Anyone else enjoy breastfeeding? Positive stories?

[Flingmoo]

I was only sore for the first week or so, and with a bit of Lansinoh even that wasn't too bad. I winced a little at times but never hated it.

I love breastfeeding my baby and I feel sorry for those who don't find it so easy. I do think there are far too many blogs, articles, etc. out there which just portray the difficulties of it. I know it's best to prepare new mums for difficulty but maybe the negativity is setting us up for failure.

Example: at the supermarket I was in the baby aisle and a heavily pregnant lady stopped by the formula milk and told her partner they needed to buy some to bring to the hospital in case breastfeeding was too hard. I just think its sad that this expectant mum wanted to breastfeed but had almost given up before she even started, due to the reputation of breastfeeding being difficult/unpleasant.

I don't want to start a BF/formula debate, I'm not a judgeypants and don't have any problem with formula feeding, but wanted to see if anyone else finds breastfeeding easy and has some positive stories - it just depresses me how many "breastfeeding sucks" stories there are out there!

(Similar with bad birth stories. Seems like you often only hear the scary ones. In the end birth was very hard for me but I always appreciated hearing the positive birth stories more than the scary ones!)

[ElsiePartridge]

I love it! It is hard, and it still is sometimes. I still occasionally get sore nipples, clicking etc, but I love the bond I'm building with my baby, and I also quite like the fact that I'm the only one who feeds her. Were suffering with a bout of thrush at the moment so I'm abit sore, but again, I will persevere and have not once thought of giving up! All my
Midwives and HV's congratulate me (I'm quite a young mum) and say that's hardly any girls my age bf anymore

[squizita]

Cannot you mean you couldn't exclusively breast feed your DS1? Presumably your fed/feed him! And you mention mixed feeding- so there was breast feeding involved?

[Jobelly]

I expected not to bf as my sister (who has large boobs as opposed to me!) and all my friends had not managed it but I was suprised to find it was so easy for me.
With DS he would be done within a couple of minutes and I couldn't understand how he wouldn't do 20 minutes on each side as Gina ford said he should (what was I thinking,)
When I had DD1 I suffered mastitis 3 times but after feeding first time knew it was worth sticking it out and in the end stopped feeding her as I knew she didn't really need it I was just feeding her for me.
Currently feeding DD2 and even after a week of expressing when she was in intensive care at 3 weeks old with bronchiolitis I love it.
The way they look at you when feeding and you know their chubby legs are down to you. I know I have been lucky I have an excess of milk (I brought 50 bottles back after the week of expressing in hospital even though after a few days she was receiving some of it through a naso-gastric tube) and although I've had sore nipples in the beginning a couple of times and when they feed almost constantly the first few days it's tiring it is all worth it.
It saves you a fortune, I get to eat chocolate and still manage to loose weight and i get to sit on the sofa and gaze at my beautiful baby instead of doing jobs while someone else feeds my baby.

[hollie84]

I've really enjoyed it with both my DSs.

I didn't do any prep, NCT classes or read books before DS1 so wasn't really expecting anything - just had a go and despite a bit of soreness in the first week it was pretty easy from the outset. DS2 was more difficult/painful for various reasons but from about 2 months onwards it has been enjoyable feeding him too.

I think breastfeeding is one of my favourite bits of mothering a baby.

[Andcake]

Just an awful awful experience for me to. I'd read a book, been on the nct course and it was horrible- believed it was the naturalist thing in the world and failure torments me years later. I had no sleep for the first 5 nights as ds fell asleep as soon as he hit the boob but cried for it as soon as he wasn't there. Catch 22. Bf consultant, HV, mw said my latch for the brief spells he was there was perfect. He lost 12% of body weight we were sent back to hospital where it felt like mw! breast feeding expert after expert came and push and pulled my boobs and gave me the same advice over and aver again talking to like I was the baby. We gave him formulae, I pumped for Britain - I had milk in abundance but no ds would not feed from me!
Ds weight rallied but he still wouldn't feed from the boob without falling asleep. Obviously for that week in hospital I googled everything spoken to friends etc tongue tie check- looked on mn etc
Felt like an awful failure exclusively pumped for a few months then half bm and formula til 6 months. Without FF at day 5 ds would have been v I'll maybe dead!
I then couldn't really enjoy my baby as I was pumping and got snide comments for feeding from a bottle out and about.
Sorry for rant it's suddenly all coming out. Glad it worked for you but please do not patronise bottle feeders you don't know what they have been through. I'm anti ff - people who decide before birth etc I almost wished it was only on prescription so people would know it was because I had REAL problems
Sorry v emotional about it years later

[bumpiesonamission]

andcake you deserve a medal!!! That is amazing what you did.

It is hard and for those who cannot achieve this 'natural' (yea right!) you are made to feel awful and as you say, the stares of people when you bottle feed are crap making.

[PenguinsHatchedAnEgg]

andcake - What you did was amazing. Expressing like that must be such, such hard work. I don't think anyone on the thread was trying to patronise though, just wanting to share some positive stories.

I am really not anti-ff and I don't think it should be on prescription. Telling a woman she can't decide what to do with her body and a doctor will sounds awful to me. And can you imagine having problems and being sent away because some doctor thought that they weren't bad enough?

There are arseholes out there who will judge any parenting decision - who will stare at you for ffing or who will stare at you for bfing. The key thing is that they are arseholes. Not that there is a 'right' way to feed a baby.

[boldlygoingsomewhere]

I started with the attitude of 'I will give it a of but it probably won't work for me'. To my surprise it did work- has sore nipples at the beginning, a plugged duct and mastitis but it is so straightforward now (10 months).

I really love it and know I will feel sad when it eventually stops. It also helped me to stop reading routine based book and just go with the flow. My thought process became 'if we were alone, just the two of us, what would I do?' Feed frequently and sleep with her close to me were the things which really helped.

[boldlygoingsomewhere]

*give it a go not 'of'

[Lally112]

With my first It was really hard but I couldn't afford formula so I had no choice but to keep going. After 3 weeks I started to get the hang of it and after the first month or so I felt like a pro. I was 17 and took an earbashing from everyone about everything but my HV was impressed and it gave me a new confidence to smirk when people would sneer at me for being so young because I knew I was at least getting something right.

[Cannotbelieveit]

Squizita I meant mix fed in the sense he had EBM from me and formula but both from a bottle. He would maybe feed from me a few times a week!

Undiagnosed severe lip tie and very refluxy meant he had to have thickener in EBM or formula to keep it down and a 16 day stint in SCBU from birth meant he was a lazy feeder from the tube feeding and bottle from birth

[squizita]

I'm anti ff - people who decide before birth etc I almost wished it was only on prescription so people would know it was because I had REAL problems

How do you define "real" problems though? The apparently healthy women who deeply resents her baby because BF meant she couldn't have certain medications? Someone who was sexually abused may well decide before birth? Someone with a multiple birth might well also- tenchically they 'can' breastfeed and have a VB but we don't force them anymore. What about stupid GPs denying it because the NHS couldn't find a condition? What about a woman's right to choose what she does with her own body - FF isn't as nutrious as BM but is not actually harmful.
I am absolutely pro BF, but women's bodies are still their bodies... I am pro choice after several losses of pregnancy. Just because something it s a gift/struggle for me, doesn't affect the circumstances of others.

There are vast reasons why (I'm not talking about the unethical COMPANIES behinf FF: I wonder if it would be better to just have a government 'brand' outside their global stuff... which is prescribed would be , I'm talking about psychogolical, personal circumstances etc' why a woman might choose to feed in a certain way when technically/according to some mansplaining GP she 'should' BF.

[squizita]

:) Cannot It was just a lighthearted comment because you said you didn't 'feed' him... all care for children is care, all feeding food! I mean yours was a situation with extra worries above and beyond other people's - you had to work extra hard to feed your child. :) You fed your child and then some! :)

Sorry I work with the results of actual neglect in children so 'not feeding' meaning FF/Mixed feeding I don't see the logic of ... I knew you fed your DS of course.
A woman works hard to BF = she feeds her child.
A woman works hard to express and feed = she feeds her child
A woman works hard to buy formula, make it up etc' = she feeds her child

It's just so sad people say "I didn't feed my child" when they mean "I didn't use the gold standard method because of problems". :(

[Cooroo]

I had my DD 17 years ago and always assumed breast feeding was easy and natural. Then started reading and realised it is not so for everyone.

Turned out I was one of the lucky ones. My DD used to take ages to finish feeding - Up to 40 mins IIRC - but I barely had any discomfort and it was so easy and convenient. Back to work at 3 months, I expressed for about a month but supply seemed to dry up so she was on formula after that. Didn't bother her as much as it bothered me! She's now a happy and healthy teen (as far as teens are ever happy!).

I thought BFing was lovely, but no point in anyone making themselves miserable over it. Wonder if it was always so hard for some, and whether babies died as a result, when there were no real alternatives?

[Cannotbelieveit]

Oh I knew you weren't being funny don't worry

Poor choice of words from me! I blame the lack of sleep

[squizita]

Wonder if it was always so hard for some, and whether babies died as a result, when there were no real alternatives?

I heard that even in the 30s-40s in some UK slums the infant death rate what shocking- 30% or something. :( Not at all the same as suburbia at the time.
The trouble is, I guess we will never know how many infants died as there would be so many reasons a child could die in those days and even if they recorded 'malnutrition' we wouldn't know if that was before/after weaning or just what the overworked coroner wrote when he saw the poor skinny little thing.

Going further back to 100s of years ago. One of the reasons it was so dangerous to be a motherless child, or a child whose mum had no milk was food, in the days when a bit of cow milk with bread in it was the alternative! However of course as women had massive families there were more lactating women about (a significant number of women would be pregnant or lactating most of their adult lives), and some would professionally or as a favour to a relative wet-nurse.
Personally, one thing I think no one thinks of is the story of the old wet nurse, a lactating woman with no child of her own. It isn't rocket science to work out what happened back in the days before scans or clean safe place to birth. :( Poor women, losing their child then for money having to 'sell' their milk - no wonder they are represented as clingy and needy (Juliet's Nurse in Romeo & Juliet talks about her baby dying - directors often cut this because it's not relevant to the plot. Actually it's entirely relevant to why the nurse can never say 'no' to Juliet and is closer to her than her mother). :(

[Kim82]

I'm currently breastfeeding baby number 4 after bottle feeding the first 3. I had no intention of breastfeeding as I thought it wasn't for me but dd had her own ideas. She refused the bottle and wouldn't let it anywhere near her mouth. After going nearly 8 hours with no milk at less than 24 hours old I tried her at the breast out of sheer desperation as I didn't want her to starve, she took to it straight away and she's now nearly 2 weeks old and ebf. If I knew how easy it was to breastfeed I'd have done it with all 4 children! The only issue I have had was sore nipples for the first week but lansinoh sorted that out and now it's completely pain free and a lot more convenient and easier than bottle feeding.

[CustardFromATin]

Also depends a lot on the baby. Ds1 didn't get the hang of suckling and in a lot of pain and under a lot of pressure from family to make up for my 'poor milk' I switched entirely to formula within a few weeks. With dd I was more educated and keen to bf but also she took to it from the moment they plonked her on my chest, there was pain on latching for the first week, but she gained weight like a charm, fed easily and calmly and it was so easy!

So it's a mixed positive, but the biggest thing I always say to my expectant friends is that even if it was hard once, you can have an easy time second time around, and it's worth a shot!

[RAFWife12]

I worked hard to establish BF with DD, after a rocky start. She was early, and I spent time in ITU after her birth so couldn't start expressing for her until 48 hours after. She was NG fed until we were both well enough to try latching on.
However, perseverance paid off - I ended up with oversupply and she is feeding like a champ and putting on weight like there's no tomorrow.
Not trying to brag - I know I am very lucky with how things turned out.
The fact is everyone is different, there is no right or wrong way to do it. All that matters is that baby is fed - whether that's breast or bottle.
Some of the problem in the early days is down to expectations. I was told babies feed every 2-3 hours. That simply isn't true - they feed almost constantly until milk comes in. If you aren't expecting that, of course you will think you aren't producing enough milk! Even when milk supply is established feeding can be erratic and frequent, especially during growth spurts. It doesn't mean there is a problem.

[leedy]

Yes, I pretty much enjoyed/enjoy it, and also realize I'm fairly lucky. Had a bit of a rough start with DS1 (awful oversupply -> mastitis -> thrush) but after that it was a breeze, fed him until he was 2.5 and I was pregnant with his brother. Had no problems at all with DS2 and am still feeding him at 21 months. Loved the convenience, the snuggliness, found I wasn't tied to the baby after the first few intense months (had no problems going out occasionally and then eventually going back to work). It's not been all roses (this week has featured a teething toddler going through a growth spurt who, in between eating all the food in the house, has been feeding like a newborn in the day, though mercifully doesn't wake up at night any more), but generally it's been a positive experience and a nice part of parenting.

Oh, and my top tip: YES YOU CAN HAVE WINE.

[mrsmugoo]

Yes, after a bumpy start (cup feeding/weight loss/hideous cracked nipple from which I still have the scar/recurrent blocked ducts/mastitis x3 I'm 5 months in and I love it :)

He won't take a bottle so it's only me that can feed him but I still cherish all the milky snuggles we have.

[monal]

I'm so glad I'd read on here about all the different issues people have with BF beforehand because it was bloody hard for me & DD to start with and I think if I'd been expecting it to be a walk in the park I might have just given up. I'm so glad I persevered though because it is the easiest thing in the world now, and it's brilliant now that she can ask nicely point at my chest, shout DA! and pull my top down when she wants milk and it means that I always have something to offer her even when I haven't been super-organised and got snacks in my bag which is a godsend.

[SaggyAndLucy]

I love it. I've been solely expressing for dd since she was born (shes 22 weeks) as she was tube fed, and it's been a hard SLOG!
You name a problem, I've had it.
BUT, a couple of weeks ago, she actually latched on and has been feeding ever since. I'm so happy. its like a miracle! its the best thing ever!

[middlings]

Love it. First few days were challenging with my two - DD1 has never been a big eater so took a bit of effort to get her started, Dd2 the complete opposite - cue very sore nipples, enhorgement, endless feeding. But love it. DD2 is 10 mos and we're down to one snuggly morning feed. I'll miss it when I get my boobs back. So much easier than dealing with bottles, and in the early days a brilliant excuse to sit on your posterior and people bring you cake!

[middlings]

Oh Saggy that's lovely. Well done you and your DD!