Well. Nothing to report here. If I had to do a little run-down of my breastmilk expressing experiences so far, they would go something like this:

Day 1: look at the MAM Breastfeeding Starter Kit. Try to read instructions, which are printed on one piece of card with a font so small I require binoculars. Baby cries; I whap out a boob and get on with day, promise myself that I will continue my binocular-reading the following morning.

Day 2: take out all items from the MAM Breastfeeding Starter Kit. Try to work out which thing is a bottle and which thing a “storage container”. Realise that everything needs sterilising before I can start. Baby is hungry sooner than expected: out with the breasts. Forget about my expressing mission for rest of day.

Day 3: make concerted effort to learn about sterilising. Get bored. Do some sudoku, easy and difficult puzzles. Find out that my sister has left a steriliser in the loft at my parents’ house. Ask for steriliser. Everyone forgets to get steriliser because the cat pukes in my shoe and the dog eats it. The puke, not the shoe. Though he has been known to eat shoes.

Day 4: decide that I will try to express my milk in the morning after the first feed. Have shower. Milk goes crazy in the shower like some kind of laser show. Wonder if there is any milk left after said laser show. Especially as I (shamefully) squeezed out some extra, trying to write my name on the glass shower door.  Ha! Find some sterilising tablets in the drawer that my sister left behind, go to read instructions, baby cries. Life takes over.

Day 5: spend an hour reading all of your comments over on the first Breastmilk Diaries post and feel emboldened and disheartened all at the same time. There are lots of “don’t bother it’s a faff”s and also lots of success stories and loads of helpful tips. Much better than Googling! Feel enthusiastic, open my new steriliser to get started with the expressing. Fill it with the parts of the pump and the little milk container. Open the microwave at my cousin’s flat. Try to put the steriliser into the microwave. It’s about three centimetres too large to fit into the little microwave! Bloody, bloody hell. On the plus side,  attempts to jam the steriliser into the machine dislodge a bar of Cadbury’s chocolate that I had hidden on top of the kitchen units. Bonus!

Eat chocolate, drink tea, forget all about expressing. Again.

To be continued…