Breastfeeding Guest Post: Part 3

Here is the conclusion to my breastfeeding guest post. You can see Part 1 and Part 2 here. A HUGE thank you to my friend from Allie at Project Open Hearts for helping me out with this. My blog has had a lot of traffic in the past few days and I hope her experience and success helps too encourage other moms too! I have had a few comments from twin moms comment that they hope to breastfeed their babies and would love some similar information on that. I've actually found an IVF twin mom (we went to the same RE!) who was nice enough to share her breastfeeding experience with me. I'll be posting that in the next few days!

• How long did it take for your milk to come in? 

By the second day, I was sure my milk was in. 

• Did you see a lactation specialist in the hospital?

Yes!  She was amazing.  She really explained things very well and was VERY encouraging.  I highly recommend it. There was also this amazing nurse who helped us check out and she spent almost 2 hours helping me too.  When they really know what they're doing and they are happy to help, it makes a huge difference. 

• How many times do you have to feed him? I heard formula babies sleep longer through the night.

Pretty much since he was born, he eats every 1 to 4 hours around the clock.  At 5 1/2 weeks old, he usually cluster feeds between 6-10pm and then sleeps from around 10pm to 12am-2am and then wakes up again between 4-6am. (and continues this few hours awake and few hours sleeping throughout the day)    I have heard that formula fed babies sleep longer too, but I don't mind the interruption in the middle of the night.  I get more snuggles and I have time to start a load of laundry or get diaper laundry done because it takes a couple hours in between each step,  And for me, I have had insomnia and had to wake up to pee since I was about 8 weeks pregnant... so it's actually an improvement to only get up once or twice.  

 

Middle of the night feedings are the quiet time where it's just me and him, and as tired as I am, I still don't mind waking him to this little face.

• How do you know he's getting enough milk?

Look at his diaper output. Check out Kellymom.com for information on this.  http://kellymom.com/bf/got-milk/supply-worries/enough-milk/

• Emotional aspects of BFing

I have already written a little bit about our struggle with infertility, but this plays a big role in breast feeding too and how I feel about it emotionally.  I longed for my whole life to be a mom and for years while we tried unsuccessfully, I longed to be a mom.  I yearned to be the one my child ran to and needed for comfort.  I prayed to be needed.  In the books that I read about breastfeeding, they explained the way the oxytocin is released during each nursing session and how breastfeeding can help to ward off post partum depression.  I had already spent so many years so sad that I was looking forward to this "safe guard" against depression.

For me, breastfeeding is the ultimate.  It's getting to be 100% mom, 100% of the time.  I feed him 24 hours a day and when he cries, I can calm him in seconds with nursing him.  It's amazing and fantastic and nothing that I can imagine could make me feel more needed by him.  This type of emotional high is something that I dreamed motherhood would be like.  As much as it probably bothers Jack that there are times that he can't get Arie to calm down or stop crying, it makes my heart overflow to be able to hold him close and have him feel instantly calm and secure and safe.  I have nothing to compare it to obviously, and I have no perspective of what a formula feeding mom experiences like this so I have no idea if it's the same, but that is what I personally get out of breastfeeding.

 I do consider it to be a big bonding experience, especially now that he makes eye contact with me while he's nursing.

• Do you pump?

No, I do not pump.  I thought I would want to so that I could donate breast milk, but I tried pumping several times and I absolutely hated it.  It's really not for me.  Plus, I'm a stay at home mom, so I have no need for a pump.  

• Has there ever been a moment when you wanted to throw in the towel and just give him formula?

No.  The amount that I educated myself about all of the amazing benefits of breast feeding far outweighed any desire that I might have to feed him formula.  I definitely do get tired and even the other night, I woke Jack up at about 3am and asked him to feed Arie.  Jack was half asleep and lifted his shirt and grabbed his breast area.  It made me laugh and Jack smiled and went back to sleep.  It can be exhausting and incredibly emotionally draining while he's cluster feeding and it seems like he won't ever fall back asleep and he's uncomfortable and you are just at your wits end because you are so tired, but even then I have never once felt even a smidgen of desire to go open the can of formula in my pantry that was sent to me against my will as a sample when someone sold my information.  

• Do you think you would have such a strong bond with your baby if you were bottle feeding? 

I have absolutely no way to compare, since Arie has never taken a bottle of expressed breast milk or formula.  I would assume not since part of the connection is that my body is still physically sustaining him, but I can't say for sure. 

• How does it make you feel to know that your breasts are sustaining life? 

Kinda like a super hero.  I'm serious, I remember when I discovered that my boobs were leaking when I was pregnant and I felt like I should have a cape.  My boobs work, I thought to myself! How exciting!  It's pretty amazing to experience, especially since I believe that God designed my body to work like this, it's just amazing to see creation working like it does.  

• Are your breasts sore all the time? 

No, not at all.  When my milk "came in" and my breasts started really producing a lot more volume of milk, my boobs were sore, but not too bad.  I nursed Arie as much as he wanted to and it was not even 24 hours of sore breasts.  Occasionally, my breasts will tingle and be a little sore and hard if Arie takes a slightly longer nap than usual or a couple hours after he has finished cluster feeding, but it is really not hard to handle or even something that I would consider taking anything for.  

• Do you wake up leaking? 

Yup!  And when I get out of the shower, I leak.  I made some handmade breast pads but I have found the disposable ones are a bit more absorbent.  I sleep with a nursing tank top on and breast pads in the cups and that keeps me from waking up soaking wet.  Especially because I sleep with Arie next to me, I wake up with him rooting and that makes breast milk let down.

• Do you nurse in public? How do you feel about nursing in public?

Yup. I will feed my baby when ever he is hungry, where ever I am.  I have mostly nursed in my truck before we walk into a store or something.  I will sit in the back seat next to his car seat.  I have nursed in the pediatrician's office, during his one month check up.  The doctor had finished his exam so I sat there and nursed him and chatted with him through the rest of the appointment while Arie nursed.  I can't think of anywhere else off the top of my head.

I guess I don't have any specific feelings about nursing in public, as much as I would have about a baby being fed however it's fed.  It is what it is, it's a hungry baby eating.  I personally have larger breasts which makes it more difficult to be discreet while nursing in public and I think it would be very noticeable if I didn't take some measures to help myself be more discreet.  I generally wear a nursing tank top with a nursing bra (Bravado is awesome!) and that way it covers up my belly and each individual side will snap down at a time.  Then I try to wear a tshirt or a long sleeve shirt over the nursing tank so that I have something that I can lift up and it will cover the top part of my breast and the tank top will cover my belly so that only my nipple is exposed and Arie's face/head will cover the rest of what is exposed.  While out shopping with my husband, he came back to the truck and was talking to me while I was nursing Arie in the back seat and he was standing in the other door of the truck and suddenly he said that he hadn't even realized that I was nursing him.  So if my husband who constantly oggles my boobs didn't notice what I was doing, I would say I am pretty successful at being discreet. 

• Breastfeeding is supposed to be a natural thing, why do I need to "prepare" for it? 

I suppose it is more natural for some people than others.  If you had a lot of younger siblings that you were old enough to remember them being babies and growing up, and your mom nursed and you were around that, you probably don't need anywhere close to as much preparation as someone who was never exposed to it and never experienced it.  I needed to prepare for it and educate myself because I wanted to have a fully complete opinion on it about why I wanted to do it and I wanted to know exactly how it worked and what it did and why.

• Do you think success is possible with no preparation?

Like I said in the last question, definitely, IF you have been exposed and around it.  I read a lot of Amish fiction and the Amish breastfeed their babies.  If you lived in a community and family where your mom and sisters and aunts and every woman you know breastfeeds, you would be exposed to it constantly.  When you are around it that much, you will naturally pick up on the ins and outs of why and how it works and how you know it's working and you would have a lot of people around who have found their tried and true methods of troubleshooting and making it work.  While that requires no preparation on your part, since you aren't actually doing the work, you are just around it, it is still technically preparation.

There are also women out there who just choose to do it and make it work themselves even with zero support.  I think it's possible, but it will definitely be easier and less worrisome if you are educated and prepare and get knowledge about the whole process including possible issues.

• Where does your baby sleep?

We have a crib in his nursery and a pack'n'play in our bedroom next to my side of the bed.  But, Arie sleeps with us in our bed, in my arm.  I sleep on my left side and he sleeps in the crook of my arm, facing me, in between Jack and I.  

 

(Side lying nursing in bed.)

 

This is how we sleep every night.  I wasn't sleeping in this picture, but when I do go to sleep, my pillow is pushed much further back and I sleep on the very edge of it so that it's no where close to Arie's head.  Also, all the blankets that he has are his receiving blanket and my arm that goes around him blocks the quilt that Jack and I sleep under from covering him.  

 

This is how he sleeps almost every night.  For some reason he has always liked his hands in his face, and he sleeps with his hands right by his head. 

He falls back to sleep when side lying nursing in bed.

• How does your husband feel about breastfeeding?

I would have to ask him to be 100% sure, but I am pretty sure that he felt the same way about breastfeeding as I did in the beginning.  It's free/super cheap, so definitely that's the choice for us.  Once I became more educated and started reading to him the information that I found about it, both of us came to a unanimous decision that breastfeeding was absolutely what we wanted to pursue.  Both of us have pretty "traditional" views on gender roles and he looks at breastfeeding as an extension of motherhood and mothering and that feeding him is my "job" or "role" if that makes sense.  He really doesn't feel the need to share that bonding part with me and it makes him happy to see me doing it.  Plus, Jack really enjoys that my boobs are out almost all the time... like I said, my husband likes to oogle.

 I hear a lot of women say that they think their husband will want to feed their baby too or that they would like help with the feedings.  For me, 24/7, even though I have to feed him, I can always tag Jack in and let him burp Arie and I can go back to sleep.  Whenever Jack is home, he spends a lot of time burping Arie after I feed him.   

• Have you ever had sore, cracked nipples?

Sore, absolutely.  Red and really really sore, definitely.  But not cracked.  We cemented what a correct latch feels like with the LC at the hospital and using lanolin a lot during the first few weeks between each feeding REALLY helped with my sore nipples.  

• But aren't breast sexual? 

Yes and no.  To be perfectly clear, there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING sexual about breastfeeding your child.  It feels good emotionally and physically there is a connection with your baby, but there is nothing sexual in nature about it, for me.

It does bother me when Jack gets all happy about seeing my boobs all the time.  I like that my husband is attracted to me, but I have to remind him not to make comments while our child is latched on.  Also, I refuse to french kiss Jack while Arie is latched.  Jack and I kiss a LOT, and we always have, so it's a bit of an adjustment to not be able to freely kiss my husband whenever I want or he wants, but I feel weird about any kind of kiss like that when Arie is latched.

Jack makes jokes about it whenever I show him how Arie takes naps hugging my boobs or I tell him how my boobs are comforting for him and that sometimes he will be screaming and then I put him to my breast to see if he wants to eat and sometimes he just wants his face by it.  Sometimes that's just what he needs and Jack will joke that sometimes that's just what Jack needs too.  Obviously he means it in a completely different way than what my baby needs.  It's really hard to explain this.

Both my husband and I do have a sense of humor about him loving and needing my boobs though.  This is Arie napping with his face pressed between my boobs.  I had to laugh.