Recently my little boy turned 7 months old and I have achieved what I set out to – to exclusively breastfeed for the first 6 months of his life. But my god, it has not been an easy journey. I have recently been reflecting on the first twelve weeks – the fourth trimester – and realised how far we have come since then.
Physically, breastfeeding really takes a huge toll. Hours and hours in sustained positions, whole body aching, sore/cracked/blistered nipples, a banging headache from the dehydration.
Hormonally, the long and sustained drop in oestrogen effectively means we are menopausal – hence the night sweats, joint pain, vaginal dryness. On the more positive hormonal side of things, that oxytocin rush is hard to describe.
I feel like I was absolutely sold a lie with the ‘breastfeeding helps you lose weight’ narrative. Burning an extra 500kcals a day? All that walking I’ll be doing? I thought the weight would drop off me. LOL! You need to EAT an extra 500 kcals a day to maintain a good supply, but my appetite wanted another 1,000. I have been doing a lot of exercise too – if anyone you know said the weight ‘dropped off’ them, that’s down to their genetics, and not you doing anything wrong. Think about it in evolutional terms; if you’ve just had a baby, Mother Nature is going to do everything in her power to help you retain body fat (from which your breastmilk is made) in case food suddenly goes into short supply. It is NORMAL to gain weight, and don’t let anyone make you think it isn’t.
I can confidently say that I want to carry on breastfeeding until he’s at least 12 months old, and beyond that if it’s still working for us both. It has been the most incredible bonding experience and I feel so proud of us for sticking at it and eventually getting to the stage where it feels, majority of the time, easy. I also want to just say I understand it is a huge privilege and not every woman is able to breastfeed, so although it has been difficult, I am really grateful and lucky that things went our way in the end.
Most of our feeding in the early days was with a syringe, just to make sure he was actually getting what he needed. I think it set us back a little when he was admitted to SCBU on day 3 (the day my milk came in) and I wasn’t able to hold him for about 24 hours… it was a really unsettling and different environment for us both, so not an ideal situation to learn to feed together. He was in over the weekend so there wasn’t anyone from the feeding team to see us for advice, and I was so desperate to take him home that I didn’t want to stay just for that. I thought if we can just get back home then it’ll all be OK.
Spoiler alert, it wasn’t OK! It’s actually hard to look back on videos and photos from the first few weeks. We were struggling so much with just getting a latch – he would be crying and rooting and so hungry, but we just could not figure it out. Nose to nipple, open mouth, bottom lip turned out, breast tissue filling his mouth… HOURS of skin to skin… I read all the things, knew all the theoreticals, but practically it wasn’t happening. Every time I tried to feed, I would try for 45 minutes in different positions (rugby ball hold seemed to be most successful initially) to get him to latch on, sometimes eventually he would, but it was toe-curlingly painful. I knew I had to ‘toughen up’, so I was just getting on with it – but I remember crying when I was in the shower because even the water hitting my nipples was painful.
I was consumed with guilt, anxiety and thoughts like “why can’t I do the most natural thing in the world”, “my baby needs me and I’m not good enough”, “I am never going to be able to do this”. I wasn’t able to leave the house for longer than an hour (and honestly I didn’t even want to) for fear of him needing a feed. I was terrified I’d have to keep using a syringe and that he’d get so used to it that he’d never learn to breastfeed. They were also REALLY judgey about syringe feeding when he was in hospital which I guess I understand, but it definitely cranked my anxiety. I wish I had known how common it is to be at least topping the baby up with syringes – I knew eventually because I spoke to my friends who were all doing it too, but not one health care professional reassured me once.
Unfortunately, there was a long wait at the time to be referred to the feeding team (3 weeks, but I’ve been told it’s not normally so long!), so we got a private opinion from Teresa at Feeding UnTied Kenilworth when Rex was 10 days old. It turns out he had a tight & restrictive tongue tie so we opted to get it snipped – he latched straight away afterwards and I remember being so relieved. However that was short-lived, because when we got home, it must have been a fluke, we were back to 45 minutes of screaming and crying before being able to get a latch that he could sustain long enough for a reasonable feed.
That next morning (day 11), after Rex and I had both been crying a little while, Jack said fuck this, went to Boots and came back with some nipple shields to try. Like magic, the baby latched first time. They were obviously more for his tiny mouth to attach to – and I was just so grateful my baby was finally feeding! We used laid-back upright position (I think it’s called koala? Or maybe biological? Who knows) and off he went. He would feed for a long time, 45 mins – 1 hour was standard, and on reflection I think it was just harder work with the shield on, but at least he could do it!
So we eventually got better at feeding with shields, although they are SUCH a faff – the cleaning, sterilising, getting them to stick on, and they really limit what positions you’re able to use. I was really hoping not to have to use them forever. I was again repeatedly told by health visitor/midwife “try not to use them, they can affect your milk supply, keep trying to feed him without them”, I felt like they did everything to discourage me from using them without listening to the fact that without them, it just wasn’t happening. You don’t hear many positive things about nipple shields, so I will just say, they completely saved our breastfeeding journey and were a vital stepping stone towards feeding “normally”. Don’t even get me started on the pressure put on new mothers to make sure their baby is gaining weight according to percentiles.
I was also having these really strange feelings that I didn’t understand for ages. The best way to describe it is, when I sat down to feed the baby and he JUST started sucking; I’d have to take long, deep breaths to calm myself down. I felt an anxiety building in the pit of my stomach and when I had my letdown, it was an overwhelming sense of impending doom. It would last for a few minutes and then settle down. I only mentioned it to Jack once – that I felt weird & anxious, and we both put it down to the fact that I’d had a difficult experience up until now. But I knew that wasn’t it, it was so VISCERAL. Eventually I saw a post about D-MER and I knew straight away THAT’s what it is! I was so relieved because I had this horrible feeling that I was feeding Rex all these bad vibes. As soon as I saw this, I felt so much better just knowing what I was dealing with, I wasn’t crazy and I wasn’t alone. Isn’t it funny how much this happens in motherhood?
I could tell you many stories of times where I tried feeding him in public and it going badly wrong. For a while I’d just take expressed milk and give him a bottle if we were going out anywhere because I literally just could not face it. I think it’s really normalised to be going out and about with your newborn – lunches, brunches, walks – but actually, I would have happily stayed in my house for months, and for the first few months I really felt like I was forcing myself to leave every time I did.
At week 11, one day Rex decided he’d had enough, and chucked the shield off with his mouth, and just latched to my bare nipple like it was nothing. I was BUZZING. Although, the nipple pain had only just settled down and we were back to toe-curling agony for at least another few weeks. But I’ll take it all day – I was just so happy that we finally didn’t need shields anymore! For me, it meant being able to go out and feed him with a bit more confidence in public – I don’t give a shit about people seeing my nipple/making anyone else uncomfortable etc, but if you’ve ever had to use shields you know what I mean – they can come flying off, they’re just a general pain in the arse.
Since then, we have gone from strength to strength. I can whack a boob out anywhere now and we can do lots of different positions. My biggest issue is a curious baby that wants to stare around everywhere but that’s par for the course! We co-sleep and he is still feeding through the night, on a good night just twice and on a ‘bad’ night every hour or so. I have developed blisters on my nipples a few times from the night feeds – obviously as we’re both asleep he has a tendency to have a shallow latch and my nipple can rub against the roof of his mouth and blister. I first had this around 5-6 month mark and was surprised because I thought my nipples would be made of steel by now? Apparently that’s not the case! But I’m too lazy to wake up and feed him so I guess I’ll just have to take the odd blister.
Breastfeeding is a huge privilege and I am so happy to be able to have done it. It makes me so happy to know that when he’s poorly my milk is making him the exact antibodies he needs. I can share my immunity and it’s incredible. I do think it’s important to mention that I would not have been able to do it without the incredible support of my partner. There’s a statistic that 12 months of breastfeeding equates to 1,800 hours – which isn’t far off a 40 hour work week WITH 3 weeks holiday totalling 1,960. Breastfeeding is only ‘free’ if a mother is unpaid for her time – and formula is a practical and highly necessary option for SO many people, for so many reasons.
It’s been an amazing journey so far and even as he’s started solids I am a little sad that he doesn’t just need me anymore, god knows how I’m going to feel when the time comes to stop. I find it really helpful to share my experiences and if this helps just one person in one small way then it’s such a bonus!