Tell me about your breastfeeding experiences?

[bookselves]

Can I add a tangential question?

How did the division of parenting labour affect people's decisions to breastfeed/to continue breastfeeding/to not breastfeed?

Right now my friends who have babies are in the "everything as natural as possible" camp, it feels like the moms I know still end up doing all of the parenting and get very little free time. If you always have to have the baby with you because you always need to be there to breastfeed, then you can't go anywhere that it isn't possible/convenient to have a baby, and that super sucks.

Seriously, I never see my friends and I always see these kid's dads getting wasted at the bar. I want to get wasted with my friends at the bar! Or, at least, I want to be able to go to restaurants with my friends or go see concerts with my friends or go on road trips with my friends or go to the movies with my friends. I do make lots of efforts to see them, & I know parenting means you have to give up some fun times, but I still miss being able to include my pals in things we used to do together, and I know they miss being able to go, too.

This exclusive breastfeeding = social isolation thing REALLY worries me, & it is one reason why I know I am not wanting to parent just yet. I think the feminists need to talk about how this breastfeeding resurgence has the potential to stick moms back in their houses and alleviate responsibilities for dads (and other non-breastfeeding co parents).

I loved reading what knittycat had to say about this issue, & if anyone else has any thoughts I would love to read those too.
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[Chupacabra]

I mentioned upthread that when we moved to bottle feeding formula, I felt a great sense of relief immediately. My husband is completely hands on and I still felt a huge divide while breastfeeding. I definitely think the beginning times of breastfeeding are extremely isolating, especially if you are uncomfortable with nursing in front of visitors or in public. I spent more than half of my first few weeks sitting in the baby's itty bitty room while nursing or pumping while we had guests in the other room.

With this isolation and the responsibility of being my child's sole source of nutrition (that she wanted every hour) and the hormones and exhaustion, it was definitely an immense pressure on me that basically had me in a frenzy. Even when the act of breastfeeding became easier, even natural to me, it still was overwhelming that I was the only one to be able to do it. My husband was definitely not out getting smashed and having the good old time I couldn't be having at the moment, but it was rough to reconcile.

Now that she is exclusively formula fed I feel 100% even with the divide of parenting labor. My husband is finally able to pick up the share he wanted to in the beginning. Buuuuut I know many partners who would not assume 50% of the responsibilities no matter what the feeding situation is, so I consider myself lucky.
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[Crumb]

bookselves, more than a feminist/division of labor issue, I tend to frame it in a class issue because the all-natural, all-breast-all-the-time thing? That doesn't work so well for women who work. It can be done, but you have to have a job that allows you a huge amount of privacy and the flexibility to pump often enough (and gives you a place to store the milk). When I went back to work my supply went way, way down, and the LC I talked to suggested that I try pumping up to eight times a day. I told her that if I had eight free hours a day I wouldn't be working, I'd be at home.

In addition, stories like delqc's only work for women who don't have jobs (or who don't work in the American system, where we get an average of like four weeks of maternity leave, and most often unpaid at that). (I really feel that a lot of "attachment parenting" is for wealthy folks only, actually, though that's a discussion for another thread.)

[racheli]

L turned 6 months old on Saturday, and our breastfeeding relationship is still going strong. In fact, he's never had anything but breastmilk - no formula at all - except that I decided to start introducing solids about a week before he turned 6 months. So he's had a couple bites of solid food but other than that, just breastmilk.

The first six weeks of our breastfeeding relationship were hard. It took six weeks for it to get good and easy, and there were some incredibly hard times. I think I talked about this in Chupacabra's thread about BFing. But I'm proud of myself for sticking with it. I don't think anyone pressured me to breastfeed except myself. I was very determined and I would have been very hard on myself if I hadn't been able to do it. That's not to say I think formula feeding is wrong, it just wasn't right for me and I'm glad I stuck with breastfeeding through the tough times.

For the first couple months breastfeeding was SO amazing. I felt this wonderful connection with L that I think really helped me bond with him (feeling his little hand against the bare skin of my stomach as I nursed him was the most incredible feeling!). Lately it's been getting a little harder for a number of reasons that just have to do with him growing up and getting more interested in the world. But I am working with him and am determined to keep breastfeeding. I want to try to breastfeed him for two years, which at just 6 months seems like a looong time away, but I know he's going to be nursing less and less so it's not such a "scary" thought.

I've been blessed with a good supply and also a relatively easy time pumping, which has made it possible for him to get exclusive breastmilk at daycare. I've also had a TON of support from a number of different people. For the first, oh, 15 or so weeks of his life I went to a breastfeeding support group (not LLL) EVERY single week. It really helped - not just the advice, which I didn't need after a while, but mainly meeting other nursing moms.

The prenatal class I took on BFing did NOT help. But I've spoken to a couple other moms that took it with me or with the same LC, and we've decided that she's just a strident, militant lady in general (and we all had the same reaction to the class). The class scared me sh*tless about nursing. It suddenly seemed so COMPLICATED when I thought it was easy. Well, in that respect maybe the class was a success because it was NOT as easy as I had imagined. It never would have been. But the LC scared me with her "rules." In hindsight she was probably right about everything, but it could have been delivered in a slightly more "cuddly" way.

Regarding parenting "labor division," maybe I'm just weird but I honestly have not minded feeling a bit "tethered" to L. My husband has only gone out, like, once without us (and that was at least five months ago) so he's just as tethered, hehe! I have been out once in the evening with a friend and my husband gave L bottles. This was just a couple weeks ago. I don't know, we were homebodies before and didn't go out much anyway. Thinking about the fact that I really do need to be home with L is a little daunting at times, but truthfully he's a baby and I'd really want/need to be with him anyway, even if we weren't exclusively breastfeeding. Maybe that's just me. I spent the many months of pregnancy preparing to relinquish my social life, and making the most of my last chance to be on my/our own. I knew I wouldn't be able to do the things I used to do, figured it came with the territory and was okay with it. Maybe this is the wrong attitude, but it was my attitude.
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[Crumb]

[bookselves]

racheli, i don't think your attitude is wrong. homebody parents raising a baby seems like fun to me.

i agree with crumb that the emphasis on exclusive breastfeeding can be classist.

glitter has just been the first and best example for me that there are women who are moms and who also have relationships and friends and do lots of cool stuff and are interested in awesome shit and are fully-actualized people. i suspect that for me and for others, being able to maintain some of those aspects of oneself in the transition into being a parent would be extremely helpful, and i wonder about how breastfeeding hinders that.
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"My power doesn't come from other people's lust for my awesome vagina, thanks." - Enzyme

So, I have a blog now.

[Gigi]

Hi everyone. I just wanted to say thank you, so much, for your responses. I have been reading and processing, but haven't had the time to respond, as I've been swamped with work. I really appreciate everybody's openness and willingness to discuss these very personal experiences. Seriously, thank you so much.

I did want to respond to this, quickly:

[delqc]

[knittykat]

I have two things to share.

First off, I in NO WAY want to cast any sort of shadow on the experiences of those who really wanted to be with their babies all the time and didn't see it as a sacrifice. (I think it's wonderful and amazing!) However, I really want to share that that is not the case for everyone, such as me. And the reason I want to share it is because I felt "broken" when I didn't feel that way. It greatly contributed to my feelings of overall failure and despair and depression.

It is more than okay to be overwhelmed and freaked out by all the new feelings/issues/chores/sleep issues/etc and to respond by just wanting to GET AWAY. It happens sometimes. And it doesn't mean you're a bad mom or a bad person or defective in any way. FWIW Maggie and I have a totally awesome relationship now (because if any PPD sufferers are reading this or lurking, this was one of my chief worries). "The Books" make so much of the bonding in the early days and how it's such a unique bonding experience that sets the tone for your whole life, it's really hard to NOT believe that you are doing irreparable damage by not experiencing the "babymoon bliss".

And, apropos of nothing, one of the reasons I was very pro formula was because I felt like dammit, at least I could do SOMETHING right in those days. I may not have been able to do much more; I certainly wasn't living up to my own standards, but frankly, I could always scoop and fill. And some days, that was about all I could do.

***********

The second thing I'd like to share is I think breastfeeding and attachment parenting is definitely both a feminist AND a classist issue. But I think it is another thread. And a very interesting one. I've done some research on the topic as a matter of fact, but have been afraid to start the topic. Mostly because the parenting board strives to be relatively controversy-free, and I didn't want to upset anyone or detract from the support threads.

But if others would like to participate, I'd be happy to start it.
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[Chiquita]

knitty, I don't think you cast any sort of shadow at all but have contributed greatly to my understanding of why/how someone would need to not breast feed. Intellectually I know that breast feeding isn't the answer for everyone but reading yours and others experiences really help. Someone needs to write a new one of "the books".

(Ditto on what you said about breast feeding and attachment parenting being another topic. But I'd read it if someone started it.)

[racheli]

It's interesting for me to read that people think breastfeeding is classist, with the implication being that you have to be of a higher class to BF because of the opportunity cost. In non-Western countries I feel like it's the exact opposite - I mean, formula is expensive and breastmilk is free. Plus "attachment parenting" is practiced by the poor of many non-Western cultures without a fancy label on it, because they don't have access to daycare centers or nannies or formula, and simply have to carry their child on their back and breastfeed them on demand. It is the upper classes of other cultures that I feel have access to having their child tended by someone else, feeding their child formula, etc.

[Crumb]

[snoopy]

[agnes]

[PurpleDoor]