All the best things
I have assisted several new moms recently with some common breastfeeding difficulties. Something that I have heard numerous times of late is, “But it was so EASY for you and The Son.” Since apparently several of these new moms have been lurking here, I thought you might need a little story. NURSING HAS NOT ALWAYS BEEN EASY FOR ME US! End of story. Just kidding, I will give you the slightly longer version.
My mom did not BF my brother or me. I have no friends who have breast fed very long at all (well, before I had The Son, I have lots now!). I do not have a sister, or cousin, or aunt to ask questions or reassure me. I knew when I was pregnant I wanted to BF The Son. I assumed it would be very hard because I had not seen anyone be successful. This scared me, so I sought out a BFing class at our local hospital. It was taught by a very old nurse who gave us stacks of pros on BFing, told us that the lactation consultant was there to help us after we gave birth. She showed us a mildly pornographic video produced in the seventies, and sent us on our way with the final thought, only 15% of us would make it to that CDC and AAP recommended minimum of a year. Yeah. Um, thanks.
I stocked up on nursing pads and lanolin, and refused to let any formula in the house before he was born, despite the cans already being sent by the chemical companies. I was stubborn; I refused to acknowledge the fact maybe I would not be able to BF. As my due date loomed near, and the ultrasounds showed The Son’s ginormous head growing bigger and bigger, I accepted the fact I would probably be having a c-section, and my resoluteness on BFing did waver slightly. On the day of my induction I told the nurses not to give him any pacifiers or formula under any circumstances.
He was born at 3:14 pm (Pi!)
and I was not able to hold him until about 6:30, I was still drugged, and the epidural was firmly in place. I sent all of my family, except for The Husband, away and asked for the lactation consultant to help with my first time BFing. “She is sick.” Um, whaaa? Sick LC was not written in my birth plan, not even the revised C-sec one. The nurse on duty showed me how to latch this sleeping little bundle on and left. L-E-F-T.
He actually did pretty well that first day, but by the next day all of the drugs had worn off and my poor nipples were a blistered, bleeding mess. The Son cried constantly, and my milk had yet to arrive. I was miserable, I was so conflicted, and confused and was thinking that we may be looking at formula after all. My stubbornness won out. I let my tiny baby starve, rejected any pacis, or bottles, and listened to him scream. Milk was still nowhere to be seen. His birth weight was falling rapidly. They released us four days later. No milk. Five days later. No milk! His lips were getting parched and I just knew that this supposed colostrum was not doing squat. He would suck and suck, and my nipples bled and bled, and we both cried and cried. Without a doubt the hardest, least fun or magical days of my life. The second day we were home I told the husband that if my milk was not in by that evening we were going to high tail it to Wal-Mart and buy some Similac. I took a nap and felt like such a failure, wondered if I would suck at all of motherhood as much as I did this. I fell asleep in tears, and could hear The Son crying in his Daddy’s arms.
When I woke up my milk had come in! Whether it had arrived on the last train from Clarksville, or the Mammary Fairy had visited in my sleep, I had huge, engorged, useful breasts. And The Son would not latch on! At all! All he wanted to do was sleep. And he weighed almost a full pound less than when he was born. I sent The Husband out to Wal-mart, at eleven, for one of those manual pumps to ease the unbearable pain. It was worse than my still throbbing c-section incision. I could not even figure out how to work the damn thing. I cried as I held my breast with both hands and The Husband held The Son and tried to coax his little mouth onto my nipple. We did this every two hours for a week before we all got the hang of nursing. His weight slowly but surely crept up. I had to wake us all up to nurse every two hours. A nursing session would last 45 minutes from start to finish, and then we would try to sleep for an hour and fifteen minutes. It sucked. There may be moms out there that tell you that those first few weeks are magical and wonderful and nursing only added to that. I was depressed, in pain, and weeping from exhaustion.
When The Son was about four weeks old my mom spent the night and I pumped enough with my new electric double barreled blessing from above to sleep for more than an hour at a time. I got two sections of four hours in a row. The Husband slept for nine hours straight. We all three woke up renewed. My nipples healed. The nursing continued, and got so much better, it did become magical and wondrous, a gift I felt I had earned.
There have been a few more bumps along the road, but overall, after that first month it was all easy coasting. So as I said, it was not easy for me, and it very well may not be easy for you, but it is worth it. Some people say that no one likes me on my soapbox, but you know what? This is my soapbox because I think if more people told the truth about the first days of motherhood we would have better breast feeding success rates, less postpartum depression, and happier, healthier babies. So, yes I do have a soapbox, but I paid my dues for it, just like all moms, BFing or FFing do. And I really believe all the best things in this life are the ones that you work for the hardest.
Filed under Breastfeeding, Soap box | Comments (5)Friday’s Read it or Rant: Mothering your nursing toddler
Mothering Your Nursing Toddler by Norma Jane Bumgarner
I very well may be the only one interested in this one, but ya know what? My Blog! I get to choose what to review, but it will be short. This is about Mothering! Mothering your toddler! Mothering your nursing toddler! Wow, that was a really good title for it, huh. It was pretty good, it did answer a few questions I had, such as why does The Son switch sides every thirty seconds? Answer, he likes a fast flow. Books like this are always good to read when you are having a bad nursing week, or feeling frustrated, or just in general wondering if you are a freak for still nursing. This book was a huge rah-rah yeah extended nursing, and to be honest…I like that. It may insult your intelligence sometimes, or Hey You may just know more about nursing than the average bear. There were a few things I did not care for, for example I really felt that it pushed reeeeaaaally extended nursing a little hard. Like if I do not nurse until he is four or five I quit too soon. Really? Wow, whatever. Also, it does not give much advice for nighttime non-co-sleeping nursing (my baby sleeps in his crib, in his room, with the door shut 87% of the time). This was a hard core AP parenting book (check out this for an intro to Attachment Parenting, so good it is on my favorites list.), so if you are not AP then this is not the book for you (and chances are you are not really nursing still anyway.)
The chapters on fathering the nursing toddler and marriage with a nursing toddler were excellent. This book really acknowledges how much of a family commitment breastfeeding is. I got this book out of our LLL book trunk, and it fits the LLL standards and beliefs perfectly, so a great read for my fellow LLLers. So in other words, if you plan on extended breastfeeding read this book BEFORE you have toddler so you know what to expect. If you disagree with Attachment Parenting and are Ferberizing your kids already, or formula feeding, then this is so not the book for you.
next up? Irresistible Forces by Danielle Steele.
Filed under Breastfeeding, Parenting for Dummies, Read it or Rant | Comments (2)Not a post on its own. But if you smoosh them all together? YES!
- The Son just bumped his truck into my breast and said “truck Nur-Nur?” Maybe he is thinking about alternative fuel sources?
- Just found half a mushed up banana under the couch. I think I discovered the source of all these ANTS!
-Things that suck….. literally…..TICKS! I just found one on my BOOB! YEEAACK! GETITOFFMEBEFOREITOTALLYLOSEMYSHIT!! Whoosh, The Husband and tweezers to the rescue. Is that a bullseye rash? OMFG! I HAVE LYME DISEASE!! WHAH! Oh, no, wait. Oops, that is just my aerola.
-If you cut down really old rose bushes planted by really old ladies you will get really dirty looks. Especially if you tell them you are putting up a stripper pole in its place. Geesh. A JOKE! It was joke! (At my baby shower, which all of the youth I taught bible study to attended, my friend Amber introduced herself as, “I’m Amber. I have known Hey You for four years. We met while we were both working at the same strip club.)
-It is Friday and I have not finished the Read it or Rant. In fact, I just remembered it right now. Good thing I am not being paid to do it, because right now I am going to take a nap instead of any more blogging! If I can make it to my room. So tired……**smack** head hits desk**Honk-shoooooooo**
Filed under Boy is my face red, Breastfeeding, Family-blame the DNA, Parenting for Dummies | Comments (3)La tee da! Hey You was right! And the Hulk agrees.
Check out the second question answered by The Hulk today!
Filed under Breastfeeding, Parenting for Dummies, The Son, Time Suckers | Comment (1)Mine are not green, but if yours are, use them anyway.
Would you nurse him in the park?
Would you nurse him in the dark?
Would you nurse him with a Boppy?
And, when your boobs are feeling floppy?
I would nurse him in the park,
I would nurse him in the dark.
I’d nurse with, or without, a Boppy.
Floppy boobs will never stop me.
Can you nurse with your seat belt on?
Can you nurse from dusk till dawn?
Though he may pinch me, bite me, pull,
I will nurse him `till he’s full!
Can you nurse and make some soup?
Can you nurse and feed the group?
It makes him healthy, strong, and smart,
Mommy’s milk is the best start!
Would you nurse him at the game?
Would you nurse him in the rain?
In front of those who dare complain?
I would nurse him at the game.
I would nurse him in the rain.
As for those who protest lactation,
I have the perfect explanation.
Mommy’s milk is tailor made
It’s the perfect food, you need no aid.
Some may scoff and some may wriggle,
Avert their eyes or even giggle.
To those who can be cruel and rude,
Remind them breast’s the perfect food!
I would never scoff or giggle,
Roll my eyes or even wiggle!
I would not be so crass or crude,
I KNOW this milk’s the perfect food!
We make the amount we need
The perfect temp for every feed.
There’s no compare to milk from breast-
The perfect food, above the rest.
Those sweet nursing smiles are oh, so sweet,
Mommy’s milk is such a treat.
Human milk just can’t be beat.
I will nurse, in any case,
On the street or in your face.
I will not let my baby cry,
I’ll meet his needs, I’ll always try.
It’s not about what’s good for you,
It’s best for babies, through and through.
I will nurse him in my home,
I will nurse him when I roam.
Leave me be lads and ma’am.
I will nurse him, Mom I am.
Originally posted on gwendomama.com
Thanks for letting me use it!
Filed under Breastfeeding, Poetry | Comment (1)La Leche
Alternate title: Controversy in a D-cup
The Son is still breastfed. Yup, sixteen and a half months, and no sign of the end in sight.
You could probably tell from my previous post that I have very strong feelings about breastfeeding, and I get asked often by well intentioned relatives when I am going to wean him, and the answer is I plan on letting him wean himself when he is ready. People may think that is weird so let me tell you a little story.
The Husband and I tried to get pregnant for several months, and I got my first positive pregnancy test on Christmas Eve. We read everything we could get our hands on to prepare us, attended every class offered. Before he was born I thought that I was as prepared as possible to be the best mom I could.
I had a C-section and was on some pretty hardcore drugs after his birth; they may have had something to do with the mishmash emotions that I felt. I remember the first time I saw him thinking he looked exactly like his dad, and feeling excited and terrified, but not this huge wash of all consuming love that everyone said I would feel. I held him and waves of “awh, he is so cute”, “oh, he is amazing” were intermingled with thoughts of “Holy Shit, what have I done to my life?”, and “I have no idea what the hell I am doing.” Looking back on it, I had a pretty severe post-partum depression (and it was not going to be cured by vitamins, no matter what Tom Cruise and his fellow aliens say.) Through it all I keep thinking that at least he was getting breast milk. At least I could do that right.
Somewhere my head got all twisted and even though I was doing EVERY SINGLE THING that I was supposed to do to raise a happy healthy child, I thought I was doing a bad job. We have all of these rules and routines and philosophies. We were overachieving parents of an infant. The Son had far exceeded each and every milestone developmentally and physically. But still, according to my brain I was just as bad of a mom as some crack whore who leaves their kids alone in a nasty trailer to be watched by heaps of dirty laundry and rats. (um, we do have the heaps of dirty laundry, but no rats.) I thought that as long as I was breast feeding then I was at least doing one good thing for my baby.
He had nothing but breast milk for the first six months of his life. At about ten months he had exactly twelve formula bottles when he was in daycare because I did not have enough frozen milk to give him. Those days I felt like such a failure because I was not able to provide for my son. I beat myself up because I knew that breast milk was what was best for him and that I was too lazy to stay up all night to pump enough for him to eat at school. In other words, Hey You was crazy.
After several months, and throw in some serious job stress, these feelings turned from anxiety to thoughts like, “He has the world’s best dad, and I have life insurance, maybe if I could store up enough frozen milk, they would just be better off if I drove off this bridge.” Every tiny ache or fever or rash sent me to Web MD to figure out which fatal disease The Son or I had. In the course of a year we had ALS, brain tumors, heart disease, blood clots, Lupus, Lyme disease, RSV (oh, wait, he really did have that one), anyway, you get the point. If you have never had feelings like this, and I pray that you have not, and will not, they are terrifying. This was not me! Where had the happy-go-lucky, confident, and cheerful Hey You gone?
After finally confiding in The Husband, he held my hand while I called first my doctor and then the local counseling group. I was put on a mild anti-depressant, and have done about nine months worth of talk therapy. I have added exercise back into my life and am trying to eat with my health (instead of my cravings for chocolate) in mind. I am getting better. I still have days that I have panic attacks for stupid reasons. I still head to Google to check on weird symptoms, but usually catch myself and stop. I still wonder why people are expected to do the hardest job of their life on NO sleep, with their hormones raging, and when they are at their most vulnerable. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. God thought that The Husband and I were the right parents for The Son. And who am I to question with that?
Now I am breast feeding because I want to, and The Son wants to. He will lay next to me as we nurse in bed, and we will hold hands, or he will stroke my cheek as I stroke his. I can feel his breathing change from fast to slow as he relaxes against me. We will look into each other’s eyes, or just sleep. We have perfected the art of the nursey-nap. Nursing is a special time I am not ready to lose, I wasted too many months not enjoying the gift I was given, and I plan to cherish this as long as we both are comfortable.
Prelude to the Breast
Stay tuned to tomorrow’s post for one of the hardest things I have ever written, the reason that I wanted to start a blog in the first place, to be therapeutic. Here is a list to get you in the right mind set, stolen from various lists here and there.
The following is a list of some of the benefits of breastfeeding for babies, mothers, and the world
For Babies:
- Children receive the most complete and optimal mix of nutrients & antibodies
- The varying composition of breastmilk keeps pace with the infant’s individual growth and changing nutritional needs
- Have fewer incidences of vomiting and diarrhea in the US (20-35 million episodes of diarrhea occur in children under the age of 5, resulting in over 200,000 hospitalizations and 400-500 deaths in the U.S.)
- Protection against gastroenteritis, necrotizing entercolitis
- Reduced risk of chronic constipation, colic, and other stomach upsets
- Reduced risk of childhood diabetes
- Protection against ear infections, respiratory illnesses, pneumonia, bronchitis, kidney infections, septicemia (blood poisoning),
- Protection against allergies, asthma, eczema, and severity of allergic disease
- Reduced risk of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) Statistics reveal that for every 87 deaths from SIDS, only 3 are breastfed.
- Protection against meningitis, botulism, childhood lymphoma, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative entercolitis
- Decreased risk of tooth decay (cavities)
- Nursing promotes facial structure development, enhanced speech, straighter teeth and enhances vision.
- Breastfed infants develop higher IQ’s, and have improved brain and nervous system development; IQ advantage of 10-12 points studied at ages 8, 12, and 18. (Breastfeeding is considered the 4th trimester in brain growth and development…there are specific proteins in human milk that promote brain development))
- Reduced risk of heart disease later in life
- Increased bone density
- Breastfeeding plays an important role in the emotional and spiritual development of babies
- Breastfed babies enjoy a special warm bonding and emotional relationship with their mothers
- Antibody response to vaccines are higher
- Are hospitalized 10 times less than formula fed infants in the first year of life
- The colostrum (first milk) coats the GI tract, preventing harmful bacteria and allergy -triggering protein molecules from crossing into baby’s blood
- Decreased risk for vitamin E and Iron deficiency anemia
- Decreased risk for acute appendicitis, rheumatoid arthritis, inguinal hernia, pyloric stenosis
- There are factors in human milk that destroy E coli, salmonella, shigella, streptococcus, pneumococcus….and many others
- Less risk of childhood obesity
For Moms:
- Reduced risk of breast, ovarian, cervical, and endometrial cancers
- Reduced risk of anemia
- Protection against osteoporosis and hip fracture later in life
- Reduced risk of mortality for women with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) has been associated with total time of lactation
- Helps the mother’s body return to its prepregnancy state faster – promotes weight loss…1/2 of calories needed to manufacture milk is pulled from fat stores… can burn from 500 – 1,500 calories per day.
- Helps delay return of fertility and to space subsequent pregnancies
- Develops a special emotional relationship and bonding with her child
- Breastmilk is free-reducing or eliminating the cost of formula (in the thousands of dollars/per year)
- Breastfed babies are sick less thus reducing healthcare costs to family in doctor’s office visits, prescriptions, over the counter medicine purchases, and hospitalizations
- Moms miss less time from work due to child related illnesses
- Helps the uterus contract after birth to control postpartum bleeding
- You can have orgasms while nursing in the beginning
- Breastfeeding reduces the cost of healthcare by promoting healthier children and mothers……….If all WIC babies in the U.S. were breastfed, our economical savings would be $33,000,000 per month ……….In 1993, 90,000 babies were hospitalized for RSV at a cost of 450 million dollars. Currently, the U.S. spends over 1 billion dollars a year on Otitis Media (ear infections)
- Reduced insurance premiums for both parents and employers
- Breastfeeding reduces global pollution by decreasing the use of resources and energy required to produce, process, package, distribute, promote and dispose of materials created by the manufacture and use of artificial baby milk
- Reduced tax burden on communities and government to ensure children are properly fed
- Reduced absenteeism in the workplace due to children’s illnesses
- Breastfeeding makes you feel good, the hormones produced during nursing have an endorphin effect giving you a relaxed feeling.
- You have a great excuse to sit down and relax…..
- You can nurse while sleeping…nursing moms get more rest than formula feeding moms.
- Breastfeeding saves moms about 7 hours a week off their feet.
- No screaming baby in the middle of the night waiting on the formula to heat up.
- It’s the only time you can ever lose weight without dieting or exercise!
- Breastfeeding is more convenient, when traveling, all you need is to take diapers, the milk is always available, sterile, and the right temperature.
- During times of disaster, you don’t have to worry about finding formula.
- Breastfed babies smell great….spit ups don’t stain, or smell, and poopie diapers are not offensive…(until solids are introduced)
- Breastfed babies know their moms and will never confuse them with a sitter.
- The strong bond developed with nursing is much more intense.
- There is no feeling to describe the child suckling at your breast and letting go to give you a big smile; and knowing that the growth of your baby came from what your body produced!
- The satisfaction of knowing you are giving your baby the best start in life!
- Breastmilk tastes great! Its sweet tasting! It varies in taste according to the foods mom eats. Have you ever tasted formula? Ugh!
- Breastfeeding requires the use of only one arm….you can do other things while breastfeeding, (except cooking and driving)
- Many, many more benefits, too numerous to list!!!
Feel free to add your own! I know there may be some advantages to formula feeding so you can add those if you want too. This is not meant to be a judgmental post… as long as you feed your baby something.