Breastfeeding - How it doesn't work for everyone

All through my pregnancy I was told that "breast is best".  All the midwives and literature informed that breastfeeding was the best and only thing to do in order to give your child the best start to life.  As a first time mum I obviously wanted to give my little girl (JD) the best, so I was certain that I was going to breastfeed her as soon as she was born.

In the hospital I was given no choice whether I was breast feeding or bottle feeding my baby, she was just put on and there was no if's or but's about it. I found it very hard to know if she was latched on right. All the signs showed that she was, pulsing beat at her earlobe, most of the areola covered etc, but I felt a pinching which always suggested to the midwife that she wasn't latched on correctly.  No matter how many attempts at latching I always felt a bit of discomfort.  We were told JD had a slight tongue tie, not serious enough to fix, but I think it seemed to affect her latching on correctly.

Unfortunately in the early days JD was also a lazy feeder, she didn't want to wake up for a feed and we had to use horrible tactics of putting cold water on her face and stripping her down to just her happy in order to wake her and get her to feed.

Our first night at home was horrendous, I wish I was over exaggerating but JD was up feeding nearly all night, by the time she'd finish and I got her down for sleeping she was only down 5-10 minutes before wanting fed again. Being a first time mum I had no idea if this was normal but I kept thinking that surely it couldn't be right. Surely, although everyone said you'd have a lack of sleep they couldn't mean that you'd only get an hour or so a night.  I had endless tears as the never ending cycle kept going and the clock felt like it was going backwards and morning was never going to come.

By morning I was a wreck and when the midwife arrived and greeted me with "well, how is everything going?", I burst into tears and told her things weren't going very well at all.

My midwife was lovely, I told her how to me JD looked like she was latched on properly but there was some discomfort when she was feeding. She watched to make sure I was doing it correctly and then let me in on a secret that no other midwife had told me, in fact, they'd made me think that I was doing it all wrong...breastfeeding IS uncomfortable, it IS sore.

JD dropped down from 7lb 14oz to 7lb 3oz which is within the 10% margin that they expect of newborns to loose within their first 5-7 days. It was expected that she would be back to her birth weight again quite quickly but unfortunately at the next weigh in she had only put on 2oz.

The horrendous nights continued with very little or no sleep to be had, I was starting to feel so worn and run down after so many nights of little sleep and felt like I was becoming a vampire, awake at night and asleep during the day. Night after night I was in floods of tears and felt so pressured to feed myself and not poison my child with formula.  That I must be doing something wrong as no one had ever said that breastfeeding might not work for you.

After a few days I started to get hot and cold flushes and thought that I was just getting run down from getting such little sleep.  I spoke with my midwife to find out that I had mastitis on one side and so was given antibiotics to clear it up and paracetamol to take down my temperature.  As I was just getting rid of it on one side I then got it on the other!  They advised to continue feeding during mastitis in order to keep the milk supply flowing and to stop it getting painful from the milk not being used but this was easier said than done.  It was painful for her to feed whilst having it and I'd raw and cracked nipples on the other side from her feeding so much that it almost filled me with dread each time I had to feed her.  I'd get her into position to be latched on, hold my breath and curl my toes until the pain passed and it was bearable again.

After two weeks of living like a zombie, JD hardly gaining any weight, the midwife and I talked and decided to knock it on the head and to breastfeed but top up with a formula feed to ensure she would gain weight.  I'll never forget the day I went to buy the formula from a local Boots store. It had been another dreadful night with very little sleep. On taking the formula to the cash desk I asked if I could pay for it with the points that I'd accumulated on my advantage card.  I was soon informed in a rather snooty tone that points couldn't be used to purchase formula products as they couldn't be condoning the use of it when breast feeding was best for a child. Well sleep deprived and struggling to get weight on my baby this was like a red rag to a bull, it's not often I would voice my opinion but I snapped back with "if you'd had the night I've had then you wouldn't be saying that".

As I fed JD formula for the first time I felt awful. I felt like I was poisoning my beautiful baby girl. I was formula fed, my hubby was formula fed and we're both fine (well maybe a little nuts round the edges but who isn't!), but I still couldn't shake this feeling that I was giving up, that I wasn't giving her the best that I could have.

As it turned out, formula was the best thing for JD. We worked out that I wasn't producing enough milk for her so that's why she was up so much during the night because she wasn't able to fill her boots with what she was getting from me. On formula she was a changed baby, I was a changed mummy and I could finally relax and get to enjoy my precious beautiful baby girl.  As she was so much happier on formula, I decided not to breastfeed at all and just solely give her formula.

I'm not saying I don't agree with promoting that breast is best, but I think there shouldn't be as much pressure on Mum's that they have to breastfeed or that they are wrong to formula feed. There needs to be a happy medium, a realisation and understanding that it doesn't work for everyone. What about mothers who have had a mastectomy, should they feel shame that they aren't able to breastfeed their child?

I'm glad that I was able to at least give JD the best I could for the first two weeks and that she got the goodness of the colostrum (even if it was in drips and drabs) but I wish that I'd listened to my husband and my mum when they said I didn't have to put myself through this.

If you're a first time mother and breastfeeding isn't working for you, remember that you DON'T have to put yourself through this, you aren't a failure and you aren't doing wrong by your baby. Just because you aren't breastfeeding doesn't mean that you aren't giving them the best start in the world. Don't put yourself under the pressure that I did to continue with it when it's obvious it wasn't working for us at all.