What made you decide to breastfeed your child?
I wanted to breastfeed primarily because of the health benefits to me and my child. In addition, breastfeeding is more convenient (especially as I was staying home with the baby) and less expensive.
Is this the first child you've breastfed?
Yes.
Is there anything you'd do differently next time?
I would feed truly "on demand" instead of always watching the clock to determine how long it had been since the last feeding. I would also try much harder to figure out the side-lying position early on. Finally, I'd have much more confidence in myself and my baby and rely less on "expert" advice.
Did your child have any funny or quirky nursing habits?
At about 4-5 months, he used to latch on and then growl softly until my milk let down. It never failed to crack me up!
What did you enjoy most about breastfeeding?
I didn't start enjoying breastfeeding until my baby was about 5 months old, but now (at 11 months), I can look back and see that our experience has been wonderful and completely worth the rough start. What I enjoy most is knowing that nursing was our special time together. And now that he's getting older, I love seeing how much he enjoys nursing. He's such a busy guy now, but when he gets tired or just wants to re-center himself, he comes to me and "asks" to nurse by pointing (to my belly, oddly enough!)
What was the hardest part of breastfeeding?
In the beginning, I was faced with awful pain and cracked, bleeding nipples. Add that to the postpartum hormones and I was a mess! I cried at every feeding, I dreaded when the baby would wake up from a nap, and I was so, so tempted to give up and use formula. Luckily, I have a wonderfully supportive husband and we found an amazing lactation consultant who came to our house at 5 pm and stayed for over 3 hours, helping with latch, positioning, pumping, etc.
As it turned out, the pain was just how my body handled breastfeeding because no amount of work with the baby's latch or positioning helped. In the end, I had to make the decision about whether it was worth nursing through the pain and I decided that it was.
Since then, we've faced (and overcome) low supply, biting, clogged milk ducts, numerous nursing strikes, and of course, lots of soreness. Despite all of this, my baby has never had formula and has had very few bottles of pumped milk (primarily because he started preferring bottles, so we had to cut them out to keep him nursing.) My son is now approaching his first birthday, which was my initial goal, and I'm planning to continue for as long as we're both happy with the situation. I hope it's easier next time, but even if it's not, I know that I am capable of doing it.
Tips and Tricks
- Find a good lactation consultant--and by "good," I mean one that you connect with and who understands what's important to you.
- Try to surround yourself with supportive individuals. If you don't have support from friends or family members, try attending meetings of breastfeeding support and advocacy groups, such as La Leche League.
- Make short term goals in the early weeks. My goals were to make it to 1 week, then 2, then 1 month, then 6 weeks, then 3 months, 6 months, then 1 year.
- If you're having problems with latch, try to avoid pacifiers and bottles--they make the problems worse in the long run.
