Cost of a baby

[dawbs]

How'd you get by without a nursing bra? I went from a DD to a G when I had my baby, so the bras were really freakin' expensive. My friend who just had hers went from a B to an F (I was just over there today, and she showed me her new bra. One. Because it cost as much as 4 B cup bras.)

Nursing tanks are pretty cheap and I like the 100x better than the nursing bras I bought that are mouldering away in my drawer...and I can and have made nursing tanks.

that's $50 or so that I spent on them...and I probably would have spent $50 on tanks/bras over the course of teh year regardless

(truly, I broke down the cost per month of nursing in my budget...even w/ the expensive gismos, divide it by, say 12, and the cost per month is minimal. Of course, taht assumes everything 'works' and all that jazz. and it CERTAINLY doesn't take into account my time [early on, I figure I spent 8 hours a week hooked to a pump :o ) ])

And the food costs have been negligible--now the food CRAVING costs may not be, since the 'zomgs, I need an oreo NOW' was actually worse the first few moths after the kiddo arrived than when I was PG. :D

[Lily]

I raise a couple different types of mammals- and it never fails that their food intake goes up for pregnancy and nursing. They are small, so it isn't a lot of food, but for some of them it nearly doubles. I also saw this with friends and family's pregnancies/nursing. I'm going to say that your case is not the norm. I can see not using the bras/otherclothing and pumps if your situation works, but the food is different. I bet that a lot of people don't even notice since they have already been eating more while they were pregnant.

I didn't say my food consumption didn't go up, LOL. It definitely did. I need somewhere in the range of 2700-3000 calories a day minimum, with daily exercise, an outdoor highly physical job, and nursing. I'm not sure how much nursing really adds to it with my already high needs, but it does add to it. Just that my lifestyle minimizes the expense of it because I eat a lot of food we've grown ourselves, and my consumption of storebought doesn't go up a lot if at all when nursing. Consumption of other stuff does.

[Lily]

Nursing tanks are pretty cheap and I like the 100x better than the nursing bras I bought that are mouldering away in my drawer...and I can and have made nursing tanks.

that's $50 or so that I spent on them...and I probably would have spent $50 on tanks/bras over the course of teh year regardless

(truly, I broke down the cost per month of nursing in my budget...even w/ the expensive gismos, divide it by, say 12, and the cost per month is minimal. Of course, taht assumes everything 'works' and all that jazz. and it CERTAINLY doesn't take into account my time [early on, I figure I spent 8 hours a week hooked to a pump :o ) ])

And the food costs have been negligible--now the food CRAVING costs may not be, since the 'zomgs, I need an oreo NOW' was actually worse the first few moths after the kiddo arrived than when I was PG. :D

SHUT UP. I still have terrible cravings and my twins are turning 2 this week.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a date with cookies and cream ice cream thanks to you brining up oreos.

[Rosa]

I couldn't find any nursing tanks that fit until my son hit about 8 months and my boobs shrank back into the biggest size most places sell in anything (DDD, like I said.)

And I am just not comfortable going places without a bra. I've never been small, my mom used to nipple-check me before I left the house to make sure I was "decent", no way was I going to the bank or walking to the grocery store in just a tank top.

This is another of those "you don't get to control everything" - I knew my boobs would grow but I had no idea how much.

[StarrieEyedKat]

Did you have a hard time finding them?

The nighttime bras? Nope - I don't know where you live, but the maternity store around here, Motherhood Maternity (there's only 1 flipping location remotely close to where I live) has tons of them. They're super stretchy so I just got a couple of XL's and they've lasted forever. Regular nursing bras were a bitch to find in my size, I had to special order them and then I rarely used them because they were annoying as hell and not very comfortable.

[Kaylee]

Yep, also couldn't find nursing tanks in my size, had a fit finding nursing bras (large band, small cup).

The bra talk reminds me of something else - clothes. I didn't buy a lot of maternity and nursing clothes, but most of what I could find was expensive (again, plus size has so much less to choose from and usually costs more). If you don't bounce right back to your pre-pregnancy size, there's also the chance you may have to buy a new wardrobe. I lucked out some, because I had lot of loose dresses and elastic waist skirts that still fit, but I had to buy new jeans, pants, and fitted tops. I also had to buy all new shoes, because my shoe size went up and still hasn't gone back down. This wasn't as expensive as it could have been because I ended up staying at home and typically wear the frumpy fundie clothes if I'm not going out anywhere, but it would have cost t least several hundred more if I had gone back to work like I'd originally planned.

[dawbs]

SHUT UP. I still have terrible cravings and my twins are turning 2 this week.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a date with cookies and cream ice cream thanks to you brining up oreos.

I went to get ice-cream just after posting that--I hadn't actually been able to eat dairy for 10+ years pre-pregnancy and I not only constantly CRAVE it, I seem to be able to digest it again.

There's pumpkin ice-cream in my freezer for lunch today :P