Breastfeeding my son is absolutely amazing. I love our little bonding sessions. At the beginning though it is not so amazing. The first two weeks were challenging, overwhelming and painful.
I was never one to think
that the whole breastfeeding process was going to be easy. I heard about many struggles
that my family and friends experienced and not so many success stories. Since I
knew that I wasn’t just going to wake up and become a breastfeeding champ I
decided to attend Le Leche League meetings to learn more about breastfeeding
while I was pregnant. Although I prepared myself and obtained information on
breastfeeding I am still so thankful that I had my midwife to support me for
the first few weeks since there were times when I doubted the whole process.
Although my son latched
right away the first couple of weeks were painful and exhausting. It wasn’t
until day three when my milk came in that we started having problems. I woke up
with these massive, hard, and painful watermelons and my son wouldn’t latch
anymore. My husband and I tried for hours to get him to latch but he just
screamed at the top of his lungs. Thank goodness I was able to call my midwife
and have her come over first thing in the morning to help out. She suggested I
pump some milk out of my breast to make them soft again for my baby to be able
to latch. After about 10 minutes of pumping I tried to latch my son on again
and yet again we were unsuccessful. Our next attempt was to try using a nipple
shield (thankfully I bought one a few days before he was born). The shield did
the trick. My son ate for 30 minutes and then passed out into a little milk
coma. Every feed after that I tired to latch him on without the nipple shield.
If he didn’t latch then I would use it. This lasted for about 24 hours until he
didn’t need the shield anymore.
Another issue I faced
during my first two weeks of breastfeeding was cracked nipples. My midwife
warned me at the hospital as soon as she saw my son latch onto my breast. The
funny thing is that my son was born with blisters on his wrists from sucking so
hard. My midwife quickly wrote me up a prescription for Dr. Jack Newman’s
Nipple cream. This cream was expensive but it was definitely a magic concoction
that healed my nipples in a short period of time.
Finally having a sleeply
newborn was interfering with my son’s breastfeeding frequency, which resulted
in significant weight loss. As soon as my little one latched on he’d eat for a
couple of minutes then fall asleep. To help him get the nutrition he needed to
gain the weight back that he had lost we needed to try our hardest to keep him
awake during feedings. We were told to make him as uncomfortable as possible so
that he could stay awake and eat. Every three hours we’d wake our little man
up, get him undressed for skin-to-skin and use a wet cold washcloth to wipe his
head with as soon as he’d fall back asleep. After a few days he was beginning
to wake up every three hours on his own and began to eat for longer. During his
third weigh in my husband and I were happy to hear that he had surpassed his
birth weight and that we no longer needed to wake him if he was sleeping past
the three hour mark.
Although breastfeeding was
challenging for the first couple of weeks we powered through it. Now
breastfeeding comes naturally to the both of us. If you are a new nursing mom,
please try to hang in there - it does get easier. Once you two get into the
swing of things it’s truly a rewarding experience and hands down it is
absolutely worth the struggle.
Thank you for reading my
story. I hope that you can share your breastfeeding experiences with other moms
too. The more stories shared the more confident women will feel as they
approach their breastfeeding journey.
Here is a picture of the aftermath of my son's first successful feed:
