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Boobs, Glorious Boobs! My 4 Years of Breastfeeding

1
Before I had a baby, I took my boobs for granted. In my twenties, blessed with a pert pair the size of two tennis balls, I could get away without my 34B bra on occasion. My boobs were there to be admired and appreciated by my boyfriend, as well as a useful place to catch cake crumbs while watching TV in bed.

I’d never thought about what my boobs were actually for, until I watched with a mixture of horror and wonder as my neighbour breastfed her new baby in front of me one day. Hoiking a boob as big as my head out of her nursing bra, she gave it a

SelfishMother.com
2
squeeze and milk spurted all over the little one’s face. ”That’s woken him up!” she guffawed, as she proceeded to batter the poor baby about the chops with an areola the size of a dinner plate. ”Encourages them to root!” she explained. Finally the poor baby latched on to her bullet-sized nipple while I nervously babbled about last night’s Bake Off and stared determinedly at the piece of wall two feet to her left.

The next day at work, I gleefully regaled my friends with the whole squeamish episode and thought no more about it – until I fell

SelfishMother.com
3
pregnant. I researched the options and decided I would ”Give breastfeeding a go.” (a sort of half-hearted effort, like a New Year’s resolution to give up chocolate). I never imagined I would go on to breastfeed for the next 4 years straight.

”Pick a breastfeeding picture that you’re drawn to…” cooed Mary the slight dippy lactation consultant, at the NCT breastfeeding course. I chose one of a mum on all fours while her twins breastfed upside down. ”Hmmm. Interesting.” said Mary, who looked like Olive from On The Buses. I hoped I wouldn’t

SelfishMother.com
4
have to breastfeed like this, as it would make watching TV almost impossible. It turns out breastfeeding is something it’s very difficult to learn in advance. The fact that you can’t physically practise before you have your baby makes it all a bit of a mystery. But hey, how hard could it be?

Very, as it turned out. My daughter Olivia had a traumatic assisted delivery combined with partaking of all the many drugs I had pumped into my system. She needed resuscitating at birth and had NO suck reflex at all for the first 5 days of her life. As I hand

SelfishMother.com
5
expressed tiny amounts of colostrum into a syringe to squirt into her mouth, I wondered how on earth my milk would come in with no sucking to encourage it. But one amazing midwife, Faridah, never gave up on me. She found me a chair the right height for feeding, taught me to prop my baby with a pillow until she was in just the right position to feed. And after three weeks of perseverance, suddenly we clicked. And BOOM! – my once 34B boobs had become a 38G.

Wow these things were big. They didn’t get like that overnight, I piled on over three stone

SelfishMother.com
6
during my pregnancy, but I never expected I’d outgrow the John Lewis bra department. All my pretty, lacy balconette bras from Chantelle were replaced with Triumph nursing bras which I had to order online, whose cups were so enormous they doubled up as hammocks for the cat.

Bursting with milk and with a network of veins that resembled the M25, my partner could barely take his eyes off my new boobs. ”GET. OFF.” I snapped, as he attempted to cop a feel. His days of access to my boobs were well and truly over. They were for Olivia now, and I soon

SelfishMother.com
7
realised my boobs were my most efficient and versatile mothering accessory. Was my baby hungry? Boobs. Crying? Boobs. Sleepy? Boobs.

The dramatic metamorphosis from bouncy tennis balls to enormous melons took a lot of getting used to. I used to wonder why women went on about the pencil test for saggy boobs – now I could fit my handbag underneath them. And I suddenly found my cleavage had looked rather matronly. I’ve ended up looking like Hattie Jacques in Carry On Matron, with a simply enormous BOSOM (singular) that I still catch sight of in the

SelfishMother.com
8
mirror and think surely it belongs to someone else?

I carried on feeding Olivia right through my pregnancy. By this time, she was two and a half with a full set of teeth, but by then it had become such a natural part of both our lives and such a comfort to her, it never even occurred to me to wean her. The time came when the baby was almost due and I wasn’t prepared to tandem breastfeed a toddler and a newborn (much respect to those that do). So I weaned Olivia off the breast with the only other weapon I had available: chocolate chip cookies. Every

SelfishMother.com
9
night at bedtime, instead of my boobs she got a cookie and a cuddle.

It felt strange to switch from having a toddlers mouth full of teeth clamped on my boob to the tiny mouth of a newborn a few weeks later. To complicate matters further, Mia had tongue tie and found this breastfeeding lark extremely difficult. The tongue tie was divided and gradually, her latch improved until she too got the hang of things.

Breastfeeding is such a part of my life now, that I don’t know what I’ll do when I finally stop – probably when my youngest is two, but who

SelfishMother.com
10
knows? She will decide when she’s ready to wean. And when she does, I’d better get ready for phase 3 – Spaniels Ears. I’m hoping that once my milk is gone, my boobs will shrink back down to their pert, former 34B glory, but I know in my heart that’s not going to happen. Instead I must be prepared to tuck my empty, saggy boobs into my waistband and carry on regardless.

So boobs, I salute you. Big, small, breastfeeding or not, let’s celebrate our trusty sidekicks. Vive Les Boobs!

SelfishMother.com

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- 1 Feb 17

Before I had a baby, I took my boobs for granted. In my twenties, blessed with a pert pair the size of two tennis balls, I could get away without my 34B bra on occasion. My boobs were there to be admired and appreciated by my boyfriend, as well as a useful place to catch cake crumbs while watching TV in bed.

I’d never thought about what my boobs were actually for, until I watched with a mixture of horror and wonder as my neighbour breastfed her new baby in front of me one day. Hoiking a boob as big as my head out of her nursing bra, she gave it a squeeze and milk spurted all over the little one’s face. “That’s woken him up!” she guffawed, as she proceeded to batter the poor baby about the chops with an areola the size of a dinner plate. “Encourages them to root!” she explained. Finally the poor baby latched on to her bullet-sized nipple while I nervously babbled about last night’s Bake Off and stared determinedly at the piece of wall two feet to her left.

The next day at work, I gleefully regaled my friends with the whole squeamish episode and thought no more about it – until I fell pregnant. I researched the options and decided I would “Give breastfeeding a go.” (a sort of half-hearted effort, like a New Year’s resolution to give up chocolate). I never imagined I would go on to breastfeed for the next 4 years straight.

“Pick a breastfeeding picture that you’re drawn to…” cooed Mary the slight dippy lactation consultant, at the NCT breastfeeding course. I chose one of a mum on all fours while her twins breastfed upside down. “Hmmm. Interesting.” said Mary, who looked like Olive from On The Buses. I hoped I wouldn’t have to breastfeed like this, as it would make watching TV almost impossible. It turns out breastfeeding is something it’s very difficult to learn in advance. The fact that you can’t physically practise before you have your baby makes it all a bit of a mystery. But hey, how hard could it be?

Very, as it turned out. My daughter Olivia had a traumatic assisted delivery combined with partaking of all the many drugs I had pumped into my system. She needed resuscitating at birth and had NO suck reflex at all for the first 5 days of her life. As I hand expressed tiny amounts of colostrum into a syringe to squirt into her mouth, I wondered how on earth my milk would come in with no sucking to encourage it. But one amazing midwife, Faridah, never gave up on me. She found me a chair the right height for feeding, taught me to prop my baby with a pillow until she was in just the right position to feed. And after three weeks of perseverance, suddenly we clicked. And BOOM! – my once 34B boobs had become a 38G.

Wow these things were big. They didn’t get like that overnight, I piled on over three stone during my pregnancy, but I never expected I’d outgrow the John Lewis bra department. All my pretty, lacy balconette bras from Chantelle were replaced with Triumph nursing bras which I had to order online, whose cups were so enormous they doubled up as hammocks for the cat.

Bursting with milk and with a network of veins that resembled the M25, my partner could barely take his eyes off my new boobs. “GET. OFF.” I snapped, as he attempted to cop a feel. His days of access to my boobs were well and truly over. They were for Olivia now, and I soon realised my boobs were my most efficient and versatile mothering accessory. Was my baby hungry? Boobs. Crying? Boobs. Sleepy? Boobs.

The dramatic metamorphosis from bouncy tennis balls to enormous melons took a lot of getting used to. I used to wonder why women went on about the pencil test for saggy boobs – now I could fit my handbag underneath them. And I suddenly found my cleavage had looked rather matronly. I’ve ended up looking like Hattie Jacques in Carry On Matron, with a simply enormous BOSOM (singular) that I still catch sight of in the mirror and think surely it belongs to someone else?

I carried on feeding Olivia right through my pregnancy. By this time, she was two and a half with a full set of teeth, but by then it had become such a natural part of both our lives and such a comfort to her, it never even occurred to me to wean her. The time came when the baby was almost due and I wasn’t prepared to tandem breastfeed a toddler and a newborn (much respect to those that do). So I weaned Olivia off the breast with the only other weapon I had available: chocolate chip cookies. Every night at bedtime, instead of my boobs she got a cookie and a cuddle.

It felt strange to switch from having a toddlers mouth full of teeth clamped on my boob to the tiny mouth of a newborn a few weeks later. To complicate matters further, Mia had tongue tie and found this breastfeeding lark extremely difficult. The tongue tie was divided and gradually, her latch improved until she too got the hang of things.

Breastfeeding is such a part of my life now, that I don’t know what I’ll do when I finally stop – probably when my youngest is two, but who knows? She will decide when she’s ready to wean. And when she does, I’d better get ready for phase 3 – Spaniels Ears. I’m hoping that once my milk is gone, my boobs will shrink back down to their pert, former 34B glory, but I know in my heart that’s not going to happen. Instead I must be prepared to tuck my empty, saggy boobs into my waistband and carry on regardless.

So boobs, I salute you. Big, small, breastfeeding or not, let’s celebrate our trusty sidekicks. Vive Les Boobs!

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"I'm an Art Director, Writer and Mum of two girls – one aged 4 who's on the autistic spectrum, and one aged 21 months. I’ve changed thousands of nappies, breastfed for four years solid, and seen every episode of In The Night Garden. Twice. But they will never crush my spirit. I am Rebellious Mum – hear me roar! Quietly though, the kids are asleep." Read more on my blog at rebelliousmum.com or find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @rebelliousmum

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