If it hurts, youre doing it wrong…

Cooper was our first born, an April baby, a Canadian baby, the hardest to feed, and now ironically has the pallet of some high brow twenty something living a luxurious life of dining out!

I was so determined to breast feed our first baby - that’s the right thing to do, right? Yet - it was SO hard, and SO painful, and mixed in with the emotions of becoming a first time mum, milk coming in and just worrying whether I was doing it right - I felt like I was failing on every part. Cooper seemed so tiny - and wasn’t gaining weight, and all I couild remember was the nurse that led the antenatal session on Breastfeeding saying - “ if it hurts, you’re doing it wrong”. Well that’s something I’ll never forget..

OMG.

It did hurt. A lot. I bled. I was sore. And the rest of my body hurt anyway. I was getting more and more miserable. So my OBGYN ( we were in Canada :), referered me to the Lacatation consultant. She was amazing - but I almost lived for these sessions at the time, whilst I was there he would feed but then I’d go home and he would just SCREAM!!!

She then diagnosed a tongue tie which she thought was the source of the problem. He couldn’t latch right so couldn’t feed properly, so the next day the cut his tongue tie ( very quick and not as grim as it sounds) and that helped. But by that point I didn’t have great milk production as he hadn’t been feeding well to encourage it. So then she said they would try a tube approach! As I fed him, I would use a tiny tube that at one end was stuck in a bottle of formula and the other end was attached to my boob so as he sucked from me- he had both breastmilk and formula ! In the middle of this drama - we were packing up our house to move back to England from Canada so it was a little busy! This method seemed to work better, I knew he was getting some milk as I could monitor that from the formula. It was just a LOT of work.

I remember feeding him like this on the plane. Looking back - it was madness.

And it was only when I got home, and saw my best friend at the time who had children of a similar age, and she said to me ‘ just give him a bottle’ ……

And the rest is history! He is now taller than me and pretty much eating me out of house and home!

So interesting how we get so set on ideas of what we think we should do, what we think the right thing to do is, regardless of the efforts and drama and hardwork. And because of that one antental class I had, I thought I was doing it all wrong. But all it took was for a friend to tell me what to do. And I did it.

As new parents I think sometimes we lose sight of whats important or struggle to make all these new decisions so having close friends and family who you trust to help and guide you is paramount.

Listen and take help from those that love you x