breastmilk is the best milk...

...and playtex dropins are the best bottles.

I'm on month three of my "eco frugal baby" experiment, and am pleased to announce that its going quite nicely. at 15 lbs., ecobaby is doing beautifully and eats about 95% mommies milk and 5% similac (emergencies only). her total formula intake since birth has been less than 20oz, and shes eating about 4oz every 2 hours, so i believe even 95% is a conservative number, its probably more like 98% lol.

although ecobaby is a mommies milk baby, shes not a breast baby. she does cuddle against my chest at night for bedtime, but she does not breastfeed. this is mainly due to mastitis in my right breast, which was exacerbated by breastfeeding and relieved by pumping, and poor latch (which undoubtedly caused the mastitis). i'm an "ep" mommy, aka exclusively pumping mommy, and let me tell ya, i can't thank medela enough! either way it goes, so long as ecobaby eats mommies milk, I'm happy.

now, onto the thrills of breastmilk (i can't applaud this stuff enough) and playtex bottles.

i found out through lots of research *insert nerd smiley here*, that breastmilk has many great features, including but not limited to:

it *oils* ecobaby's digestive track, so constipation is not possible

it is safe for 10 hours at room temperature once expressed

it grows as ecobaby grows, so at birth, its perfect for newborns. at 1 year, its perfect for 1 year olds. at 3, its perfect for 3 year olds, etc.

it tastes like mommies diet

it is full of immunitive chemicals

it burns about 500 calories a day while being produced

it releases feel good hormones for mom and ecobaby during expression/feeding

the list goes on. now playtex bottles are the perfect companion to my milk and thus the best bottles (in my opinion of course) because:

they are easy to clean

they are stackable to spacesave in the fridge

the bags are sterile

the bags are also affordable

the bags can be frozen so double as milk storage bags

the bags collapse as ecobaby eats, thus preventing gas (and possibly colic)

the bottles are pretty, and affordable as a whole.

now, i assure you neither lalecheleague or playtex are endorsing me for this blog entry (although it would be nice). they don't need to, the proof is in the pudding. and in ecobaby's beautiful smile.