Breastfeeding, just do it.

[mrsbrown]

I nearly wrote this as a comment, and then realised I was asking a question I should really try and answer/discuss in my own journal.

Is it hard being on-call to a needy child? Is it hard to interrupt your meal, because the baby needs a breastfeed? Is it hard to (1) get up in the night to a child and know that no one else can do what you can, which means you probably won't get a good night's sleep for 2 or more years, unless you're lucky.

But it didn't occur to me it could be described as hard. It's just what you do when you have a baby to look after. It's what you do when you're a mother, it's in the job description.

I wonder how many of the things I think of as "hard" , aren't really. They're just what you do. Like go to work everyday, or wash the dishes straight after dinner, or keep your desk tidy. That stuff's hard. Breastfeeding a baby - piffle!


Oh god! And then I get to be guilty, because it _was_ easy for me (2), and I'm still having trouble properly understanding how anybody can think it hard, or even too hard to persist at. But I know all these people for whom it was too hard, women who pushed themselves, and angsted, and suffered pain and made informed decisions that, for them, stopping breastfeeding was the right thing for them. I know all that intellectually. But emotionally, I think, "I wouldn't have given up" and "I wish I could feed that baby/ solve that problem for them".

And while I think/feel that, I think I need to stay away from, or avoid giving advice to, new mothers. Or at least make sure that they understand my prejudices.




1. Actually it's hard to write a contemplative journal entry, when your child says, "Cake! Cake!" and then "keen faish! keen faish!", which means, "clean face" so you have to go and rearrange the face washer storage so you can find a clean one quickly next time she says "keen faish", but then after helping her wash her face, she demands, "teef!" and you give up in disgust and go and write a footnote worthy of it's own post.

2. My Dad put it into context for me a little while ago. He reminded me that I was 19 when I had MrPeacock, and the breastfeeding and mothering was easy. At 19 I had no idea of the things that could go wrong, so I was relaxed in a way that new mums at 38-40, just can't be. Although that doesn't explain the conviction I had that someone would take him away if I didn't do it "properly", or the constant flashing of Bambi meets Godzilla everytime I put him on the floor at playgroup.

Comments

[celsa.livejournal.com]

I breastfed with ease, and I feel unqualified to advise mums who are having difficulty.

Of course, my children are all at the 'godzilla' end of the Bambi Meets Godzilla scale, so my fears at playgroup were more of a "I hope my daughter does not stomp/crush/pick-up-and-carry-around any of the other kids. Or parents, for that matter" nature.

[mrsbrown.livejournal.com]

Good response.

I should just stop trying to save the world.

[celsa.livejournal.com]

No. Please don't stop. Someone has to save the world, and I'm having an off day.

To elaborate on my stance; I encourage breastfeeding any way I can, but when someone is weeping from the pain of some breastfeeding related problem I've never experienced, I have to breathe out, suppress my 'breastfeeding at all costs' reflex and say the sincerely soothing and sympathetic things that I also think and feel.

As for the questions about breastfeeding being 'hard'; I'd point out that most of the points apply equally to bottle feeding. That someone else can bottle feed a baby does not replace the baby's need for 'mumness', so the "something that only you can give" factor is still there to a larger extent than many people realise. Though once again, I have not raised a bottle fed baby, so I can't speak from my own experience. *sigh*

(I believe this flaw in my personality is to do with relative Myers Briggs Type Indicator things. I'm so heavy on the "perceiving" end of the scale that I can't judge anything much. Maybe.)

[moonborn.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm VERY pro-breastfeeding personally.
But as to why I'd define motherhood so far as hard - history of Anxiety and Depression, along with that whole less-and-more-than-anticipated birth and first week. Doesn't mean the difficulty wasn't anticipated (albeit not so soon, nor in the particular forms of difficulty that happened in the first part of Morgan's life), I just reserve the right to complain a bit about the not so grand aspects.


I think this entry addresses some of what I was trying to get at, too - because despite whingeing about it being difficult, I'm determined to stick it out and truthfully DO feel a bit contemptuous of some of the women I know who gave it up as 'too hard' two weeks in (similar to how I feel about people who use disposable nappies because cloth is 'too hard' too).
Like celsa, I also have those sympathetic thoughts too - and so those are the ones I try to encourage in myself more (also being a P, I believe I can't speak to another's life and experiences as adequately as they can. This helps in not being judgemental, and I don't see it as a character flaw, but a strength, despite its tendency to make me undermine myself before I even start, sometimes).

Ooh, AND I understand the guilt about the ease, and I think that's the complement to those people who say "You'll never manage to stick BLAH out" because they didn't. And that's why the Mum-upmanship can be so bitter and horrible, because there's all this guilt and self-justification limping about people's heads.

[celsa.livejournal.com]

"those people who say "You'll never manage to stick BLAH out"

Yes! These are the opposite end of the scale to mrsbrown's "Breastfeeding. Just Do It" statement. I encountered one recently who was really scathing in his insistence that his wife would not be able to maintain breast feeding. His attitude was more "Breastfeeding. Just Screw It". I wanted his head on a pike!

(their two month old exclusively breast fed baby just gained 800grams in the last two weeks, and her mum is ridiculously serene)

[moonborn.livejournal.com]

I always wanted to be one of those serene new mothers (whilst knowing I'd probably be the hyper-vigilant, on edge constantly type :p).

[tooticky.livejournal.com]

I haven't had a baby myself obviously, but my mum has taught a lot of new mothers to breast feed over the years, and according to her a lot/even the majority of the difficulties new mothers have with breast feeding have to do with lousy techniques. It appears to be yet another of those things that need to be learned and practiced, rather than something all the advertising suggests comes naturally. So patience, practice and having someone there to teach you seems to be the way to go - plus a breast feeding handbook I keep hearing about. :) But my mum is qualified to teach women this in hospitals - short of being there for advice if someone wants to persist, and offering The Book, after they leave it's really up to them. After all, most mothers are doing the best they can.

[monstah.livejournal.com]

I wish I could have breast fed
notes on what not to do...
don't have reduction surgery
don't have your baby on a public holiday so that there are no specialists to help
don't get mastitis at week 38
don't get a 500ml abscess in your breast
don't get sick
don't be an only child with one parent who doesn't drive
don't spend a bucket load of cash on breast feeding and expressing equipment that ultimately won't help
DO give it a bloody good go and DON'T beat yourself up if, after all the effort it just dosen't work.

I am often thankful that there are bottles and formula in the world or my little Tyne would have starved to death months ago..
Although I do know a few people who would have been awesome wet nurses ;)

oops I hear a squawk.....time to heat the bottle!

[tippety.livejournal.com]

Even after six months, I still have major non-breastfeeding guilts. It has cut me up in a way I never ever anticipated - I had just assumed I would breastfeed, there was no 'what if I can't' thoughts. These feelings are easily the hardest thing I've found about being a new mum. I'm absolutely relishing the other "hard" things - this is what I signed up for! I love that I'm the most important person in my little girl's life and that I'm on call 24/7.

But I still have sleepless nights about whether I did enough to succeed in breastfeeding. I don't think I did now that I look back with a clear head and better judgement. But, at the time I went with all the info and advice I had and made the best decision for both of us. I so so so wished I'd found it painful because that would have seemed a better "excuse" to give up and go to formula. But I couldn't get her to attach (even with lactation consultant help) - she wouldn't go anywhere near me and when she did, she couldn't get any milk - sometimes she'd suck for 20 minutes and get nothing! I was on the pump so often but after 4 weeks couldn't get enough out for all her feeds and it then became a vicious cycle of not producing enough because I wasn't being pumped effectively. Combine that with inverted nipples and it seemed doomed - especially when the midwives told me my nipples were just the wrong shape for her.

I was devastated and felt very judgemental when a friend recently gave birth and made the decision to not breastfeed from the 1st minute. She had oodles of milk flowing out of her in the shower and it brought up all my guilt again - how could she waste it when I couldn't provide for my baby? I realised then that I really wasn't over the pain of not breastfeeding.

I'm really looking forward to giving it another go with #2 because I'm more well informed now and am hoping that will help.