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Why breastfeeding can really suck

1

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

SelfishMother.com
2
breastfeeding so it’s a bit misleading IMHO) and so understandably there is a push to “support” women to breastfeed for longer.

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

SelfishMother.com
3
little gems:
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

SelfishMother.com
4
how easily she latched on and how effortless we made it look. Life was good.
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

SelfishMother.com
5
her. I rocked, I patted, I wrapped, I unwrapped, I shushed, I used white noise, I walked. She didn’t sleep. I didn’t rest. Or always get showered. Or clean or cook.

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

SelfishMother.com
6
milk.
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

SelfishMother.com
7
deflated if a feed was very short or distracted
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

SelfishMother.com
8
Frankie 50ml at a time (because of the ‘once it’s been drunk by the infant you must throw the rest away’ rule. Many thanks.). And finally, the amazing balls up of managing to pump myself into over-supply and making my non pukey baby vomit very violently all over me exorcist style. I went running to the Dr with her, just to be patted on the head and told I was a bit mental and to stop all the pumping.

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

SelfishMother.com
9
wonder how on earth he did it. He listened to my pumping woes. He cheered when I held aloft a particularly bountiful bottle. He cleared up the tears and the vomit when he got home. He encouraged and supported me all the way.
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
SelfishMother.com
10
formula that’s ten times more expensive than anything you can buy off the shelf and made out of fairy dust because she can’t let go of that feeling. It’s really, really fucked that we are made to feel like that.

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

SelfishMother.com
11
supplemented by formula. And by golly it was a godsend. Every time she began to murmur, after a go on the boob that left us both a bit hot and bothered, we would shove a bottle in and get some sweet relief. She was fine. She was happy. She was quiet and satisfied.

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

SelfishMother.com
12
sterilising which takes a bit of getting used to but overall, it felt amazing to be free, and less stressed. I started to let go a bit. Not always pumping when I ‘should’ have. REALLY enjoying having a good few vinos if I wanted to because she could always have a bottle. Just relaxing and enjoying it all much more.
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
SelfishMother.com
13
it. So I was keen to hang on to that precious time just a little longer. But Frankie soon got tired of that too and after an extra bit of angst and crying, I was persuaded to just let it go.
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
SelfishMother.com
14
enough to eat. Maybe she just couldn’t sleep on my milk, no matter how much she had. Maybe I had completely tortured us for an extra two and a half months for no reason.
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
SelfishMother.com
15
that are so so fleeting.

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

SelfishMother.com
16
clever? What about this article that says breastfeeding and IQ aren’t linked. Or this one that says breastfed children are no more intelligent or healthy than bottle fed babies.

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

SelfishMother.com
17
shame you into feeding for longer? If you liked this, come find me on instagram, twitter or facebook. I’d love to chat!
SelfishMother.com

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- 1 Feb 16

Why breastfeeding can really suck - me and Frankie in the early days

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 breastfeeding so it’s a bit misleading IMHO) and so understandably there is a push to “support” women to breastfeed for longer.

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 little gems:

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 how easily she latched on and how effortless we made it look. Life was good.

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 her. I rocked, I patted, I wrapped, I unwrapped, I shushed, I used white noise, I walked. She didn’t sleep. I didn’t rest. Or always get showered. Or clean or cook.

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 milk.

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 deflated if a feed was very short or distracted
  • 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 Frankie 50ml at a time (because of the ‘once it’s been drunk by the infant you must throw the rest away’ rule. Many thanks.). And finally, the amazing balls up of managing to pump myself into over-supply and making my non pukey baby vomit very violently all over me exorcist style. I went running to the Dr with her, just to be patted on the head and told I was a bit mental and to stop all the pumping.

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 wonder how on earth he did it. He listened to my pumping woes. He cheered when I held aloft a particularly bountiful bottle. He cleared up the tears and the vomit when he got home. He encouraged and supported me all the way.

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 formula that’s ten times more expensive than anything you can buy off the shelf and made out of fairy dust because she can’t let go of that feeling. It’s really, really fucked that we are made to feel like that.

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 supplemented by formula. And by golly it was a godsend. Every time she began to murmur, after a go on the boob that left us both a bit hot and bothered, we would shove a bottle in and get some sweet relief. She was fine. She was happy. She was quiet and satisfied.

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 sterilising which takes a bit of getting used to but overall, it felt amazing to be free, and less stressed. I started to let go a bit. Not always pumping when I ‘should’ have. REALLY enjoying having a good few vinos if I wanted to because she could always have a bottle. Just relaxing and enjoying it all much more.

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 it. So I was keen to hang on to that precious time just a little longer. But Frankie soon got tired of that too and after an extra bit of angst and crying, I was persuaded to just let it go.

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 enough to eat. Maybe she just couldn’t sleep on my milk, no matter how much she had. Maybe I had completely tortured us for an extra two and a half months for no reason.

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 that are so so fleeting.

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 clever? What about this article that says breastfeeding and IQ aren’t linked. Or this one that says breastfed children are no more intelligent or healthy than bottle fed babies.

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 shame you into feeding for longer? If you liked this, come find me on instagram, twitter or facebook. I’d love to chat!

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Hannah Ivanovskis is a purveyor of positivity, champion for change and speaker of truths. She believes wholeheartedly that laughter is the best medicine and that taking the time to do one small thing for ourselves a day that will make us feel better is key to our happiness. Mum to her little girl Frankie, she's a corporate comms bod and life coach in training. Hannah's life coaching sees her working with women aged 30-40 to learn to truly love themselves and their lives. She does this by working with them to discover better ways to organise and harness thoughts, behaviours and even day to day ‘life’ and activities. This in turn, means their personal satisfaction, self love, self confidence and self reliance improves existing perspectives and relationships, and attracts even more positivity into their lives. Hannah is a Brit living in, and loving, Melbourne. You can follow her on instagram @feelbettercollective, find her on Facebook at Feel Better Collective and on twitter @hanlivanovskis.

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