When it comes to reusable pads there are 2 different types available, cloth or silicone. I’ll be honest upfront and say that although I liked these in theory, these didn’t work out for me. I found the cloth ones a bit scratchy to use and that they did smell of sour milk after a while. I stopped using them because I had thrush in my nipples (ouch, ouch, OUCH!) and wanted to avoid re-infection.

I also tried the fabulous Lilypadz which a friend recommended to me. These are silicone shaped pads which basically stick to your boobs and stop the flow of milk rather than just absorbing it. They work on the same principle that if your milk ‘let-down’ starts, you can stop it by pressing flat against your breast with your hand. I found that they worked really well for me although I believe that it’s best to start using them once your milk supply has settled down, past the engorgement stage as the pressure of milk might be too much for the Lilypdz to hold at that point.

The main benefit to using Lilypadz over cloth or disposable pads is that they’re VERY discreet. You could wear a white t-shirt over the top without those tell-tale shaped pads being visible. Not a good look. Plus they’ll probably work out cheaper if you’re planning to feed for more than a couple of months as I paid about £15 for my set. The downside to Lilypadz for me is that I had Eczema on my boobs while I was breast-feeding (anyone who says that breast-feeding is easy has obviously never had the thrush / mastitis / nasty latch-on experiences) and the Lilypadz exacerbated it so I couldn’t continue using them.

So what other breast related bits and bobs are useful? Well I found nipple shields to be a godsend. At some stage with all my children I needed to use nipple shields, usually around the 7 day old mark when I realised that I was dreading the next feed because my poor nipples were a blistered, bleeding mess. They’re great for using temporarily to give some respite and allowing your boobs to heal. Lansinoh ointment is fabulous stuff too in these painful circumstances.

Just when you thought that breast feeding was distinctly unglamorous, my last top tip for breast feeding necessities is a fabulous bra. I discovered the HOTmilk range during my third pregnancy and thought I should treat myself as I had only just stopped wearing my nursing bras after baby no2 and they were all looking grey and grubby (which is just how I felt too!). HOTmilk bras have it all: they’re gorgeous, give you a great cleavage but most of all are extremely comfortable, with no underwiring but plenty of support built in. And (whisper) I’m still wearing mine 2 months after finishing breast feeding as they’re now my favourite bras, so they’re good value for money too.

Hopefully that’s given you an overview on breast feeding buying tips, but if you’ve any comments to share, please feel free to post.

I thought I’d kick off the next of my baby buying tips with covering off baby feeding. Obviously the cheapest and most natural way to feed your baby is breast-feeding. You’ve got the equipment for it already in place and you can take it with you wherever you go. But check out the shelves of your local baby shop and they’ve got a bewildering array of breast and nipple related accoutrements which seem to be designed to confuse. So which of these if any do you need?

Well breast pads seem to be the obvious place to start. No matter whether you intend on breast feeding or not, you’re going to need breast pads to soak up leaks (and believe me when you’ve leaked milk onto your husbands back during the night, you’ll come to appreciate the benefits of breast pads!) Breast pads can be disposable or reusable and I’ve tried both sorts so am happy to share my experiences.

With disposable, I’d really recommend that you buy a well known brand because you definitely get what you pay for. I liked Johnsons or Avent because they were nicely padded and absorbent, but soft too, with no rough edges. I did try some supermarket brands (mainly because they didn’t stock any alternatives) and generally they were pretty rubbish. Not enough absorbency and irritating crinkly paper bits round the outside which itched and were very uncomfortable too.

The benefits of disposable pads are that you change them fairly frequently so from a hygiene perspective that’s good especially if you suffer from thrush or mastitis). Plus because you’re changing the pads, in theory you shouldn’t ever smell of stale milk (but given that you’ve generally got a splodge of baby sick somewhere about your person for the first 6 months of their life, that’s probably not as much of a bonus as it should be…).

The downsides are that they’re more expensive (about £4 for a pack of 30 which was enough for about 2 weeks for me) than reusables in the long run and obviously have more environmental impact as they are disposable. One word of caution too on disposable pads as they seem to have a life of their own and whilst I was using them I would keep finding them in strange places where they’d escaped from the confines of my bra and were making a run for the border!