My youngest hit 11 months on Sunday, so you know what that means — the end of breastfeeding is in sight! Oh, happy day. As much as I love nursing my little cuddlebug, I look forward to fully-caffeinated coffee, wearing clothes that don’t need an easy access option and most of all — SLEEP. Weaning will be a much slower, painstaking process with this kid, though, so I am of course going to be taking it slow. In the meantime, I did want to offer a couple of breastpump-related hacks.

First, the accessories can be expensive. Hoses for the Medela Pump In Style cost an average of $10, while those itty bitty white membranes that go inside the yellow valve? A six pack goes for $6 or more. Here’s my hack — and to be honest I didn’t learn this until I had a second child — hoard everything the hospital gives you when you first give birth. Each time I’ve had a baby, the hospital in question bombarded me with breast pump bottles, shields, hoses, bottle caps so I could use them with the hospital-grade pumps you use at the hospital. They let you take ALL THAT HOME. So whatever you might need, try to get extras from the hospital. The hoses for a medical-grade pump, by the way, do look different and you might be tempted to just throw them away. (I’ve already done this once.)  However, all you have to do is simply cut the tips off and then you can stick those bad boys on your own regular double pump. I also managed to get replacement membranes when I ended up in the emergency room to get my gall bladder removed — I happened to have my pump with me, and I needed to pump, so they sent some replacement membranes up, easy peasy.

Second, my AC adapter is pretty much kaput, so I didn’t want to buy another one a month before I finish pumping. So the other night, I went into my box of surplus cords and cables — what, you don’t have one? — and found another AC adapter that fit. I was so glad I didn’t have to buy another one.