Boobies!

I feel so lucky to be able to breastfeed my baby. Before I had the boys it had never even occurred to me that I wouldn't be able to, however when I became pregnant with Connor and the more I looked into feeding the more I found out about how much trouble some people have trying to do something that I, quite ignorantly really, just assumed would come naturally to everyone.

When Connor was born he didn't feed right away, he was a bit of a slow starter. He was born at 12:29 PM, we did all the normal, skin to skin and all that jazz but he would latch on and every time I thought we'd cracked it he would fall fast asleep and let go. I sought advice from the midwife who told me to just undress him and try skin to skin again, granted the ward was extremely busy but this was all the advice I was given. It wasn't until the early hours of the next morning, lying in my hospital bed, Connor in the crib next to me that I heard his little tummy grumbling and I knew he wasn't getting what he needed. I marched into the corridor of the ward, walked into the midwives office, and started to cry rather pathetically in the doorway telling anyone who would listen that I couldn't feed my baby! I felt ridiculous because I couldn't do what only I was supposed to be able to and feed Connor. One of the midwives followed me back to my bed, calmed me and suggested that she bottle feed him for now and I agreed, my little soldier must of been starving! Throughout the night I persisted with trying to get him to latch on and stay awake long enough to feed, and reluctantly he would take a few sucks at a time, nothing substantial so he needed the formula as a top up.

It was only when we came home that he started to get the hang of feeding off of me, he still had formula from time to time to top up his feeds but they soon diminished as my milk came in, and boy did it come in! It soon became unnecessary to give Connor anything else, I was all he needed! And no matter how exhausting it was to be doing all the feeding myself it felt amazing that I was the only one who could do it for him. And Logan had no problems! He latched straight on and hasn't been off much since truth be told.

I know compared to the trouble some women have with trying to feed their babies, this was nothing, but I also know just for that first couple of days how frustrating it was for me and how let down I felt with myself that I couldn't do it. I'm just so glad that I stuck with it and so lucky that I didn't encounter any huge problems and was able to feed my boys myself. I love how much it bonds us and the health benefits, for me and them, and the money it saves us on formula are just added pluses. So all that leaves to say is... Hooray for Boobies!

 

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