Breast Milk Keepsakes...

Last year during World Breastfeeding Week, I ‘met’ a lovely lady and fellow blogger, Twinkle Mummy through the Keep Britain Breastfeeding Scavenger Hunt.  Like me, Claire is a Breastfeeding Peer Supporter and like me, she has breastfed both her boys.  Unlike me, she tandem fed her gorgeous boys as she has twins, Spud and Sprout.  Now, I know how difficult it can be breastfeeding one toddler so the fact she is still breastfeeding her boys who are a couple of months older than Pooh Bear, earns my utmost respect.

Here’s a little more about Claire in her own words…

I’m mummy to twin boys.  Before becoming a mummy, I studied Fine Art, gaining a first class honours degree and then a Masters degree.  When I finished university, my husband to be and I moved into our first home.  We married in 2009 and a year later we discovered I was pregnant.  I had assumed that I would breastfeed my baby. What I hadn’t bargained on was having two babies at once.

My boys are now 22 months old and we continue to breastfeed. Breastfeeding has become a huge part of my life. It’s changed the way I live, my philosophy on life and the way I bring up my children.

Photo courtesy of TwinkleMummy

In May, I trained to become a breastfeeding peer support volunteer. I volunteer at my local twins club as well as other children’s centre groups offering mother to mother breastfeeding support.

As my boys have grown I’ve become increasingly aware that the time will come when they will no longer want Mummy’s milk. I’ve read about other people’s experiences of weaning, of weaning rituals and of ways to commemorate the breastfeeding journey.

In our child’s lifetime, we breastfeed for such a short amount of time and, for this reason, I felt the need to have something tangible to remember this time by. I began experimenting with my milk, turning it into a pure breast milk bead and then embedding the bead in resin. After months of exploring different processes and refining the techniques, I created my very own Breast Milk Keepsake. I wear my Breast Milk Pendant proudly for it symbolises what I have achieved, how far we have come along this journey and when my babies have weaned, I will cherish it as a memento of the time we spent together nursing.

Courtesy of Breast Milk Keepsakes

During the time I was creating my pendant, I realised that I’d love to be able to offer this service to other mums. This was the beginning of Breast Milk Keepsakes.

Yep, turns out you can make beads from breast milk.

How cool is that!

Now, I don’t expect the majority of people I know to think this amazing, but I love the idea.  Breastfeeding is so rewarding, difficult, exhausting, enjoyable, unique, terrifying and beautiful (and sometimes much more and all of those things at once) but it only lasts a few years even if you continue until your child self-weans, they will eventually do just that.   The Breast Milk Keepsakes Claire makes are a really lovely way to remember these times and immortalise your own breast milk forever.  They would also be a great talking point and perhaps be an unusual way of starting a conversation about breastfeeding which could potentially get people who might never consider the benefits to think about them at least.

Courtesy of Breast Milk Keepsakes

And, they look really lovely.  I love the vintage copper heart especially.

You have until 7th January to redeem this voucher code: BOOBS which entitles you to a 10% discount if you quote it when placing your order.

Please hop over to the website Breast Milk Keepsakes and check out and support Breast Milk Keepsakes on Facebook and share with all your friends.