My fiancé Oli and I were both adamant we wanted to breastfeed our baby from the word go, but my journey hasn’t been straightforward.
In the first day or so after giving birth to Theo, I had midwife after midwife help me get him latched on, and therefore had very little idea what to do myself. I just couldn’t figure out how to get him to latch and stay on until he was full.
This hit me hard. I felt inadequate and like an utter failure.
But looking back, (hindsight is a wonderful thing, right?) breastfeeding is a skill, and skills need to be learned and refined.
Oli and I went to a breastfeeding class at Kingston Hospital a few weeks before my due date, where we learnt about optimum positions, signs baby is hungry, and the pros and cons of feeding from the boob.
Another key lesson I learned at the workshop was to hand express your milk in the weeks leading up to your due date, and to continue doing so if your baby can’t or won’t feed from you for whatever reason. So when baby T had to go to another hospital the day after his birthday, I hand expressed to ensure my supply matched what he’d need. In the meantime, he was being fed donated breastmilk in teeny tiny cups by Oli.
By day four of our post-natal hospital stay though, I broke down. I just couldn’t get the hang of feeding.
After a lot of frustration, I borrowed the hospital’s pump and chose to express and bottle feed Theo my milk until we could get breastfeeding down.
Oli bottle-feeding Theo
Expressing worked ok for a couple of weeks, but it became obvious I wouldn’t be able to cope with expressing and bottle-feeding once Oli went back to work after a month of paternity leave. With Theo eating at least every three hours or so for around an hour, I would have so little time for anything else.
I had a chat with my sister Tessa, who told me about a breastfeeding group she’d gone to and found a list of my local National Childbirth Trust (NCT) ones.
I did one day of expressing and bottle-feeding baby T on my own before heading to my local group. It ended up being one of the best things I did for Theo and I. The nurses and midwives simply didn’t have the time to give me a step by step guide to breastfeeding, but the councillors at my nearest Breastfeeding Drop-in Group did.
The help through the issues Theo and I were having was amazing and exactly what I needed. Along with the tea and biscuits of course.
I was feeding Theo in public by the end of the same week I first visited the session which genuinely made me feel unstoppable.
To say breastfeeding isn’t easy is such an understatement, and it comes hand in hand with the pressure from society to be a ‘perfect’ mum (whatever that is) and the pressure I put on myself to get it right.
The fact is though, you can’t please everyone when it comes to what you do as a parent. If you don’t get the hang of breastfeeding or don’t choose it, you’re going against what’s natural, but if you bottle-feed, you’re lazy and/or selfish. You just have to do what works best for you and your family.
I’ve now got to the point where I’m breastfeeding while typing this, and, not to toot my own horn, but I can also do it in bed, at friends’ houses, in parks, and when eating a bowl of cereal (although Theo currently has a tendency to grab whatever I’m eating).
I’m planning to carry on breastfeeding until Theo is a year old, and I love the cuddles and time together we get when I’m feeding him. Although the process of getting to this stage has been far from easy, and involved a lot of tears and patience, the fact I’ve kept Theo alive and well for almost six months purely with something my body produces is amazing! Plus you get to binge of heck of a lot of Netflix.
Love
Marianne x
Maz in Motherhood 