11 things about breastfeeding you should know
Ending a breast feeding journey seems to not be something that passes each mother by just like that. It can be emotional for positive reasons, being happy about finally being done. It can be emotional for sad reasons if the journey is coming to an end earlier than you wanted and for unexpected reasons.
As my third breast feeding journey is about to come to an end it felt like a good time to reflect on all of them. Here are the aspects of breast feeding that I will remember after feeding three babies for a year each.
1. The struggle
Newborns are amazing. They really are able to crawl their way to your breast and nipple if you lie them on your belly at just a few moments or days old. While finding the nipple is not so difficult, properly latching is a different story. They are equipped with the basic idea and movement but in the very beginning they are still very weak, their jaws don’t have any strength and simple speaking they also haven’t had any practical training yet.
As the new mother we have all these ideas in our head of how easy or difficult breastfeeding is. What it looks like when you observe it and therefore in what position you would hold the baby. I never gave the actual latching process a thought and doubt many other women do so before having their newborn in their arm. I did actually hear about how you have to get your whole aorta(?) into their mouths rather than just the front pointy part of the nipple.
So then you have your newborn in your arms or lap and try to latch for the first time. How to even hold the baby? Their heads and neck are not supporting anything. How to hold your breast so that you can try to get the aorta to meet their tiny little mouths?
Finally you find a way to hold both steady, to make them meet and still the baby won’t latch properly. Or it latches but after 2-3 seconds the position you found falls apart. Or, the best part, as a sleep deprived, exhausted from giving birth, first time mom, when they only cry and refuse to even try to latch.
Dear momma, all of this is normal. Don’t stress yourself. You can try and if it doesn’t work, take a break for a few minutes or half an hour and try again. There’s no competition to get it right in the first hour or on the first try. Of course, we want to make sure that baby will gain back the weight loss of the first moments but the calmer you are, the quicker it will work out.
If you’re still worried and want to learn more about breastfeeding and get yourself ready in a calm and gentle way, the Laid-Back Natural Breastfeeding Course from Hypnobabies might be just the way for you.
2. The positions
When it was time to try and breastfeed Globy for the first time, I thought of the cradle position. In the hospital they advised me to try the rugby ball hold instead. There are a few different positions you can try to see which one is most comfortable or let’s start with successful for you and baby:
- Laid-back breastfeeding or reclined position
- Cradle hold
- Cross-cradle hold
- Rugby ball hold
- Side-lying position
- Laid-back breastfeeding after a c-section
- Upright breastfeeding or koala hold
- Dangle feeding
- Nursing in a sling
- Double rugby ball hold
- Dancer hand nursing position
You can find the list with explanations and images here.
3. The pain
You’ve struggled a little but now you managed to get a good latch and baby starts drinking. Sucking on your nipples in other words. Whatever beautiful feelings and sensations people have described about breastfeeding are gone because IT HURTS. Wow, I did not expect that. And there are two kinds of pain.
A friend of mine said that her mother prepared her boobs with a hard brush and lemon juice. I don’t know if that’s actually true and whether it would be helpful.
The first pain is in your nipples who seem to have to get used to having milk run through them from inside to outside. The suction of the newborn is a story for itself. It’s been a while but I think the pain is like a pinching kind of pain. Every time I started feeding it would hurt so much that I used my breathing technique from managing contractions to get through the pain and continue feeding. This being said the pain didn’t last for too long. It was always just the first moments of a feeding session.
Apparently it is connected to the way the baby latches on. The pain and also whether your nipples start bleeding and develop a crust or not. I was bleeding a little bit during the first 3-4 days. I guess it was also the crust that cracked open again every time you feed.
Here’s the good news. As soon as I got home and applied the breast feeding nipple cream it got better. It was like heaven to use this lotion and I am so grateful to the person who gifted it to me. I forgot to bring it in my hospital bag, probably because I didn’t expect this left of pain. So here’s the friendly suggestion to bring it to the hospital with you.
The other good news are: After 2 weeks the latest, it was not painful anymore. At all. No unpleasant feeling in the nipples from feeding.
It seems that boobs remember. The first feeding sessions with my second baby were a little painful but nothing compared to the first. The third baby were pain free right from the start. My babies, especially second and third, came fairly quickly after the other. I wonder if there is a difference if you have your babies 5 or more years apart!?
The other kind of pain you get to enjoy while breastfeeding is the aftermath. The contractions that help your uterus to go back to its original size. This was also very interesting. After the first or second proper sucking it’s like a message was sent to my lower body and the contractions started working.
I remember them from my first baby but not as that painful. The hospital had provided me with painkillers right after I was in settled in my room. Therefore, I was taking one painkiller per day and it was very manageable. With the second it was already a lot stronger and I was again taking one painkiller a day.
My third baby was born in a birthing center and no painkillers were offered. So that’s how we do it I thought but WOW. The contractions this time around felt worse than when actually giving birth. I was kinda of amazed by how intense or painful in other words there were. I thought about asking for painkillers. They offered me a hot water bottle or pills. Since everything was so peaceful, natural and vegan at the place I went with the water bottle first. It made it a lot better but let me tell you. These after math contractions after my third baby were no joke. So annoying that feeding was triggering them.
Good news is that Hypnobabies also has an offer to better manage the aftermath. The Breastfeeding Success Hypnosis Track provides you with visualizations and post-hypnotic cues which ease the “after birth contractions” of the uterus.
My momma always described it as if the baby is sucking milk and thereby pulling the uterus etc back into its place. Focusing on your body doing its utmost to return to normal after having done the utmost (after you have just done the utmost) helps to get through it.
Here as well, as intense as the contractions might have been the third time around, it doesn’t last for very long. Maybe 1-2 weeks.
4. The awkwardness
Here in Japan, you get to stay in the hospital for 5 days after you give birth. There are nurses, midwives and doctors regularly checking up on you and the baby. What I didn’t expect is how involved they want to be in your breast feeding journey.
They asked me to always call them when I wanted to feed my baby. It is very kind of them to want to check that your breasts and nipples are ok, to help with the positioning of baby and boop but to be honest, it just stressed me out. Referring back to one, when you’re already struggling with the process and then have a stranger’s hands touch and maneuver your boobs, it was a bit awkward for me.
When the breast is too engorged or you have mastitis, they give you a breast massage for the milk that is stuck to come out. Also very helpful and nice but also very kinda awkward.
Really quite amazing how many people touched my breasts in the course of having a baby.
5. The exhaustion
I was prepared for never-ending sleepless nights based on the horror stories some parents tell you or what the media is sometimes portraying about having a newborn. Generally, it was far from as bad as I expected it to be but of course, I also had nights or days that were simply exhausting.
Exhaustion from breastfeeding. Period. It takes a lot of energy. Exhaustion from cluster feeding. A baby that is around 6-8 weeks, in its witching hour in the early hours of the evening and doesn’t seem to want to stop crying unless it is feeding. The exhaustion from wondering why you’re even feeding the baby even though your supply must be completely used up by then.
The exhaustion from knowing that feeding would soothe the baby but you’re tired and feel like there’s no more milk in you and you don’t know what else to do to make this baby stop crying. The exhaustion from nights where you get up after just falling asleep so many times, you basically didn’t sleep at all and feel delirious.
I’ve had all these moments throughout 3 year long breast feeding journeys but they were not the norm and didn’t happen all the time.
6. The ease
After the initial struggle to find the right technique to feed your baby, after holding and supporting your baby, there will one day be the moment where it all just seems so easy, natural and almost happens automatically.
As if you just need to lift your shirt and baby knows to do the rest. When you can hold a conversation with a friend while putting baby on to feed and it doesn’t cost you a second thought, no extra effort and is not distracting from that conversation.
That’s when you realize how great breastfeeding is and how much easier than preparing and feeding solids to your baby. I think these moments lie very closely together.
You don’t need to bring anything when you leave the house to feed your baby. Food or drink, you always have it with you. You can theoretically do it anywhere at anytime.
7. The responsibility
I just listened to a podcast episode of “Dirty Mother Pukka” featuring Alexandra Burke. She describes one scene where her show was about to begin, the curtain about to be opened but her baby started crying and all she wanted to do was to feed her baby.
It made me remember this natural pull that made me want to get back to my baby after being out for 1.5-2hours (in the very beginning). This strong desire to be with your baby, to be there for it, to feed it. Is it an intrinsic feeling of responsibility for this little human being?
The other aspect of responsibility that can be frustrating is when the baby is crying and basically everyone looks at you to calm it down. You are the mum, you have the boobs to feed it (if you chose to breast feed) and therefore, it seems to be your responsibility to make it stop crying. While it often works, there are also times where it just won’t (see the point exhaustion). This can feel really frustrating as you want to be able to calm the baby and are there to feed it and still it doesn’t help.
8. The time
There is this number going around of 1,800 hours that it apparently takes to feed a baby for one year. This would translate into almost 5 hours per day and ca 30 minutes per 10 feedings a day. While I think this number is slightly too high it sure does take a lot of time to breastfeed a baby.
During my third breast feeding journey I got into audio books and podcasts. I’m convinced all audio formats were created for breastfeeding women.
The frequency of how often you feed and the duration of each feed might vary with each baby. While you should adhere to guidelines in the early days of your baby I think it’s safe to find your own rhythm with your baby later on. Some might want to emulate their own routine of breakfast, lunch and dinner with a snack in between. Others might want to just follow baby’s demand and feed as requested. I know I did it slightly differently for all three babies. Depending on the circumstances such as can you stay at home or do you have to go back to work, when do you introduce the bottle, etc. the experience will be different.
I am so glad that my time pumping was very limited. This was time I did not enjoy. Especially because I knew how it easy it was to create a supply passively while feeding, read on for more information.
9. The equipment
I wanted to breastfeed my babies and not give them any formula, as long as I could. My milk supply seemed to be sufficient so that by the end of my first maternity leave I started to wonder how I would make sure that my baby would get my milk while at the nursery and me at work.
I was researching pumps, imagined myself sitting in a toilet at work between meetings, wondering how to store it in the fridge at work and then transport it home, etc.
It was during this time that I went to a Breastfeeding Meet Up. One lady mentioned the Haakaa and how she was successfully producing a milk stash with it while feeding. I was so confused at first. She explained more, I looked it up and have not recommended or gifted any product more to my friends.
The Haakaa really is so easy to use and great in the results it produces. There’s nothing sexy in how it looks but it is just really helpful. It helps to avoid the mess of a leaking boop and within one feeding I would easily catch 50-80 ml. Here is my full review of the Haakaa if you’re interested.
Therefore, I didn’t invest in any of the other fancy and advanced breast pumps that are out there. Covid hit when Globy was 4-5 months old. Before she was in kindergarten only half days so that It worked out. If you are looking for one, be sure to ask the hospital or your community if they lend them. This seems to be the case quite often here.
With these breast milk storage bags, I stored them in the freezer. Every morning I would take some bags and put them in a little cooler bag to bring the milk to Kindergarten. There, they would defrost it and then feed it to my baby.
At home we were using the Comotomo bottles to feed the baby when I went out and my husband was alone with her. We used the small size and the bottle worked well for all our three babies.
With my first one there seemed to be a time when I had to stop feeding her so that I got a Medela manual breast pump.
When feeding my babies outdoors, I always used a muslin swaddle blanket to cover myself. I would tie opposite ends, throw it around my neck and this way have a cover for me and my baby.
I spent most of my breastfeeding time in Japan, due to Covid. You don’t often see mommas feeding their babies outside. One reason might be the amazing baby care rooms they have.
Some of them resemble spa like locations. Most of them are equipped with a diaper changing station, a vending machine with diapers, wet wipes and some baby food as well as individual little rooms for breast feeding.
10. The …joy?
A lot of the paragraphs above seem rather negative. I mean for them to describe the breastfeeding journey in a realistic way so that you are prepared. The right expectations can change the perception of a situation so much.
I hope it became clear that the beginning is a bit troublesome but that it soon gets better and so much easier, almost second nature. I am incredibly grateful to have been able to feed my babies for pretty much a year each. That I had enough supply, that they latched properly from the beginning and that it worked out easily due to maternity and parental leave as well as flexible working conditions that allowed me to work from home. I am grateful to have been able to make this experience both as a woman and mother.
Was it joyous? Did I look forward to the feeding sessions? When the boobs are full because there’s too much supply or you haven’t fed in a long time, then absolutely yes.
There are lots of cute little moments with your baby when you’re feeding them. It’s part of getting to know and their character. Some feed slowly, some fast. Some play around, others make noises. It can be precious moments of feeling connected to your baby. Due to its recurring nature it might be something that gives you a feeling of rhythm and routine.
It is like having a super power, being able to nourish and sustain the little human being with something your body produces.
I wouldn’t want to miss this experience for the world and would feed another baby the same way and recommend every momma to do it but finding one positive heading remains difficult.
11. The end
While pregnant I had this mark of six month in my mind for how long I would be breastfeeding. The more I read about breastfeeding and the benefits, the more the 1 year mark became instilled in me. Then came the moment of giving my first born her first bottle and it felt surprisingly strange and sad. I quickly got over that though. When the six months mark arrived I didn’t consider stopping to feed her at all, to my surprise. We had started her on solids, she had her first little teeths but it just seemed natural to continue, despite having this strong idea of feeding until she’s 6 month old only.
At ca. 10 months she had a lot more teeth and seemed excited to try them on my nipples to the point of bleeding. I thought our breastfeeding journey was coming to a quick end. I got the hand pump to make sure I could still supply her with breastmilk and to taper down for myself. However, some story sharing gave me the idea to try different positions. We actually found a position in which she wouldn’t bite me and I continued feeding her until almost a year old.
My second one might still be feeding if I hadn’t weened her off. She seemed to enjoy it, she got her teeth late and was just different than her sister. On the other hand, I was pregnant with Baby and very ready to stop feeding her when the one year mark was achieved. I stuck through it though and feel good that I did.
Baby number 3 was 10-11 months old when we spent 2 months in Senegal. She was sick a lot, preparing appropriate food for her regularly was somehow an issue and therefore I was still feeding her a lot during this time. I also wanted to make sure that I could still feed her on the flight back.
All of this to say that even as the same momma you might have different breastfeeding journeys depending on your babies and the circumstances. Also, don’t be surprised if the intent on what you set out to do with regards to breastfeeding doesn’t feel right anymore at any point of the journey. Be open to divert from your original idea. Find what feels right for you and the baby. That’s all that matters.
