Breastfeeding needs a gritty reboot

I have a love hate relationship with breast feeding.

Love - i don't find it painful, if we are both just cuddled on settee it can be a lovely relaxing moment for both of us, if im not needing to go anywhere, if im alone or with my husband and I can just sit with my boobs out, it's all good.

Hate - I can't breast feed in public, I find it too messy and chaotic, I have a fast and powerful let down, if she moves her head someone may be getting sprayed.

I don't feel comfortable showing my breasts in public (absolutely fine with anyone else doing so, it's just a me issue) and baby won't accept cover-ups. So I've just given up attempting to feed in public, so now I pump (which i hate) and take bottles out or give formula.

Hate - messy in general, my bed often smells like sour milk and I have milk stains on sofa.

Hate - time consuming, some moments my baby is happy to go 2 hours between feeds, the next she wants fed every 20-30 mins and my day feels like it's consumed with feeding.

Hate - had mastitis twice early on

Hate - leaks

Pros - oxytocin

But ultimately I've found it a pleasant experience that i will miss.

This was the biggest shock for me, by a long way: the way that breastfeeding made me constantly on call and unable to be away from the baby for even short periods. I totally thought that DH and I would be entirely equal parents from day 1 - and we were both off for the first 8 weeks, so it seemed very doable. I had not appreciated at all that there is absolutely no equal parenting a breastfed baby, and anyone who says that if he does all the nappies it works out the same can do one.

I breastfed both of mine to around 9 months and it was physically easy for me but I did not really enjoy it - and both times I was pretty desperate to stop when I did. I felt uncomfortable in my own body while breastfeeding. Looking back, I think I'd have enjoyed early motherhood far more if I hadn't breastfed.

To clarify I meant tried breastfeeding with two babies! Not tried to latch twice lol

Breastfeeding was a horrible experience for me. Everytime my baby pulled away they had a big circle of blood round their mouth, expresses milk was pink with blood and I was told my latch was fine... even tried it twice!!

I found formula feeding much less hassle! Whack a bottle in the steriliser, boil the kettle, or lie in bed because its not my turn! Rather than the endless faff of nipple shields, which boob was fed from last, sitting right, relaxing right, pointing my nipple to their nose, pulling down layers of clothes, baby sucking wrong and needing to break the seal, cream on nipples, air drying nipples, time to pump, nipple shields, need to find somewhere to feed, feeding every bloody 20 minutes rather than hours apart... instead of scoop, scoop, pour, pour, rinse, chuck in some Milton.

And those lovely snuggles where I can actually see my baby's face abd look them in the eye instead of only seeing my massive tit lol

I put it down to the fact my nipples never changed. They always looked the exact same when I was expecting them to change with hormonal changes. Any Breastfeeding friends always looked like they had huge saucer sized areola with long finger like nips. All said never experienced pain beyond mild nipping so maybe that's what it was, my boobs didn't get the memo!

So absolutely true. I've breastfed for years in total and although in my vague memory it was all easy breezy, the first few weeks never were. A new baby feel like a stranger really! It's be nice not to be made to feel I'm supposed to float away on a cloud of bliss. The third time I did, but it was hard won via absolutely no expectations.

YABU. You need to do what is best for you, but please accept a lot of women find breastfeeding much easier than formula feeding too.
I certainly did... I found it way more stressful making up bottles and was so glad it was only 1 or 2 a day of the follow on formula from 7 or 8 months.

My best tip is don't try and do other stuff at the same time. Binge watch a good box set and settle yourself on the sofa with drinks and snacks. I know lots of people who can breastfeed with their baby in the sling while loading the dishwasher but i could never do that.

this struck me in the feels, you are describing me with dd, I was in absolute agony, tears at every feed, but all anyone said to me was that it hurts at first and my nipples needed to toughen up l. I thought that was just how it was and I wasn’t strong enough.

Finally, after 2 weeks of utter hell, someone said to me that it’s not meant to hurt, and I was shocked - but it prompted me to go to a bf support group, who helped me get into a better position, latch her better and turned our journey around, I fed her till natural term in the end. I think I’d have stopped at 3 weeks max if someone hadn’t told me it’s not meant to hurt!

I agree OP. I fed my kids for bloody ages and there's nothing soft-focus and tradwife about it, it's nails. I also hated the whole alignment with attachment parenting, never going anywhere and being a slave to mothering- after the first 6 months I found it really flexible, went back to work quite early and started travelling overseas when babies were about 12 months. I didn't pump. My milk would subside a bit for a few days and then come roaring back. I am the furthest thing from woo imaginable, but there's a lot of woo-adjacent stuff in early motherhood.

Of course it's a practical way to feed a kid, it's the normal way to feed a kid. But also, the labour involved isn't acknowledged because of the patriarchy. The Politics Of Breastfeeding is a great book.

I do think the nursing bras were excellent value though, I'm wearing one now and the child it was bought for is 12...!

I think a big problem is that breast feeding is something that is framed as the mother needing to learn how to do it. In my experience, it gets easier when the baby learns to do it, not the mum. I was doing all the right things all along. By the end, and I breast fed for about 18 months each time, my kids could do hand stands and it didn’t really hurt. All this “aim the nipple at the roof of their mouth” was all well and good, but until my babies learned how to do it properly, it was painful as hell. I don’t think it was me who did anything different, it was them.

Can I just say that you can still feed your baby solely on your own breast milk and never get bitten at all, the answer is to pump all your milk then feed it through a bottle. You can also see exactly how much they eat that way (which can be illuminating, one side for me only ever produced 3/5 the volume of the other but I’d have assumed the feeds were the same).

The tongue tie has been gone for a few weeks now - the blood blisters on my nipples have healed and the pain has gone but the baby tends to latch on for a minute and then come off again. It's a technique issue at this point I think.

Id 100% get rid of the tongue tie tbh! My poor boy was exhausted trying to feed with one. Get a lactation consultant to do it privately.

Do you have any tips for trying to establish breastfeeding with dyspraxia? Trying to establish breastfeeding at the moment but the combination of tongue tie, jaundice and my probable dyspraxia looks like it might be too much for me.

I often think that any pregnant woman who reads much MN will assume that BF is going to painful and very difficult, so may well not even bother trying.

When I was first pregnant there was no online stuff to put me off. I read sod all about it, and never found it difficult at all. Admittedly I was lucky, but I had mine in the era when 3 or 4 hourly feeds for a newborn were the usual thing, and they mostly worked fine for mine.

I’m not surprised that so many women find it painful and exhausting, when nowadays they are supposed to have their babies plugged into a nipple almost non stop, instead of a really good big feed - after which it’s so often easier to get them off to sleep.

Yes, I’m well aware that this method is now deplored by the BF police, but it worked for many of us.

I agree that there is often an issue if it hurts.
Once my latch was sorted with my first (including a private tongue tie removal) it didnt hurt once. Second child didnt hurt at all. Fed two years with both! And I think a lot of women dont get help and have more issues than they realise.

Totally agree with this. I would have found it so bloody hard to keep breastfeeding my second in particular without an amazingly supportive partner looking after our older child, helping me with all parts of the night feeds aside from the actual nursing, my parents and in-laws doing childcare, ironing, housework etc. I have really needed my village.

I agree. The first few weeks were painful as hell and breastfeeding is soooo time consuming. It felt like all I was doing was feeding. I also completely agree about needing a “supporting cast” to have a good experience. The pressure for mums to do everything on top of breastfeeding means it’s no wonder they can’t or don’t find it magical.

I don't really understand the logic of "let's not tell women it's hard because it will put them off". It doesn't stop us in a lot of other areas. I found that quite a lot of motherhood content is along the lines of "childbirth is THE MOST DIFFICULT THING ANY HUMAN CAN DO AND YOU ARE A CHAMPION MAMA xxx" etc.

I think the blocker is more like well meaning content saying "let's not shame formula feeding mums", and an ad campaign where you say breastfeeding mums are champions doing an incredibly hard job just for the pure love of their children almost comes across like "...unlike those lazy FF mums who couldn't hack it" which makes people feel bad.

But if you don't get warned about the difficulties, you'll think something is wrong and stop.

I swear something is wrong with our generation, glamorising and downplaying women's efforts. At least my mum and my aunties all told me how hard BF is. I knew what to expect. If I had taken my midwife's and Instagram's words as gospel, I would have stopped by week 2.

Maybe the breastapo could also lay off women who DO choose to stop because it’s painful, difficult or the baby isn’t able to feed that way easily. Just because your body can go through some painful doesn’t mean you want to.

Start the movement OP!

There is no should - there is a choice. I chose to only formula feed.

Yeah my baby cluster fed for 12 hours every night for the first 6 days because it took 6 days for my milk to come in. Seriously, feeding for 30-40 minutes, sleeping for 20 minutes, then back to feeding. All at night of course. His latch was fine, he was gaining weight, but poor lad had to work really very hard to get the milk.

I was a broken woman by the end of week 1. I remember my buttocks hurting from sitting so much.

It's been hard and, frankly, expensive too. I did it because it's the best thing for my baby.

Formula fed babies feed a lot less frequently though. And dad can get up and do it instead of me waking up every 2 hours for the first 4 months of my baby's life. Statistics show BF babies sleep longer BUT they do wake more frequently, which is a killer.

And sure, easier to go out with the baby. But about without baby? I couldn't leave for more than 2 hours without taking a (very, very expensive) pump with me. And my baby didn't love the bottle, he'd only take small amounts, so realistically I couldn't leave for more than 3 hours as my baby was screaming and starving when I got home by the 3rd hour. He never, ever went more than 2 hours between feeds. He was 8 months when I could reliably leave him for 3-4 hours so I could go out without worrying about bottles and pumping. Not convenient at all.

And there isn't anything convenient about being your baby's sole source of nutrition for 6-7 months.

I'm still breastfeeding my 1 year old, I'm very pro BF, but I know so many women that stopped because they were sold a lie. Tell women from the beginning how hard it is and how hard it continues to be for a long time. Also tell the men so they can appreciate it.