ten bucks is ten bucks. My daughter loves this thing. I don't have yet another baby/toddler thing to get rid of as my children grow up. And free is awesome.

(I think it looks nicer, too. So, booyah. Free DIY doesn't have to equal ugly. Plus, my daughter loves purple, so she loves that we have a purple rubber band on it.)

2. When you're pregnant, you'll probably do the exhaustive research to finally choose what you think is the best breast pump out there.

(I like the Spectra Baby S1 Double/Single Breast Pump with Rechargeable Battery because you can take it anywhere. I also chose it over the Spectra Baby S2 Double/Single Breast Pump (which is cheaper but pink and without a rechargeable battery) because I preferred this color. Isn't it pretty? It's like Wall-E and Eva had a baby breast pump.)

Anyway, let's say you finally get the pump you wanted, but the bottles aren't your favorite. Your options seem limited because nothing is compatible with each other. (Wave angry consumer fist in air.)

So, people cobble together pieces from various companies to try to make a system that works for them. (MIT even hosted a breast pump hackathon to try to see if they could come up with a better solution for busy, working moms.) But this really doesn't seem like it should be necessary.

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So, for example, you can pump breastmilk into the mediocre bottle that comes with the pump, dump it into a breastmilk bag for storing/freezing/transport (losing precious breastmilk in the process), then move it to the MAM Anti-Colic Bottle because your baby won't drink out of any other bottle (losing more breastmilk) when you're going to feed baby...

Or you can just pump into the storage bag that you TAPE onto the flange. 

Voila! 

Ha! Take that, breast pump companies. We'll use whatever pump/bottle/storage device we want. 

I even taped glass mason jars onto the flange initially, before deciding to buy storage bags. I was trying to be environmental, but in the end, disposable bags are just easier, especially if you'll be freezing your breastmilk (which even the occasional pumpers will likely need to do because you only have a week where you can serve refrigerated breastmilk). (I like these Lansinoh Breastmilk Storage Bags.)

Hope these little ideas help you and your family, too. Let me know if you have other hacks you've found helpful. Especially the ones that are idiot-proof. :-)