Breastfeeding

I want to share my experience with breastfeeding so far because I think it's important to help myself remember the struggles and also to hopefully help or encourage other new moms to stick with it. If it's TMI for you, then skip this post. To the other new moms: everyone will tell you that it gets easier and to stick with it. Believe them. Give it longer than you think can, and if you're like Regan and me, one day it'll just click. I think my experience is pretty typical, and there are tons of other circumstances that I can't speak to. This is just my own.

Unless you've breastfed before, there's really no way to explain or understand why it can be so difficult. I went to the hospital's breastfeeding class, I read the books, talked to the lactation consultants and got all the advice I thought I'd need. Paul didn't really understand why I needed all that info. Breastfeeding just comes naturally, right? Not exactly.

Regan came out rooting for food. She was hungry right away and ready to eat. The nurse helped me get her latched on within an hour of her birth, and then commented that she was one of the easiest babies to get latched that she'd ever had. I thought, "Great! We'll have no trouble nursing and everything will be wonderful!" Well, it wasn't easy.

As soon as I got Regan home, it was like she forgot how to suck. I'd struggle to get her fragile, wiggling little body positioned just right, and she'd just root around and cry and flop her head back and forth. I felt so helpless. I could only do so much for her - I couldn't make her suck. Or she'd cry for food but fall asleep as soon as I cradled her, and wouldn't wake up for anything! Meanwhile, my breasts got more and more engorged, making it harder and harder for her to get latched on and more and more painful for me. There is no worse feeling in the world, I think, than knowing your baby is hungry and not being able to feed her. And all of this while sore from the delivery, hormonal and before any adjustment to the sleep deprivation had kicked in.

I reached out for help from my mom, my friends on Facebook, my husband and the lactation nurses at the hospital. Without all of them, I very likely would have given up in the first week. A friend brought over a really nice breast pump for me to use. If I'm ever asked for advice on breastfeeding, it will be this: get a good pump BEFORE the baby's born. I had planned to buy one, but the suckers are around $300 and I was putting it off because I didn't think I'd need one right away. But that pump has been invaluable. At first, I pumped just to relieve some of the engorgement, and that helped Regan get latched on. But she still wasn't able to latch consistently, and she needed to be fed. So late one night, after she'd been crying and crying and I couldn't take it any more, I gave in and fed her a bottle of pumped breast milk. I cried while she ate because I'd been told that introducing a bottle to a newborn might mean she'd never breastfeed again. Paul put his head to mine and told me that I was doing something I didn't like for the sake of my baby's health, and that that alone made me a great mom. I cried, but it felt better to know that my little girl wasn't hungry any more.

I was so pleased when Regan didn't seem at all confused by the bottle vs. the breast. She seemed able to switch back and forth with no problem at all, or at least breastfeeding didn't get any more difficult than it already was. It still took about three and a half weeks to really get the hang of it, but I knew that I could give her a bottle when we both couldn't take struggling with it any more. The relief of some of that stress I think actually helped us get the hang of it. I always tried to nurse her first, but she had lots of bottles in those early weeks, always of breast milk. And slowly, the bottle feedings got less and less frequent. Now we only give her bottles when I need to get out to run errands or something without her or when Paul is nice enough to do some nighttime feedings so I can get a little more sleep. It's the best of both worlds. And still, not a drop of formula has passed her lips. I'm not against formula feeding, and I certainly understand why someone would do it, but I'm glad we haven't needed it.

So to the new moms or soon-to-be new moms out there who want to breastfeed, ask for help and don't give up. Most moms are happy to help or to simply be a cheerleader. Remember that almost every breastfeeding mom has been through it and you're not alone, even at 4 a.m. when you feel like you and this crying baby are the only beings on the planet. I didn't even talk about the pain or discomfort of breastfeeding in those first weeks. It can be intense, but soon it won't hurt at all. Like a lot of things about being a new parent, just when you think you can't take it anymore, something changes and it gets easier. Right now, the sleep deprivation alone makes it tempting to switch to formula so she'll sleep for more than two hours at a time. But I try to remember that even though this period feels like it'll never end, I'll look back on it soon and it'll feel like a blink. I might even miss it.