toughen upmy nipples are constantly hard. and they hurt like a mother! my nipples don't seem to be toughening up much, even though i'm pumping every 3 hours or so at a fairly strong suck. at least i think it's a strong suck. (and btw, i'm still only producing an ounce a boob at each pumping session. hasn't increased yet. and i'm still taking, and smelling like, fenugreek. my supply still can't keep up with my bm's demand, who drinks 4oz every 3-4 hours. *sigh*)
at birth, one of my mommy friend's daughter sucked so hard that her nipples were bleeding. OUCH. now, she says her nipples have toughened up and she doesn't mind her daughter's strong sucking reflex anymore. i still double over in pain as i slowly maximize the sucking power of the pump every couple of minutes.
i went to visit yet another mommy friend of mine last week, and she told me to bring my pump attachments and use her pump so that i could hang out longer at her house. great idea!... until i turned on her pump.
OH MY GOD.

we definitely had different pump models because as soon as i turned on her pump, my nipples were stretched and pulled to maximum length at an instant! my nipple stretched to the length of my pinky! (i might be exagerating just a little bit. but just a little bit) my pump, which i borrowed from my cousin must be an older model because you can adjust the strength of the pump. you can get from 0 to 60 at your own pace, but amy's pump went from 0 to 60 at ON. i swear, her pump scared the milk out of my boobages! i usually pump for about 25-30 minutes, but was done in 15 minutes, maybe even less after using her pump, which was actually a good thing. but oh the pain!
i asked amy if it hurt her at all, and she said not really. i guess her nipples have toughened up too.
at the end of the day, i thanked her for letting me use her torture pump, which we now call the super sucker.
i'm just weaksauce i guess.