Tell me about your breastfeeding experiences?

[dance]

Gigi, your post gave me goosebumps because it sounds as though you are really taking up the mantle of the "generation to generation" thing you mentioned. That is really, really significant and important.
I was thinking about his and wondering if I felt some defensiveness, like I shouldn't need help, and that made me uncomfortable with the LC in the first place. I don't know how to address that from your perspective, but it was dancing around in my head.

I live in a pretty progressive small city, and never got a comment or even a bad look for nursing in public. I was/will be pretty discreet, but I never covered her with a blanket or one of those tent things. I have seen several women on the street or, more often, at festivals, who have the whole boob out, and once I heard someone make a comment that was obviously supposed to be heard by the mama. But in general, I felt very supported by the city around me, and that DEFINITELY helped.
I never had any relatives or anyone else saying "just give her a bottle," and my husband was very on board with breastfeeding, both because of the culture of folks we know and because he knew about the benefits. He went to a class with me, but I think he knew before that, because I felt strongly about it. I developed my convictions while working in the baby room at a childcare center, talking to those mamas.

I do think my natural childbirth helped with early breastfeeding, and I was lucky to have a quick and relatively easy birthing experience. She latched well and early- except I did have pain and a little bleeding and scabbing, as I mentioned. So I always wonder when I hear people say that shouldn't have happened- was her latch really so good? The pain eventually went away, and so I feel ambivalent on that point.
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[jettesette]

I took a prenatal breastfeeding class. My hospital was armed with lactation consultants. I was so pro breast.
It did not work for us. In the hospital out of every feeding I did I probably had only one successful feeding. Elliott was too impatient to breastfeed. He would get frustrated at my lack of supply and SCREAM- never really latching on. My tiny baby was starving and I couldn’t help him. Our feedings would last on average 1.5-2 hours. Then I would pump for 45 minutes and then it was basically time to start feeding him again since he needed to eat every 3 hours. Every time a nurse or lactation specialist visited me in the hospital (or every time I called and spoke with one on the phone after we went home) I got different and conflicting advice. I was told by a LC to turn up my hospital grade pump to get more milk. When I did that my pumped milk was prob. a 50/50 ratio of blood to milk. When I called to ask if it was ok for him to drink the bloody milk they were like “never ever turn up your pump”. I was told by the LC I should be pumping more. I was told by another LC I should be pumping less.
It was SO frustrating. Seriously. Nothing I tried worked. I felt like such a failure. I remember how terrified I was to admit to g* that I had “failed” (my words not g*’s)Ell was exclusively breastfeed for 2 weeks. I ran a fever of 104 that entire 2 weeks . Once I introduced the bottle and I saw that instead of an angry baby I had a happy, full, content, babe- I simply could not go back. I pumped and pumped and pumped for 6 weeks. He started with all breastmilk- then slowly I started supplementing with formula. My supply was completely gone by 6 weeks- I think because I just simply did NOT have the time to spend 45 minutes every few hours strapped to that machine. It would take me 45 minutes to get about 2 oz of breastmilk. He had his last breastmilk bottle the morning I started back to work- his first day of daycare.
I often wonder what sort of difference a good LC would have been. For instance no one EVER suggested that I use that little tube thing that sends pumped milk to the babe but he THINKS he is breastfeeding (I have no idea what it is called)- I think that might have made a difference but at the time I didn’t even know it existed.
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I am so strong I am going to break all your rules with my bare hands! -Elliott

http://mamahuck.blogspot.com/

[Crumb]

I had a natural childbirth, and the Crumblette was enitirely uninterested in nursing at first; she spent her first thirty minutes yelling at me and then the next nine and a half hours asleep. She didn't go to the nursery until about an hour and a half after she was born, and they brought her right back - all in all, she spent maybe two hours away from me the whole time we were in the hospital. My hospital's policy is that breastfeeding is the default, unless they're told otherwise. When the Crumblette did wake up, I had a little bit of trouble with the logistics of getting boob to baby, but I called the nurse and she was very helpful. Then, the day I was discharged the LC came and visited with me and watched me nurse for about an hour, and she was also really helpful. I didn't even have to request it, she just showed up because it was hospital policy.

The Crumblette's latch was perfect from the beginning, though she had some trouble getting on when my milk came in (boobs waaaaaay bigger than her little head), so I started giving her pumped breastmilk in a bottle. She never had any nipple confusion; I could pull her off her bottle and pop her on the boob and she'd hardly miss a beat. She liked the bottle better, obviously, but she could switch between them easily. It hurt for the first couple of days but after my milk came in I never had trouble - my nipples never cracked, the supply was good, her latch was great. The worst thing that happened was I fell asleep with the pump on one time and woke up with a nipple the size of a quarter. THAT hurt. But the logistics and mechanics of it were fine. I also had a supportive family (Mr. Crumb would get up in the middle of the night with me), and a great pediatrician who called to check in on how it was going.

And I hated it. I hated having to get up every 45 minutes and nurse her; I hated milk going everywhere, all the time, and waking up with a literal fountain of milk shooting into the air; I hated feeling like I could never, ever put her down because she'd wake up (she was an in-arms baby for a long time) and then she'd cry and then I'd have to nurse her again. The hormone high was great but as soon as it wore off I'd start feeling anxious and resentful again, so I had those mood swings in addition to the normal hormonal roller coaster. It was killing me, and so when she was about three weeks old we started supplementing with formula. That was so unblelivably hard for me; I sobbed, facedown on the kitchen floor, the whole time Mr. Crumb was giving her the bottle and then I think I apologized to her for about an hour. But it got so much easier for me after that, even though I was still nursing her about half the time; knowing that I didn't have to do it if I didn't want to was hugely helpful to my state of mind.

It took me a very long time, about two and a half years, to forgive myself for not nursing exclusively for at least a year. That was always my plan, but I had no way to know what it was going to do to my head and I was pretty angry at the medical and breastfeeding world because no one prepared me for that. I was prepared for it to be hard, and for it to take a long time to learn how to do it. The books were very clear that it wasn't something that everyone could just do off the bat, that there was a learning curve. But every single thing I read talked about how awesome it is, how it's this wonderful way to bond with your baby and there's nothing like it and it's just sooooo feminine and perfect. So I felt defective, like there was some sort of essential Mother component missing in me - because the Crumblette and I did not bond over nursing. It was the opposite, actually; I was starting to resent her, and that was just terrible in every way. When I decided to supplement my life and my mothering improved so, so much, and I couldn't even really enjoy that improvment because I was so busy beating myself up for failing to feel the most basic of connections with my child, which the books all told me I would feel in nearly overwhelming measure.

That is where I feel like the breastfeeding community failed me. I understand that breastfeeding mothers need encouragement, I'm all for encouragement. But I think women would be much, much better served if we were told from the outset, "Yes, it's hard and yes, it's likely that you'll grow to love it. But you may not love it. You might actually hate it, and there's nothing wrong with that or with you."

I also think that we'd be better served if the pro-breastfeeding world wasn't quite so derisive of formula. The phrase "artificial baby milk" was like a stab to the heart, and I read it in lots of places. My best friend's husband told me that I would try harder to nurse if I was a better mother. Someone here on Glitter said that using formula was like wanting to raise our babies in little pods. On another board I read someone asking why women even bothered to have babies in the first place if we weren't going to nurse them. And that's why I get so angry at lactivists, and so defensive even though nursing is nearly three years in the past for me; so much of it is based on shaming women who can't or choose not to nurse, and that's just so much bullshit. That's no foundation for rebuilding sisterhood, and it serves no one in the end.

Whew. I can't believe I still get so emotional about this topic!

[knittykat]

Okay, since gigi said she was interested in the "chose not to" perspective I will share.

I chose not to breastfeed from the very beginning. I didn't even start, I didn't even try. Maggie got a bottle in the delivery room. And I am completely comfortable and happy with my decision.

First of all, I am not a "persevering" sort, especially in the face of physical discomfort. I knew from the very beginning that as soon as I ran into cracked nipples, soreness, etc I was DONE and would go to formula. And so I decided why try and frustrate myself and make myself feel like I failed, I will just start with the formula and be done with it.

Mr. Knitty got to give Maggie her first meal EVER and he is still intensely proud of that. Maggie was fed by anyone and everyone. I believe food is an important indicator of trust and concern---you develop a special relationship with those who feed you. I wanted Maggie to have that relationship with a lot of people not just me. Also, heck, I wanted her to be able to be fed by others so I could catch a break!! Not to mention after 9 months of pregnancy plus a delivery I was not really into watching every bite of food that went into my mouth for any more time! I wanted Jack Daniels and I wanted it now!

I was also worried that I would break down totally and not be able to take care of her and someone else would have to, and having different food on top of that would be one more different thing for her to contend with. Unfortunately, that part ended up being prophetic. I suffered from PPD, almost ended up checked into the hospital, and during that time my mother, Mr. Knitty, and anyone else who could was pitching in to help take care of Maggie. The "silver lining" I believe in is that Maggie has such close relationships with so many people because of that time. If I had had one more thing making me feel like a failure when I already felt that so richly, I would probably not be here today.

I was really lucky in that my family (especially my mom) encouraged the formula to the point where I didn't feel a shred of guilt over not nursing. The flip side of that is that our generation was raised by a generation that primarily shunned nursing, and that's why even those of us who want to aren't able to be helped by our older relatives.
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"Fun is where you find it" - jackierocket

[delqc]

I have a unique experience in that breastfeeding was a struggle with us in the beginning but I still found it very rewarding and with some effort at first it evolved into something incredibly easy that we both still enjoy.

I think the important thing is before you have a baby to decide what you want. Do you want to exclusively breastfeed until at least six months? Do you want to nurse a toddler up until two or beyond? Does the thought of breastfeeding make you ill? Would you rather a middle-of-the-road approach? I think where the 'lactivists' go wrong is that they advocate all or nothing, and that's out of date thinking. Any breastmilk is good for baby. the breastmilk that you make in the first week after birth with colostrum is really, really good for baby. But there's a lot of degrees with breastfeeding and it doesn't have to be all black in white.

In a nutshell, my baby was born 6 weeks premature by induction. She was in the NICU, I was hospitalized with life-threatening complications. I was able to hold her after about 30 hours for about 15 min. She was not the least bit interested in latching. I pumped enthusiastically, every 2-3 hours, for a trickle of colostrum and breastmilk. On day 3 of her life she developed an infection and fever and received IV antibiotics, but I knew that my breastmilk was the best thing for her, and I was able to provide her very little, but she got whatever I could make. I am a biochemist by training, I know very well all of the benefits of breastmilk, and I wanted my daughter to have as much of it as she could get.

The milk that I was able to produced was supplemented with artificial milk / formula. While I would have preferred to have her fed my own milk or donor milk, I am very glad that artificial milk / formula exists as an alternative, since without it my baby would have starved to death. I once attended a breastfeeding support group where another mother talked about how she "didn't believe in bottles" and it was hard to take that comment and to not react, knowing that without artificial milk and artificial nipples my kid would not have survived. when my daughter was discharged from the NICU at 2 weeks old she was getting only about 1/3 of her milk intake from me, and that was pumped and in a bottle.

Under the advice of a professional lactation consultant who I saw once a week, and with the assistance of a community nurse who I also saw about once every two weeks, I was able to slowly increase my milk supply through pumping, herbal supplements, and medication. Slowly we were also able to encourage my daughter to latch, first with a nipple shield and then on the breast directly. With time I was able to reduce and eliminate pumping and to reduce formula supplements to only 4 oz (i.e. 1 bottle) a day. It was a pretty phenomenal result. We monitored her weight gain and wet diapers very closely during this time to make sure she was getting enough milk.

My daughter latched for the 1st time when she was six weeks old, around her due date, but it was another 2-3 months (i.e. she was nearly 5 months old) before I retired the pump when my daughter was 4-6 months old.

It was SO MUCH EASIER to nurse than to feed bottles. Having done both, let me say that dragging around formula, water, and sterile bottles with you everywhere is a pain in the ass. Sterilizing itself is so much work, and I burned myself more than once. But dragging your boobs with you is pretty easy, and you just wash them as you normally would ;). I never, ever had anybody say anything negative to me while breastfeeding, and I made few efforts to be modest. Ok, my father found it awkward and would leave the room but everyone else was fine.

After my daughter started solids at around 5 months I continued to nurse her as she wished. She continued to get one bottle of forumla a day at bedtime since that was now her routine. If we left her with a caregiver (which I'm not sure we ever did for more than a couple of hours) the caregiver could give her a bottle of formula. It was a great balance. Once she learned to nurse, she was happy to go back and forth between the bottle and the breast, although when she was upset or scared she definitely preferred Mamma's arms and the breast. The bottle for her was more for food; Mamma was the source of comfort.

She started daycare at 10 months, and I slowly reduced the medication I was taking, which also reduced my milk supply. She still nursed in the am, when I picked her up from daycare, and before bed. It was a nice quiet cuddly reconnection time for us. I was also happy that she was still getting the fancy fatty acids from my milk that are known to contribute to brain growth, and really happy that she was still getting my antibodies, particularly given the first year of daycare germs and colds. I was incredibly thankful when she was about 16 months old and developed severe gastro which lasted a month, and breastmilk was about the only thing she could digest without vomiting. I breastfed her near constantly during that time and my milk supply came up to compensate. When she was better we went back to the previous routine of the am and at daycare pickup.

At some point around 13 months we decided to nightwean to discourage nighttime waking, and it did reduce it but did not eliminate it completely. She has dropped the after-daycare nurse almost on her own, and now asks to nurse in the am maybe every second day. She says "nursey nursey please" when she wants to nurse and it is ADORABLE. I expect the morning nurse to disappear entirely soon (she is 22 months old now), and I'm okay with that, although sad that I won't have this easy go-to method to cure every hurt, solve every problem, resolve every tantrum, and always bring comfort.

MORAL OF THE STORY: In my experience, nursing is HARDER for the first 1-2 months, but from then on becomes significantly easier than bottle-feeding. So you invest up front in both you AND your baby learning the holds, how to latch, how to make it work. It's not innate and it is a learned skill. BUT if you can make it through the first month it gets infinitely easier. I feel that many people want to breastfeed, try for a week, and find it hard and quit. Lactivists imply that it should be easy (because they don't want to turn people off) and then people feel that if it is hard it doesn't work for them. The truth is that for the first few weeks, even the first couple of months, it IS hard and it is effort - significantly more effort for me than for most women. But in my case the investment was most definitely worth it and I am so, so very glad that I did not quit. Although I often felt like throwing my breast pump out the window, I didn't, and I am very grateful.

I also wish lactivists and even lactation consultants would tell women that it is OK for baby to have an occasional bottle and that while SOME babies may learn to prefer the bottle many others will switch back and forth easily. You can do a mix of breastfeeding and bottlefeeding to find a combination that works for you, if you want to. It doesn't have to be all one or all the other. I think lactivists are afraid to tell moms that because they think it will be the beginning of the end of breastfeeding, but any breastmilk is much better for baby than none (actually as your breasts make less milk it starts to have a higher concentration of the fats babies and toddlers need most for brain development, which is so amazing) so keeping it up in a reduced capacity is still wonderful. It doesn't have to be "exclusive" to have value.

I should also say that while I know for myself I would have done just about anything to make breastfeeding work, I also totally respect women who decide that it won't work for them and do something else, because what makes a happy healthy baby before anything is a happy and healthy mother, that's the most important thing!!!
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Tsé qu'la vie est parsemée de p'tites misères
Faut pas t'en faire...

[ruggedchick]

[ruggedchick]

[quote="knittykat"] And so I decided why try and frustrate myself and make myself feel like I failed, I will just start with the formula and be done with it.[quote]

I honestly 100% wish I had gone this route like I had wanted to in the first place. I wish I hadn't let myself be swayed.
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beefy and confused.

[Chupacabra]

[Chiquita]

I don't think a woman should be tied into one decision right away especially about how long she thinks she wants to or can breast feed. I knew that by breast feeding I was giving my child the easiest and healthiest option. But I also wasn't sure how long I could keep it up, like delqc said the first couple of months were harder.

I kept telling myself that I wanted to try to get through the first 3 months of exclusively using breast milk, since I pumped the kiddo was given a bottle but there was no nipple confusion at all. After 3 months I told myself I should try another 3, etc etc. We managed to get to 13 months of breast milk exclusively, no formula, and at that point both the little guy and I were ready to be done.

Keeping an open mind helped me keep my sanity.

[loomis]

I chose not to breastfeed. I have always known that I would not enjoy it. There is really no aspect of it that appeals to me except that it is the best nutritionally. I knew that I would be an unhappy mom if I did. I checked out all the information out there that I could find about the benefits of breastfeeding. While, it did show that breastfeeding is best, the degree to which it is better did not convince me that I should risk my emotional happiness and ultimately my baby's emotional happiness. So I chose not to. I am very happy with my decision. I was happy from the start with Hugo. We bonded through feedings and reading and singing every day and night. I got up, fed him every 3 hours (or hubby would) and then at 3 months he was sleeping through the night. He was and still is a small baby (below 5th percentile) and I am almost positive that I would have had to of supplement if I had chosen to breast feed him. I have been giving him extra calories since he was 3 months old. I did not get any pressure from my nurses or doctors and I am glad for that.

[ruggedchick]

Another thing regarding feeling like I wasn't allowed to not breastfeed....I was admitted to the hospital one week after the baby was born, for post-eclampsia. Since I was breastfeeding, the baby had to be admitted too. Since the baby was with me, Ruggedchap had to come too. So it was the three of us spending the night in the hospital on a non-baby unit. They managed to bring a crib up for him, but all the patients near me complained about his crying. And quite honestly, I don't blame them. It was an adult med-surg floor, with sick patients trying to get better and this baby was screaming his head off. Why? Because he was starving. Do you know how hard it is to breastfeed (which was still a new skill that was nowhere near mastered) when you're hooked up to IVs in both arms and you have shit taped all over you and you don't feel good because magnesium sulfate is being pumped into your body? IT'S REALLY HARD. I asked the nurse if maybe she could bring me some formula. She, not being an OB nurse and not having access to any formula, understandably, paged an OB nurse, who paged a lactation consultant who came and basically said that "we" "don't want to risk" feeding formula because of nipple confusion. I felt belittled and angry and the poor baby and I struggled all night to get him fed.

Which started a fear of "nipple confusion". After 3 weeks I finally gave him pumped milk in a bottle and he was totally fine. If I had thought about it, I would have realized that since I had to use a nipple shield every single time anyway, that's not that different from a bottle nipple.

I feel like i'm coming on here just to bitch and bitch and bitch but I guess I just want people to know that it's not always easy, and it doesn't always get easier. It didn't get easier after 11 weeks for me, AND THAT'S OK. I just wish I would have felt like I was allowed to supplement with formula whenever I wanted, even right away. I just felt like it was "bad" even though I desperately, desperately wanted to. It's totally OK not to like it. Hell, I don't think the baby liked it! He was so much happier with formula/bottles! And it's OK to supplement! Formula is not the devil! Your sanity is more important than anything.

I'm sorry I get so worked up about this. The whole topic is so frustrating to me.
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beefy and confused.

[knittykat]

hey rugged, I think it's good that you're sharing these feelings. I think it contributes to the depth of experience that gigi is looking for, and I think it's good to hear varying experiences.

I, of course, think it's totally okay to not want to breastfeed. And I would venture to say that if you are not reallyreallyreally committed to whatever level of bf you hope to achieve, that it's probably better all around if you just make a different choice. (general you here). I heard a number of times "just try it" "give it a shot, maybe it will work out" and if I had taken that advice things may have gotten really bad. I knew I wasn't committed and so I decided to be committed to being a good mom in other ways.

It really is only ONE choice in a sea of choices you'll face. From cloth vs. sposie, disneyworld vs. camping, public vs. private school, preschool or not, day care or not, McDonald's or not, ear piercing or not, circ or not, vitamins or not, which pediatrician what philosophy of medicine/discipline/etc. Amid all those equally important choices, one is but a drop in the...uh...bottle :-) No one choice made one way or the other is going to make or break the game.
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"Fun is where you find it" - jackierocket

[snoopy]

[Chupacabra]

[scarymonster]

From a reader's perspective, I am really enjoying hearing from your experience, G* mamas. Breastfeeding isn't a choice I've had to make yet, but I've always thought that I would really prefer not to, and the thought of doing it myself makes me feel kind of awkward. It's really, really good to hear from so much experience that breastfeeding is not the end-all-be-all of a baby's nutrition!

So thank you for sharing your stories, your stress and your anxiety about the whole thing. It is helpful to others besides Gigi!