i always cringe and hold my tongue whenever i hear “i wasn’t able to breastfeed.” mostly because i wonder if it was truly a choice to stop wanting to breastfeed OR if it was the only option after a woman was told she wasn’t producing enough milk but also never given the information about what is biologically and physiologically the best way to start and continue nursing a newborn. i could have easily fallen in the latter category, but i was insistent on succeeding even though i quite nearly drove us all insane in the process.

now, as you read, please know that as passionate as I am about mothers succeeding in breastfeeding, choosing NOT to breastfeed is something i have and will continue to advocate for depending on a family’s situation. it can be a lot, truly. so, if you ever question whether you will be a happier and healthier mother to your child by NOT breastfeeding and decide it just isn’t in the cards, i applaud you. in fact, i think that we need to see more mothers CONFIDENTLY choosing this route as opposed to being shamed into believing they are doing their children a disservice by formula feeding. your family needs you in whichever state YOU are happiest, and as long as your baby is fed and you are happy and you made that choice yourself, that’s what truly matters.

I breastfed eleanor until she was two and a half years old. it’s a time in my life that i will cherish forever. there is something so special about the journey. penelope is currently two years and two months old and still nurses often with no end in sight. i feel super comfortable now sharing all sorts of information about breastfeeding but truth be told it wasn’t until AFTER eleanor was born that i had any clue of what breastfeeding was supposed to look like. but boy do i wish i had learned it BEFORE she was born. eleanor is now 7 years old, and thinking back, i don’t think i give her enough credit for how much she molded me into a mom who became verrrry confident in how she wanted to mother her children. shout out to eleanor. so, when penelope was born i was much more prepared for the plethora of challenges that were coming my way.

before eleanor was born i thought that breastfeeding was going to be the easiest, most natural thing i’d ever do. i was so confident, in fact, that i was at a point where i felt that going to a class or even reading an article, let alone a book, about breastfeeding was completely unnecessary. then, eleanor was born.

eleanor was born on christmas day, at the hospital, and latched on to my breast to nurse for the first time almost immediately after she was born. she continued to nurse consistently at regular intervals for approximately 18 hours, just in time for us to feel confident going home only to not have a clue about what to do once we were there. once we were home, two brand spanking new parents with our sweet newborn baby, the nursing at regular intervals came to a screeching halt. instead, it was lots and lots of crying (her and I both), then nursing for 20 minutes, her falling asleep at my breast, and me wondering why she would wake up 10 minutes later seemingly wanting to nurse again. in my uneducated brain, i couldn’t imagine how she could possibly be hungry again so soon. in my mind, woefully uneducated about breastfeeding as it was, i thought that the second a baby is born they nurse on a consistent and predictable schedule and that was that. and don’t even get me started on how surprised i was in regards to a baby’s sleep schedule (or lack therof). thats a whole other post. HAH i just laughed audibly as i typed that. there has never been and may never be something i was this wrong about to ever come up in my life since.

if you want to know the details and biology behind milk production and how to go about breastfeeding, i HIGHLY suggest you spend some time educating yourself before your baby is born if you plan to breastfeed. i truly believe that the more you educate yourself, the more confident you will be because of the greater understanding you will have. at the very least, just prepare yourself to be challenged at one point or another. then, if you don’t face any challenges: YAY! but when the challenges do come your way, it won’t be such a shock.

basically, the part i struggled with understanding in the very beginning was that your milk doesn’t fully come in until about three days after your baby is born. so when your baby is born, you will NOT be producing much milk at all. you’ll really only be producing colostrum, which is the milky fluid that you produce for your newborn. it’s highly concentrated, full of protein and nutrient-dense – so a little goes a long way in your baby’s tiny tummy. this is not yet the actual breastmilk that you will continue to produce over the months or years you choose to continue nursing. so, your baby will most likely want to nurse around the clock (NOT just every two to three hours), to help stimulate the increased production of milk that is to come.

when penelope was born, i remembered how important it was to just let her nurse as much as she wanted. her nursing was a signal to my body that it needed to produce breastmilk. so, for the first few days of penelope’s life, she was pretty much latched onto my breast for quite nearly 24 hours a day. this isn’t the case for everyone, but it was for her and it would have been the same for eleanor if i had made myself aware of how important that was. instead, with eleanor i just felt drained and clueless because she cried and cried. instead of letting eleanor stay latched on for however long she wanted, i wrecked my brain trying to figure out why she was crying. she was hungry and wanted the comfort of being latched on. this is NORMAL and dare i even say yet another wonderful way of allowing your new mama body to rest and heal. mamas, if you plan to breastfeed, prepare to do a lot of sitting around and letting your baby have free reign at the boob buffet for several days.

for eleanor, i didn’t give myself that time to allow my body to do what it was supposed to because i didn’t even know anything about it. and then, even worse, instead of having our doctor explain what is normal, we were just told to supplement with formula, to pump and supplement with breast milk, and to use a supplemental nursing system (SNS) every time she nursed. the formula stopped her up and made her cranky, the pumping messed with my mind and made me feel like i wasn’t producing enough breast milk and was super time consuming and just stressful, and the SNS got her used to getting a much larger volume of milk than if she were just nursing without it. so what ended up happening is that i further delayed my milk production and become insanely stressed out. it took about 7 days for my body to receive the signal that it need to start producing enough breastmilk to sufficiently feed my baby. but with penelope, after just three days, i began to feel my milk coming in and penelope went from nursing every 20/30 minutes to nursing every couple of hours because she was getting full from the amount of milk she was getting. the difference between these two experiences was AMAZING.

everyone’s experience is different and VALID and it’s so important to do what feels right for your family. however, if you so badly in your heart want to breastfeed, this is my advice:

1. be patient with yourself and your baby. it takes some time to understand each other and develop a rhythm.
2. plan to do nothing other than lay around and nurse your baby for three straight days. this might mean no visitors unless you’re completely comfortable with them seeing your boobs the whole time. (and by “three straight days” i mean day AND night)
3. drink a ton of water and eat plenty of good healthy food. i don’t think that lactation cookies/smoothies/etc. are the answer to increased milk supply. they don’t hurt and some lactation cookies are delicious, but milk production is about supply and demand. the more your baby nurses straight from the breast, the faster your body can receive the signal to produce more milk. the hormones that start firing when a baby is latched on are not to be underestimated. that said, staying hydrated and eating just overall healthy foods is helpful in maintaining overall nutrition which lends itself to a better postpartum experience overall.
4. realize and accept that not everyone will understand how much time and work it takes to begin and succeed on your breastfeeding journey. so, DO NOT get discouraged or highly influenced whenever family or friends who know nothing to very little about breastfeeding start questioning you and wondering if there’s something wrong with your or your baby. if you feel like everything is going well then you keep doing YOU! by the way, as long as you’re getting wet and dirty diapers regularly, then your baby is most likely doing just fine. of course, always go with your gut and consult your pediatrician if that’s what makes you feel most comfortable. (FYI: after educating myself, i trusted my knowledge and intuition way more than my pediatrician’s advice)
5. it’s ok and SO COMMON to cry and get upset or frustrated.
6. it’s ok to change your mind about breastfeeding and choose formula.
7. reach out to someone you trust if you feel lost and don’t know what to do.
8. your nipples will hurt. it gets better after four or five days, but don’t be surprised if the pain makes you gasp in slight agony every now and then. however, if you have flat or inverted nipples OR your nipples never stop hurting or cracking or bleeding when your baby latches on, you should seek advice from a lactation consultant or an ENT. this might be signs of a bad latch due to a tongue or lip tie which can be corrected.

obviously, this post might not have been super interesting for everyone of you, but i truly hope it helps my new mama friends or even those who have loved ones who want to breastfeed. i either wasn’t told any of this stuff or i just didn’t listen and i’m just so glad i knew better the second time around. so if this helps even one person, i’ll be so happy.

one last thing.. it gets easier and easier and you will become more and more confident as time passes. i promise.

disclaimer: i am NOT a trained or medical professional but am passionate about breastfeeding and newborns and am simply sharing my knowledge and experience.