Breastfeeding – wow, I didn’t realise how hard it would be.
And this coming from someone who’s been plugged into that whole world for the last 7 years… When I was pregnant with Sacha, I was determined to breastfeed for at least 6 months (the health benefits, the bonding, the flexibility), but the reality is that we only managed 4 weeks. And those weeks were tough. I was absolutely exhausted, which meant that my milk supply became very low. The stress of seeing my baby’s weight plummet (he went from the 50th to the 2nd centile), made me even more anxious, and the raised adrenaline decreased my milk production even more. But I soldiered on as I felt incredibly intense guilt about ‘giving up’. That wretched protestant work ethic!
Switching to formula was no quick fix. He had terrible reflux, bottle would go down, bottle would come up. So I wouldn’t ever really ‘know’ how much he had taken (one of the supposed benefits of bottle vs breast). Getting up, boiling the kettle, fannying about with formula twice a night was definitely more tiring than rolling over and getting him to latch on. But ultimately, my baby wasn’t hungry any more, and was putting on weight, and that’s what mattered.
With time, the guilt dissipated as I saw how close we became, and the health benefits, well… it’s worth reading this: Is Breast Not Best? and making your own mind up about it.
But… would I try again if we have a second baby? Definitely.
Tags: breastfeeding