My First Postpartum Project

Oh, the glamorous life of a working, breastfeeding mother: drop baby off at daycare, morning emails, pump. Morning telecon,  manage whatever crisis occurred after you left yesterday, pump. More meetings, more emails, a little document review, pump, then go home and wonder when you were supposed to have lunch. Admittedly, I am extremely fortunate to *have* a job that lets me pump on all 3 of my breaks, but after 4 weeks of being back, washing and drying my pump parts three times a day was starting to get old. Enter my first "mom" sewing project - terry cloth bags for my pump parts!

All in all these took about $5 worth of supplies (most of the cost was in the zipper) and maybe 40 minutes of time - not bad for a mom on the run!

I have a Medala pump, and as with many of my projects, I flew by the seat of my pants on this one. I measured out the valves and made a 6" x 6" zippered bag for them. For the breast shields I used a drawstring pouch that started out 12" in circumference and 10" tall, but got a height reduction (intentional) partway through. One day I will change out the ribbon for something that goes better.

Overall, this was a fun project: I would have preferred to make a quilt, but this is definitely a FAR more functional refresher project. I have already taken it to work 2 days in a row and it is SO nice 1) to not have to track my pump parts individually - I can store them in their bags and just make sure the bags make it to work each morning - and to just be able to rinse my pump parts after each use and throw them in a moisture-absorbent bag. I had been using paper towels, but that just led to a sea of paper in my tote bag. We'll see how these hold up over the next couple of months of use, but for now I'm just excited they gave me an excuse to get the machine out.

Oh, and for anyone who wants to try this at home: be aware that when you cut terrycloth the little bits of terry get everywhere. Just ask my cat Emily, who likes to sit in my lap as I sew. She got quite the extra coat that night, and so did I. Happy Sewing!