My Struggle With Breast Feeding
Here’s our first Parent Panel post from mum of 1, Chelle Mccann author of The Adventures of Mamma McCann
From pretty early on in my pregnancy I had decided to breastfeed. I never bought bottles with my newborn but we were given a steriliser and bottles during late pregnancy as a gift. I never intended to use them until my return to work required it.
We planned a romantic, relaxed home birth but at 10 days overdue I ended up being induced. My labour wasn’t the beautiful time I’d imagined and I ended up having an emergency c-section. Asking the anaesthetist to wipe the sick from my face and my daughter being held by many before me was so far away from the beauty I’d imagined.
This made me so determined that breastfeeding would work for us, I struggled with it the first few days in hospital and had to be shown how to express. But my daughter had the perfect latch and I had finally got something I wanted and had planned for.On leaving the hospital after ignoring the advice for a blood transfusion it was suggested we combine feed while I recovered. Combine feeding worked well with us to begin with and I still believe now that it should be spoken of as an additional option – you don’t have to exclusively breast or bottle feed.
Unfortunately for us, a few weeks in, Isobel refused milk from a bottle. We tried again the next evening until finally we found the milk was curdling with no smell. We went from combine feeding to exclusively breastfeeding in a matter of days and it stayed that way until Isobel reached around 5 months old. We won a Born Free competition for training cups, my little one loved them and it helped her move from just mummy to other ways of feeding.
At 8 months we stopped breastfeeding completely as we’d tried to wean her gently from it but we just couldn’t get it right. I’d already returned to work and to be breastfeeding at home and then have her refuse milk at nursery was heartbreaking.
Nothing prepares you for the emotion of giving up breastfeeding, I felt guilty as well as sore and sick. I felt for a few days that I was depriving my daughter even though she was happily drinking from bottles from this point. I felt sad and like I had failed her. In fact, for her stopping breastfeeding was the best decision. She is such a happy baby with a routine and she claps at the sight of a bottle. It had never been like this with breastfeeding, still demand feeding up until the point of refusing the boob, getting upset when we tried to set a routine and not sleeping without a boob firmly in place for feeding to sleep.
I am so happy now and it is six weeks into Isobel going to exclusive bottle feeding. I see us interact in a much nicer and less stressful way. Taking away the power struggle of demand feeding has meant that we have more time with each other and so have bonded so much.
I do think that new mums should be told there is another way. If combine feeding had worked well for us we would have had so much more time for each other.
Others should be more aware of the battle mums face of choosing what is right for a child.
In our case bottle feeding helped us avoid a drastic situation and it showed us that although ideally ‘Breast is Best’ it’s not true for everyone. I fully believe that Mum is the one who knows best for her and her baby.
Did you struggle with breastfeeding? Share your experience here in a comment below and we’ll select one person to receive a Twist N’Pop Cup on Monday 18th Oct.
Update 25/10/10: Thanks to everyone who left a comment and congratulations to Melissa who will receive the Twist N’Pop cup.
Chelle has written from the heart about the joy of breastfeeding versus the struggle and all the opinions expressed in here are her own.
If you would like to read more about the issues raised in this post you could have a look at these websites
World Health Organisation
http://www.who.int/child_adolescent_health/topics/prevention_care/child/nutrition/breastfeeding/en/index.html
La Leche League
http://www.laleche.org.uk/index.htm
I couldn’t agree more.
With my 1st son, he was born through emergency csection after failure to progress. As mentioned above in the blog post, it was far from the amazing water birth that I had in my head.
Breastfeeding went well for the 1st few days – but the pain of it (which I found no one told me about – “if it’s painful it’s wrong” is the wron advice!!) was unbearable. To the point that I wasn’t healing properly at my section scar.
After just a very short 8 days we went to bottles, and we had a happy mummy and a happy baby. To be scared of feeding your own child is just stupid in my eyes.
For my second son, I managed to have a beautiful VBAC – though he was born with (as I know now) thrush in his mouth. Which then in turn moved to my nipples, making the pain even more worse than it was with my 1st child. Again, I tried, but I was dreading feeding. Crying when he woke up, knew what was coming next. So we switched to bottles, and I could breath again.
My poor husband through all of this as well – he found it extremely hard to deal with. He had to watch me do something which just pained me so much, but knew better than to say “shall I give him a bottle”.
I’ve just found out I’m pregnant with number 3. I will try breastfeeding again, and sincerely hope that I succeed. But I know that it’s not the be-all and end-all if it doesn’t. Provided my child gets fed, that’s all that matters… no matter which way.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Midwivesonline, Midwivesonline and mammamccann, BabyBornFree UK. BabyBornFree UK said: Here's @mammamccann's story about her struggle with breastfeeding http://ow.ly/2Tk6h We'd love to hear about your experience too [...]
Lovely to read as usual Chelle.
A tale i have about breastfeeding Lydia is one of pain! I have had mastitis and thrush, however i have battled through it. I decided to give work up as i was not ready to wean Lydia or leave her all day. She has always refused to take a bottle, be it expressed milk or formula. We’ve tried several different bottles/beakers with no avail. She takes water from a sippy cup with no problems though!
We are still BF at nearly 9mths (21st jan) and i see no sign off stopping. Lydia will have about 4-a-day now :0)
I can relate so much to what has been talked about above in relation to the reality of birth and breastfeeding when you have this idealistic view of how ‘natural’ it all must be when you are pregnant. Not to say that it can’t be…I guess I just wasn’t one of the lucky ones! I had attended a class on breastfeeding and just presumed I would breastfeed but I didn’t give it much more thought than that as there is so much else to think about as you prepare for the birth of your baby.
My son was born at 36 weeks by emergency C section due to pre-eclampsia and was taken to SCBU straight away. I couldn’t see him for 8hrs and it that time he’d been given a tube feed. I was gutted…here I was starting out in this important role of ‘mother’ and I hadn’t cuddled him properly or even been the first to feed him! He was happily surviving without me…how was that right?! After the agonising wait I was reunited with him and I made every effort to get breastfeeding established. I had totally underestimated that this is a skill I would have to learn and not something that would just happen naturally. Luckily the midwives at my local hospital were absolutely fantastic and I could call them each time he needed a feed and they would help me latch him on properly – without their support and guidance I think I would have given up, I was so exhausted and a prem baby needs regular feeds!
A couple of weeks in I developed mastitis which was so painful and I felt really unwell…however we got over that final hurdle and reached a point where breastfeeding became a real pleasure, so much so that after 6 months I found it difficult to give up.
I always say that if you can get through the first 3 weeks then it starts to get better and you never look back. Baby no 2 is due in 3 weeks and I’m hoping I can remember what to do!
I completely agree with everything that’s been said above. I was really stubborn about breastfeeding, and thankfully as I had a long stay in hospital due to DD being in SCBU I finally found a midwife who helped me to do it with the aid of nipple shields ( which other midwives said I should never use).
It was a trying exhausting time and with hindsight I don’t think I would have been wrong if I had decided to give up. But I am glad I didn’t. And when my DS came along 2 years later he took one look at my boob & went straight for it with no problems. So it’s always worth trying again even if the first try didn’t work.
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