Well we are finally up and pumping! my daughter sammy is 10 years old and we have waited so long to get her going, the insurance finally came through and we are now the proud parents of a pumper. We are also doing the sensor with it so we are learning a lot. This is our first week of pumping so tips and suggestions are welcomed. Our first course of business is finding the best way for her to carry it, the pump came with a clip but sammy already is complaining about that, The educator suggested calling Pump Wear Inc. www.pumpwearinc.com because they have a large selection of items, which i did and i am getting their brochure and hopefully checking them out online tonight. The one thing that i really liked is that they will send me a “Spending” account letter when i place the order if i want so i can get refunded for the item i purchase. I never heard of this before? but my husband does have a spending account and this is for a medical necessitiy so i think that will be great! Why not get reimbursed if we can, no guarantees but its worth a shot. We are testing every couple of hours and sammy got to stay home from school today so that we could get everything going she wants to go in tomorrow but i’am worried about her. We live about 10 minutes from the school so i think i might let her go in and stay close to home. She wants to show it off to her friends!!! I will keep you posted this week on our progress, the diabetes educator today was very informative and told me about all of you and i am so encouraged to know that a support system like this is out there, thank you all in advance for helping us during this transition.
Jamie/mom to sammy 10 years old
Jamie,
We have purchase from Pump Wear Inc. many times we have also purchased from many other companies but have truly found the products at Pump wear to be of better quallity, many of the other packs and things we have gotten over the years have just not been of the same quality of the ones we get from Pump Wear and i have also decided to purchase mainly from them because no matter what you get the customer service is excellent so you never have to worry about a sizing problem or anything and the spending account thing you heard about i also did not know about this but i did submit the letter i got from them and we did get reimbursed for 2 of the packs we bought from them, You have to request the letter
i don’t know that the spending account will reimbuse everything but we have been successfful on getting our 2 pump packs covered, again another nice benefit of doing business with this company.
As a mom also of a daughter i would definitely let your daughter go to school if she is ready to especially if you can be close by. let me know your progress and i am here to help if you need it, we have been pumping for a while now and have come across so many different things, we are pumping medtronic ans it sounds like that might be what you are on with the sensor, we haven’t had much luck with the sensor (had it off most of the time becase of swimming but we are starting to get back on that)
keri
You must be so excited and overwhelmed at the same time! It gets easier, believe me.
I have a seven year old, almost two years on a pump. We switched to the pump during a Winter break to allow some learning time at home, but really it was not necessary. It was a smooth transition.
My daughter likes the decorative “skins” for her MiniMed pump (not sure which pump you are on). I think it’s a girl thing 
We have been able to use them for over six months each before they wear out.
As for a pump clip, she broke a few MiniMed ones, while playing at the playground, and they are too expensive to keep buying replacements, so we tried a pump pouch on her belt. She liked it at first, but got tired of having to wear a belt all the time (leather or elastic, didn’t matter).
Recently at the state fair we found a stand that sold stick on cell phone clips (http://www.cliphanger.com/), and it has been totally great! I think other companies are starting to make them too now, so I expect the price to come down some.
They come in a large selection of colors and you don’t need to have a belt loop to wear it. You can just hang it from anything, like a hook. We only had it for four months on her pump, and like it a lot.
Thanks so much we are doing well, sammy is loving the new freedom of being able to eat and count carbs. she doesn’t however like everyone seeing the pump. Luckily my mom got her a thing called a “Pump Waist Band” its made out of a stretchey spandex like material and it has a pocket in it. Sammy is wearing the pump in this thing under her shirt and loves that she can move the band where ever she needs to so that know one knows she even has it on, my mom said she got it from Pump Wear, i haven’t had a chance to check them out yet, but now i will have to because i am going to need another one of these things,
I did have her look at target for some cell phone cases thinking she would like those, but she is really funny and doesn’t want people to even know she is wearing anything, so this waist thing is ideal.
jamie