I will breastfeeding baby boy when he arrives, I’m teaming up with Medela, the worlds leading producer of breast pumps and accessories and I and plan to document my journey for prosperity and in the hopes that my experience will help someone else.
I do want to point out though that although I believe that everyone should try (and then try a bit more!) to breastfeed that if for whatever reason it doesn’t work for you and you and/or your baby isn’t happy then don’t beat yourself up if you can’t continue to breastfeed. Do seek help though from your local MILK group or the La Leche League. I don’t really understand people who don’t at least try, it is THE most natural thing on earth after procreation and childbirth and people that say that it is ‘unnatural’ need to have a rethink! I also don’t understand people who find mothers publicly breastfeeding offensive, although I don’t agree with overly flaunting what you’re doing (like leaving a boob flopped out long after your baby has fallen asleep for example, there’s no need to antagonise people unnecessarily)
My breastfeeding experience with Athena was surprisingly problem free for the most part, we were signed out of hospital care the day after a C-section as feeding was established, my milk supply came in fine even though I had a planned C section and didn’t experience labour. I never got mastitis (although I did get bleeding nips!) and we fed until 15 months, by which point I was pregnant again by a couple of months. You can read a few previous posts about breastfeeding here.
Thinking back over my past experience I do plan to do a few things differently this time;
Pump more! I rarely pumped as I didn’t really have much else but the new baby to busy myself with, and Sam was working nights at that time so wasn’t around to share expressed feeds anyway. This time I will be wanting to spend one on one time with Athena, leaving new baby with Sam or family so expressing feeds will be very important! I had an old second hand-pump that leaked unless I leant forward at a funny angle, which also put me off somewhat, along with how long it took!
Feeding on Demand: I did this with Athena and will do so with baby 2, but plan to use bottles of expressed milk for a feed a day once we’ve properly established feeding. This will be helpful if we are out and about (on a train for example, I imagine breastfeeding a baby and keeping a toddler amused on a packed train is no easy task!) and so that I can replace that feed with an expressing session to keep the stock of milk topped up.
Co-sleeping; I really want to use a proper co-sleeper cot with baby 2, I had a moses basket and then a rocking crib with Athena, so more often than not we’d fall asleep after a feed with her in the bed, which meant that when Sam came home she or I (or both!) would wake up and that none of us would sleep brilliantly in the bed together. A co-sleeper will make it so much easier for baby to be in close proximity but have his own space, still enabling night feeds to happen smoothly without me having to get up to pop him back in a moses basket.
Diet: No! Not a ‘lose the baby weight’ diet, but a ‘being careful what I consume’ diet because I found out the hard way that onions, too much dairy and spicy foods made Athena suffer with wind quite badly. I was lucky in that she never got colic but still remember now a couple of truly awful nights of her crying in pain, so I started to keep a diary of what I was eating to see if there was a pattern and lo and behold there was!
I’ll be back with another post soon with some answers from Medela’s breastfeeding pro Sioned to my questions about breastfeeding second babies, and a ‘how to prepare to breastfeed’ guide!
If you’ve breastfed two or more babies how different was it each time?
I hope breastfeeding goes as well with your baby boy as it did with Athena. I agree that everyone should definitely give it a go. I always set out to breastfeed, and like you had quite an easy time with it. I’m also lucky in that I have two local weekly breastfeeding cafes and a great team of breastfeeding pros to support and advise mums and babies who are having a hard time
I’m breastfeeding my third at the moment. I have to say, the first 6 weeks with her were horrific actual agony, tears poor weigh gain and no solution. Everyone offered different ideas as to what might help, but her latch was good and there was no real reason.. but she’s 18weeks and we’re still going without issues now. With my second everything swam along well, but my first I gave up after 6weeks for lots of reasons which I shan’t bore you with! So they have each been very different. Funnily enough I pumped loads last time, it gave me lots of freedom to spend time with the eldest while someone else fed the baby! This time I don’t seem to be organised enough with it, though I wish I was! Good luck! 🙂
I’m also looking forward to feeding again, there are (like you) a few things I will do differently. I’m also concerned with my post baby diet, though I do have an element of wanting to loose the excess weight I seem to have gained this pregnancy. Mainly, I want to know that I can make myself and my baby as healthy as possible on our breastfeeding journey!
Good luck with yours, I will be keeping up to date with your medela mum series! H x
I found things very similar the second time, if not easier and I was lucky not to have any issues either. I did decide not to pump with my second though, but I didn’t leave him at all until he was 6 months and after that, he would have formula if I left him (not that he would drink it – he wouldn’t drink ebm either though). I am hoping things go as well the third time around x
I’ve breastfed (and am breastfeeding) all 4 of mine and each experience has been different, with different challenges. I think its a great idea to document your journey for others and I plan to write a little more about my experiences too. Medela have been wonderful this time around as we had to syringe feed Elsie for her first week- without the pump she woud’ve been admitted. Good luck lovely and I can’t wait to read all about it . Thanks for linking up to #MaternityMatters x x x
This will be my first attempt at breast feeding so I’m really hoping that both me and baby take to it.
I went to my parent craft class yesterday which was all about breast feeding and I feel that that helped me a lot, they gave us so much advice and actually made it sound easy (which I don’t think it will be at all!).
I hadn’t even considered how my diet may affect the baby, thanks for pointing that out.
Hopefully with this advice and the Medela kit and support we will succeed!
All the very best on your second journey when it starts. We struggled a lot with the beginning of ours and it took us months to reach our goal. I spent so many hours pumping every day for quite a number of months. I’m really hoping that my 2nd journey will be much more straightforward whenever it happens. Looking forward to reading your questions and Sioned’s answers; Medela is so brilliant in their support of breastfeeding mothers, aren’t they! They are definitely one of my top breastfeeding brands. I also can’t wait to write about my breastfeeding journey soon; reading about the journey of others in the La Leche League’s Breastfeeding Maters magazine, and online really helped me during our difficult breastfeeding months. Thanks for sharing. #MaternityMatters