My why
I have a somewhat unique experience of having my children very far apart. My older son was born in 2005, my daughter in 2017, and my younger son in 2020. My children were born in two completely different world views on breastfeeding and lactation, to two different fathers, and with drastically different experiences. I was a different mother when I had my oldest. After the birth of my daughter I began studying to become an IBCLC. This decision has completely changed everything I thought I knew and felt about the breastfeeding journey and how human lactation functions.
I tried to breastfeed my oldest. I took my 4 day old baby back to the hospital to talk to lactation consultants because I felt I was failing. I sat in the waiting room, a lump in my throat, a hormonal mess, whispering to my husband that I was a failure because I couldn’t figure out how to feed my own child. Ultimately I was unsuccessful, and it’s taken many years to fully grasp why I failed. And yes, I failed. If I’m truly honest with myself, I gave up. I stopped trying. I failed my son.
My body didn’t produce like I expected it to, mostly because mothers are sent home from the hospital before their colostrum transitions to mature milk, and no one is there to tell us how to cope with the engorgement that comes along with it. I was told to use cabbage leaves and bind my breasts to help with the swelling. No one told me that can decrease supply. The consultants at the hospital told me to use nipple shields and pump and shoved a bottle of formula in my son’s mouth. They gave no instruction beyond that. Nipple shields helped me be sure my son was eating because I could see the shield full of milk, but I was never told I could use them for a short time and then latch without them. I wasn’t told what kind of pump to use, how often to use it, what size flange to use, or that we let down differently for the pump versus our babies. When I pumped and produced less than an ounce, I was convinced my son was starving and that’s why the consultant gave him formula.
Of course ineffective pumping, supplementing, and binding was decreasing my supply. No one ever told me what cluster feeding was, so when my son always wanted to be at my breast he must have been starving. When he wanted to breastfeed and sleep, he must have been starving. It never occurred to me that he was a baby and babies want to be near their mothers.
No one told me breastfeeding was hard, and formula just seemed like the best option at the time. I was the first of my friends to have a baby so I had virtually no support group. I didn’t know what to try, or how to succeed, and I will always wish I powered through. It’s easy to say the system failed me, and it did. It’s also true I failed myself and my son. I didn’t research. I didn’t trust my instincts. I listened to people tell me it was OK to stop doing this hard thing and that was what I wanted to hear. No one told me it wouldn’t always be hard.
I did breastfeed my daughter and my younger son. I was so anxious and paranoid after my experience with my oldest I became obsessed with my colostrum, and then with my milk, and feeding her every hour on the hour. I still packed up my 4 day old baby and went to speak to a lactation consultant, and again she handed me a bottle of formula. My pediatrician assured me she was perfect, I was doing everything right, and we would both have to learn together. It took my pediatrician to tell me what the hospital lactation consultants couldn’t be bothered to say. It was easier for these women, these lactation consultants, to tell me something was wrong with my children, or with me, and hand me formula and send me on my way. Where was the hand holding? The reassurance? The education? Why were they there? I felt they had failed me, and my children.
I didn’t bother seeing anyone with my younger son, I trusted myself and drew from the years of research I’d been doing on my own. With my daughter and my younger son, formula didn’t seem like the best option, and I powered through.
Ultimately, I decided to be the support I never received. Schedule a consult so we can navigate your breastfeeding journey together.