What are some misconceptions you had regarding breastfeeding?

[Hope54321]

Before I gave birth to my baby I never read about breastfeeding and I didn’t talk to anyone regarding breastfeeding. I just assumed I would come home with a baby and he would be feeding like all the other breastfed babies I see. Hah! Little did I know how tough it would be trying to establish breastfeeding. Anyway we got there in the end. Here are some of the things I was unaware of regarding breastfeeding:

1. It can take weeks or even months to get a good latch.
2. Cluster feeding for hours is a thing and it is normal.
3. Oversupply and fast letdown exist.
4. Comfort feeding isn’t a bad thing.

That it was easy
That it was painless

Maybe controversial, but that I would find it difficult, because that's all I seemed to read online eg on here, on bf Facebook groups etc. But she latched on straight away and had no issues.

However no one ever seems to talk about the nipple soreness in the first few days and just how bad it is. I had more pain from that than from my csection wound!!

Ps. genuinely not boasting that bf was easy for me, but just that it's such a different experience for everyone. I'm nearly 5 months in now and have had other issues such as oversupply and boob refusal etc.

Some babies are better at it initially than others. My first was excellent and the next two were more hard work. I just thought they'd all be like my first. I was shocked.

But everyone of them got the hang of it in the end.

That it would be simple to express and give the baby a bottle. I think they should bf very clear that getting an exclusively breastfed baby to take a bottle can be anything from tricky to impossible!

That it isn’t sure if you are doing it right. You can be doing everything right and still have (in fact are likely to have) pain in the early days. I think if there was more honesty on this less people would quit because they assume they are doing it wrong when they have pain. With my first the pain of latching and let down was significant until 7 weeks. Less time with the subsequent babies, but pain with each one for sure.

*sore not sure

This thread gives me hope!

I decided to have a go bf DS2 having EFF DS1. I want to do mixed feeding, not exclusively bf.

I expected it to be hard, but I didn’t anticipate this level of pain every time he latches on I actually cried out tonight when I started feeding him, it hurt so much. I assume his latch isn’t good and I’m bad at positioning him but maybe if I power through it’ll be okay in the end? My milk has been pinkish at times - I assume because I’m bleeding into it. I’m not cracked or anything - it must be damage inside the breast.

I live overseas so I don’t have a health visitor or a midwife to ask.

That it would just happen. My eldest took a little over a week to latch on. Such a stressful week.

My biggest misconception was that my hospital would actually support me whereas they did the exact opposite - took my baby away for a bottle while I was asleep, didn't help me with the latch, insisted that I should just be fine with expressing milk in front of (male) visitors! I couldn't wait to get out and try breastfeeding in a tranquil environment! (Oh and my hospital had an award for supporting breastfeeding....)

That it might not hurt, not everyone gets cracked bleeding nipples.

That a bf baby can use a dummy and it’s completely fine.

That in the early days your baby’s head can be much smaller than one of your boobs and that makes positioning tricky.

How useful YouTube is. I got most of my info from there before she was born.

Nothing magical happens when they turn one, carry on as long as you and your baby want to.

Despite the NHS messaging in antenatal care, no one expects you to bf and you have to tell them when it’s relevant as they’ll assume you’re FF.

What a difference a supportive husband/partner makes.

Unlike you, nearly all of my friends bf, as did my mum and so I assumed I would and it would go okay. You can’t imagine what it’ll be like till you to it but having seen plenty of women feeding makes it seem normal and you see them handle issues that might crop up along the way.

That mums are either formula mums or bf mums. I did a bit of both and that seemed to be what most mums do.

That if you want to, you can find a way to make it happen.

I can’t. He chomped his way through my nipples until they were open sores and I landed back in hospital with an infection.

My c sec was a breeze compared to trying to breastfeed.

I express what I can which is time consuming and I don’t even get much out of that-down to one bottle a night! I laugh hollowly at the sight of breastfeeding storage bags!! Having enough to store sounds alien to me 😂

I am lucky he took to the bottle with no issues, though.

That everyone gets milk come in. They don't.

That if the latch was good there would be no pain at all. Nearly everyone I know complained of some pain in the early days.

I honestly thought you either chose to or chose not to. I didn’t realise some people just couldn’t. I was so naive. I also thought they really pushed it at the hospital and you get a lot of support with it. Oh how wrong I was.

@FartnissEverbeans

This thread gives me hope!

I decided to have a go bf DS2 having EFF DS1. I want to do mixed feeding, not exclusively bf.

I expected it to be hard, but I didn’t anticipate this level of pain every time he latches on I actually cried out tonight when I started feeding him, it hurt so much. I assume his latch isn’t good and I’m bad at positioning him but maybe if I power through it’ll be okay in the end? My milk has been pinkish at times - I assume because I’m bleeding into it. I’m not cracked or anything - it must be damage inside the breast.

I live overseas so I don’t have a health visitor or a midwife to ask.

Watch loads of YouTube videos of how to latch. You are both learning a new skill and it gets easier for them as their mouth gets bigger.

@Legomania

That it was easy That it was painless

This and every mother can do it is she wants.

Eldest D.C. my milk never ever ever came in - in icu had PTSD and pnd for years mainly due to the pressure to breast feed and being unable and failing as a mum

Youngest I breast fed for 5 months but he would feed 12 hours at a stretch until he was sucking pure bright re blood - again my fault with demand etc again felt like a failure but with both - both were happy on a bottle and thrived.

It boggles my mind that some people don't realise that "milk" doesn't come in until day 4 or 5 for some people.

@Fritilleries even the 'experts' don't know. My midwife was concerned 44 hours after ds2 was born that my milk hadn't come in and urged me to start pumping. I said no, I'm expecting my milk in the next day or two like last time. Sure enough at 5am the following morning, plenty of milk and he was over his birth weight a couple of days later.

I honestly didn’t give it much thought in my first pg. I just assumed baby would pop out, latch on, and feed.

That it can be more painful than childbirth.

That the baby would feed itself into a blissfull slumber I was not prepared the cluster feeding rage!

@FartnissEverbeans the kellymom site and la leche league website are both really full of good information.

I was not expecting the pain, at the start of every feed, for months. I'd read about mastitis, but not about just pain every feed, at the beginning of each feed, which didn't last, but hurt.

I thought it would be either really hard or totally amazing. I was really surprised that I find it easy but underwhelming. I can't quite work out why some women find it so incredible an experience (I'm not doubting that they do, I just have never found it to be more mind-blowing than feeding with a bottle, or indeed than doing other care tasks like bathing or feeding the baby). I find it really convenient but I see it as mostly practical rather than emotional, which was the exact opposite of what I expected.