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Why breastfeeding can really suck
Buckle in, this is a long read and while it is most relevant to mums and mums to be, if you are a friend, or a partner, or a sister, or a colleague of someone who is crucifying themselves over breastfeeding, please read and please share. Because breastfeeding really can suck.
Breastfeeding: some facts
No one is disputing that breastfeeding is best for baby, least of all me. The figures say that in Australia 96% of women start breastfeeding, but only 15% make it past six months (although, this is the ABA‘s stat and is actually about EXCLUSIVE
Somehow though, it’s become twisted. It’s become a sort of shaming or bullying. It’s become women who breastfeed really have their child’s best interest at heart, and those that don’t, well don’t. It’s become super smug brelfies FFS. It’s become women like me and lots of my friends and acquaintances crucifying themselves in the name of being a good mum. And it really has to stop.
Here’s just a few
The longer babies breastfeed, the more they achieve in life
Breastfed babies can be ‘less impulsive’
Could breastfeeding make baby brighter?
Like, really.
My story
I was totally committed to breastfeeding, promising myself at least six months, bearing in mind I knew I was returning to work at nine months. I was hopeful it would all be good but told myself to be realistic.
However, Frankie was a dream from day one. I felt like the magical unicorn of breastfeeding. I had gigantic boobs full of milk and everyone marvelled at
The first signs of trouble
Frankie didn’t really take to napping in the day. At five weeks we switched to a formula feed at night and she started to sleep through the night (yeah those BF puritans will try to tell you this isn’t true…bloody is though) but she would NOT settle in the day.
My maternal health nurse had told my mother’s group that our babies should be up for a maximum of an hour and a half and then asleep for the same. I tortured myself. I tortured
Meanwhile she was feeding OK, so I decided to survive. Until my next appointment with the nurse. Frankie was cranky, we discussed the napping issues and the nurse declared she was hungry (man that’s a HORRIBLE word to hear about your precious baby). It was apparently OBVIOUS that she was and I was briskly told I needed to get on that pump and start ‘topping up’ with expressed
Like a cow with OCD
Well this was only going to go one way for me. After crying and feeling as though I had somehow neglected my poor hungry child, I set about following those instructions to the tee.
Here are just a handful of my instantly adopted behaviours:
Obsessive pumping, after every feed, between feeds, working out how much time I had to fill up my boobs again, shitting myself I’d pumped it all out and she’d want another feed
Obsessive timing of the lengths of feeds (breastfeeding apps need to fuck right off)
Feeling
Feeling distraught if the subsequent pump (because EMPTY YOUR BREASTS AFTER A FEED) produced very little liquid gold (that’s a special kind of soul destroying torture)
SPILLING THE BASTARD BOTTLE
Getting up in the night to pump because ‘that’s when you will really increase your supply’
Making and eating booby biccies, which taste like arse (although, I do think they work)
The result
An even more distracted baby. A mum who was terrified of wasting precious breast milk so only giving
Can I just give a special shout out to my husband for how amazingly patient he was. I look back at that woman that he came home to every day and
Saved by a plane
In the background of all this, there was formula. EVIL FORMULA. Formula that I could happily accept for a good night’s sleep but certainly not ALL THE TIME. As a good friend said ‘it felt like giving my kid McDonald’s’ because THAT is what we are taught. And may I say, she still imports organic Swedish
So, the plane. We were flying home to the UK. Frankie was 12 weeks old. We had a 24 hour flight and a baby who wouldn’t stay latched on for more than a few minutes at a time. In close quarters I felt I had to cover up and that’s just too hard with a fidgety baby in a plane seat. So we had to tool ourselves up for a flight
This continued even at home in the UK because I couldn’t pump enough to get any back-up supply going. I had abandoned trying to breastfeed in public as it was just too torturous. Formula was sneaking its way into our lives and, well frankly, keeping us happy. Yes, you have to start all the
Ditching the boob
By the time we flew home I was really only feeding Frankie first thing in the morning on the boob and I really cherished that time. The special thing about feeding is that bond, it’s magical and there is nothing like
The sleep thief
One of the most interesting things that happened was that as we progressed through this change, my non napping baby…started to nap. Like a dream. Like clockwork. Now I know this could have simply been a development thing, but I couldn’t help but think back to the hungry accusation and the link to sleep. Maybe, from six weeks in, she never had
Looking back
I’ve said this to many a friends having a struggle with breastfeeding. Do what is right for you, but try not to torture yourself. I’m not advocating bottle over breast at all but for me, my biggest regret is not giving in sooner. Genuinely. I feel as though I spoiled some of that most precious time by being so obsessed with this instead of just enjoying the moments
My story is not even that dramatic. No mastitis. No medical intervention meaning we just couldn’t get off to a good start. No reflux. We were lucky in so many ways. But I suspect, even just looking around my mother’s group and my friends that there are many many stories like this. And they are all caused by this need for women to feel as though they aren’t somehow failing their children, or even as a woman, by not breastfeeding for at least six months.
Oh and by the way, that study that says breastfed babies are more
So ladies, go easy on yourselves. Whatever reason you have might for wanting to move to bottle feeding, feel OK about that decision and own it. And if you are in glorious breastfeeding wonder for more than a year then GO YOU AND YOUR MILKERS!! Because really, a happy mum and a happy baby is what’s best.
What do you think? What did you experience? Did a smug brelfie