From before I was even pregnant, I knew I wanted to breastfeed. I didn’t think about it much, it was just a given that I would do it. When I was 36 weeks pregnant, I attended a breastfeeding antenatal class and the desire to nurse my child was reaffirmed. The benefits were so clear that I couldn’t understand why many modern mums wouldn’t even try. Better yet, I couldn’t understand why mums who did try often gave up early on. I assumed that many of them were just being lazy.
Just shy of 39 weeks, my son was born. Within 20 minutes of birth, he was at my breast and it felt fabulous. But this joy was sadly to be short-lived. A couple of hours later, I tried to put him to the breast and he would not latch. The lactation consultant came and observed but still no luck. He finally fed at 10:30pm, nearly 5 hours after he was born.
I was discharged an hour later, he didn’t feed again until 4:30am. I was exhausted and my nipples were beginning to feel sore with all the attempted latches. I tried not to worry, perhaps this was quite normal until my milk came in.
That was not to be the case. He wasn’t having as much trouble latching, but my nipples were killing me! They’d started to crack and bleed, every feed was getting progressively more painful. I was starting to dread the thought of nursing him.
My community midwife left me some samples of Lansinoh gel, I would never have survived without them. She also advised me to switch to the rugby hold position which did help to some degree initially.
I was still in agony though and didn’t understand why it was so hard. The mums on the breastfeeding videos made it look so easy – could I be one of those supposedly rare women who just can’t do it? The thought terrified me, but I was really starting to think it might be true.
I had a private lactation consultant come out to me. She was wonderful and gave me a great deal of moral support. I was having trouble latching him on the “correct” way however (bringing baby to the breast), the only way I could comfortably get him on was to lay him on his side on a pillow and bring my breast to his mouth. Everyone commented on how I shouldn’t be doing it this way and it was getting me down.
By the end of the first week I was ready to give up. I remember countless nights spent gripping my husband’s hand as tears ran down my face while I nursed. There were equally countless times when I asked him to prepare a bottle of formula, only to change my mind at the last second and announce through gritted teeth that I was going to give nursing one more go.
I bought some nipple shields one day. The relief was immediate, but I didn’t want to use them for too long. After a couple of days of intermittent use, my nipples had healed enough to give me further strength to go on.
Still, it remained a daily battle. I desperately wanted to breastfeed until at least 6 weeks, if things hadn’t improved by then I would have to reconsider my options. Where was this wonderful bonding feeling I was supposed to have by nursing? I hate to admit that I often felt resentment towards my innocent little boy every time he was ready for a feed. I was nothing more than a milking machine, or so it seemed.
I tried pumping on occasion, but rarely managed to get much out. I couldn’t hand express either, I hated the feeling.
To add to the fun, I had a strong letdown reflex and Sprogzilla kept gagging and choking as well as bringing up a fair bit of milk after every feed. At particularly bad times, I had to pump out some foremilk before letting him latch.
Somehow I made it to one month. And I suddenly realised that things weren’t all that bad anymore. I still didn’t exactly look forward to feeds, but the sense of dread was going and I only experienced pain for the first 30 seconds or so after latching.
My 6 week checkup came and went and I was finally starting to enjoy it. I was so proud to tell the doctor that my son was exclusively breastfed.
Sprogzilla is now just over 5 months old, we are still going strong and I love breastfeeding. I never changed the latching technique, I still bring my breast to his mouth. I don’t care that it isn’t the “right” way to latch, it works perfectly for us.
Breastfeeding is the most natural thing in the world, but it doesn’t always come easily. I wish I had known this before he was born so that I didn’t spend those early days and weeks thinking something was wrong with me.
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Dec 01, 2010 @ 09:59:03
i’ve always done the breast to baby thing, too. i remember attending a LLL enrichment day a year or so ago where we talked about ‘nursing outside the box’, and how the initial advice on positioning doesnt always work for everyone.
well done you for getting through that, hon xxxx
Dec 01, 2010 @ 11:48:26
I wish some of the people I’d spoken to had been to one of those enrichment days lol. I often felt as though nursing would be so much easier if I could just get the technique right. I now realise that it would have made no difference, in fact worrying about it actually made me more stressed.
My friend also brought breast to baby. It’s funny how you end up discovering that the unusual way you do things is actually quite common.
Someone needs to make a real breastfeeding video/book replete with alternative methods and reassurance that all of them are acceptable ways of getting the job done. Plus it needs to be made clear that breastfeeding can be very difficult for many women but that they can still go on to succeed.