This IS a post about breastfeeding, so I recommend males not read it, though I did try to keep it as G as possible since it IS public online. This is also NOT in any way intended to be prescriptive or what I think people should do; it’s just my story. I have a longer version for anyone interested.
I had been warned it would be hard.
I had known it might not come naturally.
I had read books and it was covered in our birth classes.
But until you are actually trying to breastfeed your own baby, you don’t really know what it will be like. You don’t know the size of your baby’s mouth. You don’t know if she’ll have a tongue tie. You don’t know if you’ll have enough milk.
After S was born, we were discharged from the birth center with a syringe, a plastic spoon, a shield, and directions to return the next day if she didn’t start nursing, because S still hadn’t latched well enough and long enough to have a good feed. After a lot of time and support, we made it work.
But that was only the beginning. By the time she was four months old I had had mastitis 2 maybe 3 times and at least ten plugged ducts. My milk sprayed everywhere; S choked and spluttered, and the amount and speed at which my milk came out contributed to her silent reflux. Often I had to hold a wiggly, hangry baby while holding towels to catch the letdown when she came off and wait for it to pass before she could latch back on. I had the same issue after E was born, but avoided mastitis due to S still nursing and being able to alleviate oversupply.
Thankfully, my supply evened out by around four months, and after that it became easy and enjoyable. We started solids around 6 months, but from then until about 18 months she nursed every 2 hours during the day, and nothing I did could change that, unless I was actually gone. E did the same thing for a while, and I know from how pumped milk looks that my milk is “low fat” so my guess is that’s why.
When S was 14 months I found out I was pregnant with E, and decided to keep nursing if I could and she wanted to. I was willing to tandem nurse as long as S knew she couldn’t just ask for milk whenever she wanted. My supply dropped at 18 weeks, and S dropped to two feeds a day on her own.
After birth, E nursed twice within the first two hours of her birth. I couldn’t believe how easy it was. She was much slower than S, but still not slow to the point of feeding her being the only thing I was doing. Oversupply was still difficult, but more manageable despite the daily episode of spit up requiring new clothes for me and her and scrubbing the couch.
I weaned S shortly before she turned 3. She was still obsessed with mommy milk, but I was done. We provided a few days’ worth of after-nap treats, and then that was it. She was a little grumpy, but it wasn’t terrible.
E dropped down to one feed mostly on her own – she stopped asking for some of them, and I was at the point where I wasn’t as excited about nursing her, so I just let it be. Her 2nd birthday was the last time she nursed, and has only asked about it once since then.
3 years, 22 months, and 4 days of nursing, and definitely worth it. If we have another, I want to be ready from the start to deal with oversupply. I also want to be more in tune with how breastfeeding is affecting me emotionally, to know if/when I need to draw boundaries, whether that’s stopping completely, pumping for Ezra to do a feed, or supplementing for some feeds. I know in the mommy wars there are slogans of “fed is best” and “breast is best” and I don’t want to get into all that but in addition to baby being FED, mama needs to be SANE. And while I respect so many people all over the spectrum of baby feeding choices, the moms that amaze me are the ones who have wanted to breastfeed their babies, give it 110%, but know when they’ve hit their limit and need to change how they do things.
My advice to first time moms:
1. Have a good support system – husband, family, lactation consultants, birth providers, etc. Talk with them about what your goals are – how hard you want to try, what signs would signal you should stop, how you want your husband to help you, etc.
2. If you have ANY reason whatsoever to think there’s something that will make it more difficult don’t hesitate to ask before the baby is born.
Kyleigh Dunn 