What do you all think of these nifty little items?

[TattoMomK]

http://www.milkbands.com/

Do they hurt or help breastfeeding? A LOT of breastfeeding problems begin at the hospital when mothers are told to nurse five, ten, fifteen minutes on a side then switch. Yeah yeah WE ALL KNOW this causes hind milk/fore milk issues and can cause slow weight gain which in turn causes pedi's to tell new moms that their baby isn't gaining and to supplement.

Or does this bracelet really help the muddle-brained new mommy remember what side she last nursed on? Does the help with the smaller or rather large chested woman? Typically I just grab each breast and hand weigh them to see which one is more full (indicating I dont need a bracelet to remember). I am a D/DD depending on supply.

What do you guys think?

[birdie22]

Looking at the site, it certainly doesn't seem there was any nefarious intent.

I totally agree with you, and I had a similar experience... it was pretty daggone obvious which side was used last!

But I could see someone finding them useful if they were tracking feedings to work on overactiive letdown, or remembering to wake up a jaundiced newborn for the frequent feedings he needs. I could also see using it to time myself if I had left an older baby home with dh, so I could be back in time for the next nursing session.

It's certainly not a necessity, though, and I don't love the implication that every bf mom is going to need to keep track of nursing sessions in a scientific way.

[RubySlippers]

My mom bought one for me, and though I did use a bracelet in the beginning to help remember which side was next, this one just confused my muddled mommy brain more. Flipping it around to Left and Right, and then trying to figure out which post to move where to keep track of what really was more than my tired, overwhelmed, slightly depressed mommy brain could handle. I just used a regular bracelet and switched which wrist I wore it on to help me keep track. Fwiw my bracelet really did help in that way - I could never remember where I had started last time, and my breasts have never felt/weighed different unless they were insanely full, like the couple of times that ds slept through the night when he was 3 mos.

I don't see the bracelet hurting things as far as I understood it, except maybe if a Mom waited until the bracelet told her that the baby needed to nurse rather than listening to baby, which I think is not an issue with the bracelet itself but rather with the person's intentions for its use. Ds was an unenthusiastic nurser in the beginning, and I needed to keep track of the last time he nursed just to make sure he nursed often enough, so there are good reasons to keep track of the frequency and stretches between nursings - but the bracelet didn't help with that at all, just me trying to keep it in mind was enough.

All in all, I think they may be helpful, or useless at worst...at least from my experience.

[runes]

i can sort of see the utility of this bracelet for sleep deprived mamas, especially if they're block feeding to deal with overactive letdown. but yeah, especially in the early days it's usually pretty darn obvious which side is next.

but part of me is irked at all of the 'gadgets' out there marketed towards nursing moms. i think part of it is the commercialization of babies/birth in general. it's just assumed that you need to get all of this STUFF before baby is born and especially if you're a nursing mom, it's just not true. you've already got everything you need, really the most important thing is to make sure you have clothing/undergarments that fit well, are comfortable and that make nursing (in public) easier.

the one thing that's worrying about the bracelet is the implied philosophy that our babies need to be 'scheduled', which starts to look an awful lot like ferberizing, which we all know can be really dangerous for babies.

if anything, someone should market a 'clock cover' to facilitate moms to watch their babies, not the clock.

[Momma Aimee]

cute enough -- but unnecessary

we've all heard the -- switch your bracelt, or put a safty pin, or .......

all cute things for the first time, freaked out new mom, i had a braclet in Nov 05 .... but come on... after two days (if that long) it was gone and i was "just doing it" yk???

[hanno]

I made my own bracelet with number beads and a little charm. I lost track of time and wanted to make sure he was nursing enough in the beginning. He wasn't really obvious about nursing cues so it helped me quite a bit.

[Perdita_in_Ontario]

I never bothered. I also did the 'squeeze test' and that seemed to work well.

Sometimes I did forget and couldn't tell quickly. It's quite possible I fed on the same side first several feeds in a row. DD has survived to tell the tale LOL.

I think probably they're pretty harmless overall, and I would guess most mothers give up on 'em pretty quickly when they realize that breastfeeding doesn't really need a lot of gadgets (but lots of nice nursing bras. Very important - at least that's what I try to convince DH LOL. DD is 2.5 and beginning to cut back on her nursing, but I'm still about to buy one of those Bravado bodysilk bras...).

Edited to add - I hadn't actually looked at the site when I wrote this - I thought they were just bracelets that showed you which breast next. Oh my goodness - I didn't realize I was really supposed to keep track of "how long"... and surely not for the baby they show in the picture - he's sitting independently...

At the least, though, I suspect most of these kinds of things were at least conceived by other nursing mothers. Better that than yet another bottle designed to be most like the breast, IMO.

As an aside - I've noticed the BabysRUs stores in town now have a whole "breastfeeding" section. I guess that's good? But I can't help but wonder if perhaps manufacturers are a little worried that their bottle market share is going down... so they need to convince nursing mums that they need a whole bunch of stuff that they don't...

[amandaleigh37]

My DH got me 2 of those when I was pregnant... I don't think they're necessary, but did come in handy to remind me when I nursed last (even though I nursed on demand). In those first few days, the nurses at hospital and peds at the first visits (if you're in that setting) were ALWAYS asking how often he was nursing. It made it easier for me to remember, for that reason. And also to remember which side I was on. I can see though how some might use them to schedule feedings, but it depends on how the mama uses them. After the first few weeks, once we got into a routine & nobody was bugging me about his feeding, I stopped keeping track.

[nyxx]

Originally Posted by kidspiration

but part of me is irked at all of the 'gadgets' out there marketed towards nursing moms. i think part of it is the commercialization of babies/birth in general. it's just assumed that you need to get all of this STUFF before baby is born and especially if you're a nursing mom, it's just not true. you've already got everything you need, really the most important thing is to make sure you have clothing/undergarments that fit well, are comfortable and that make nursing (in public) easier.

the one thing that's worrying about the bracelet is the implied philosophy that our babies need to be 'scheduled', which starts to look an awful lot like ferberizing, which we all know can be really dangerous for babies.

if anything, someone should market a 'clock cover' to facilitate moms to watch their babies, not the clock.

here in germany they even sell a breastfeeding stopwatch:
http://www.feedy.de/
don't know if you have such useless items in the US, too.

(if some of you speak german: i wrote about the stupidity of such products in my blog at 28.12.06)