Breastfeeding

You know how the nurses sell breastfeeding to new mothers? They say that that’s the best gift for your baby, there’ll be no need to wash and sterilize bottles and best of all, you save money on all the formula feeds you don’t have to buy.

BUT, they conveniently ‘forget’ to mention that breastfeeding comes with lots of pains: sore and cracked nipples, engorgements, mastitis, constant feeding during the day and more night feeds (as breastmilk gets digested quicker).

After 2 weeks of pumping and breastfeeding, my breasts are sore. I’ve passed the cracked stage, they are now in the healing stage but the soreness remains. Somehow, with Matt falling asleep at the breast so often, it’s hard to establish a proper milk supply as what is produced will be what he takes.

When I started breastfeeding, I was so stressed (wondering why no/little milk) and tired (from all the feeding and night feeds) that was not good. Stress = no milk. Tired = no milk. Moral of the story, don’t get too stressed and rest well. I decided to not stress myself and got a tin of formula feed just in case I run out of milk. That helped a lot, the stress level dipped and milk was flowing again.. thinking back, it could also be that milk was more or less coming in after the initial few days.

Constantly worrying about how much milk your baby is taking in can make you go mad, so I express my breastmilk and feed it to my little one with a bottle. I just make sure I label the date and time correctly, especially important if you have plenty of milk. Just remember the golden rule of “first-in, first-out”.