Breastfeeding...love it, or hate it?
I know breastfeeding is not the most exciting and/or guy friendly topic to write a blog post about, so I do apologize to male readers of this blog - but I need to vent.
If any of you have ever had or are currently expecting a baby, you know how crazy hospitals, doctors and really everyone in general is about breastfeeding. They can throw stats at you ALL day about how much better it is for the baby's immune system, how much more you will bond with your child, how much skinnier and more intelligent your baby will be and on and on and on. Basically make you feel like a horrible person if you feed your baby formula either by necessity or choice. Blah. What they don't tell you is how hard breastfeeding can be.
Now, as someone who has been breastfeeding for four weeks, I'm clearly an expert. And in my expert opinion, I can say the truth is - breastfeeding really sucks sometimes. The first two weeks were really, really hard, both physically and emotionally. It's painful at first until the girls get used to being sucked on every three hours, exausting until your body gets used to the process, and emotionally it's frustrating and limiting to feel like all you do now is feed your baby. And, I didn't even have any problems with Luke latching, or my milk coming in, or discomfort as it did come in (they told me I may not since I have large storage units ;). So, if you add in those problems that people run into frequently, I can't imagine being able to do it for any length of time.
Since Luke was born, there have been so many times when I was so frustrated with breastfeeding that I yelled at Dave to go buy formula...right NOW, or found myself in tears at a 1 a.m. feeding because it hurt so bad, or felt like my life was over because I'm only good for baby feeding now. For whatever insane reason, I kept going, hoping the next feeding would be better. And it did get better.
I will not sugar coat it though. It was rough going for a while. If you choose to breastfeed, it will probably be rough for you too. However, at three weeks, once breastfeeding was well established, we started introducing bottles with pumped breastmilk so that Dave could take over a feeding, I could have some wine if I wanted, and we could start going out without Luke (as much as we love him, adult dinners are still nice). This was maybe the best day of my life. It helped relieve the pressure that I had to do it all on my own, let me have some freedom back, and really opened up what we are able to do as a family and a couple.
And though most of this post has been bitching about breastfeeding, please know there are some great aspects to it too. Lots of sweet moments with your baby in the middle of the night while they sleepily eat, lots of bonding time, a sense of pride that you are accomplishing something that is tough to do! And, it's free. Let's be honest, that's nice too.
So basically - I can't answer the question in the title of this post. I have no idea if I love or hate breastfeeding. It changes from day to day and even feeding to feeding. Very often I wonder why I'm even still doing it. At this point, I'm moving more consistently away from hate - but we'll see how long that lasts. Just know, if it's something you're trying to do, it is tough, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!
If any of you have ever had or are currently expecting a baby, you know how crazy hospitals, doctors and really everyone in general is about breastfeeding. They can throw stats at you ALL day about how much better it is for the baby's immune system, how much more you will bond with your child, how much skinnier and more intelligent your baby will be and on and on and on. Basically make you feel like a horrible person if you feed your baby formula either by necessity or choice. Blah. What they don't tell you is how hard breastfeeding can be.
Now, as someone who has been breastfeeding for four weeks, I'm clearly an expert. And in my expert opinion, I can say the truth is - breastfeeding really sucks sometimes. The first two weeks were really, really hard, both physically and emotionally. It's painful at first until the girls get used to being sucked on every three hours, exausting until your body gets used to the process, and emotionally it's frustrating and limiting to feel like all you do now is feed your baby. And, I didn't even have any problems with Luke latching, or my milk coming in, or discomfort as it did come in (they told me I may not since I have large storage units ;). So, if you add in those problems that people run into frequently, I can't imagine being able to do it for any length of time.
Since Luke was born, there have been so many times when I was so frustrated with breastfeeding that I yelled at Dave to go buy formula...right NOW, or found myself in tears at a 1 a.m. feeding because it hurt so bad, or felt like my life was over because I'm only good for baby feeding now. For whatever insane reason, I kept going, hoping the next feeding would be better. And it did get better.
I will not sugar coat it though. It was rough going for a while. If you choose to breastfeed, it will probably be rough for you too. However, at three weeks, once breastfeeding was well established, we started introducing bottles with pumped breastmilk so that Dave could take over a feeding, I could have some wine if I wanted, and we could start going out without Luke (as much as we love him, adult dinners are still nice). This was maybe the best day of my life. It helped relieve the pressure that I had to do it all on my own, let me have some freedom back, and really opened up what we are able to do as a family and a couple.
And though most of this post has been bitching about breastfeeding, please know there are some great aspects to it too. Lots of sweet moments with your baby in the middle of the night while they sleepily eat, lots of bonding time, a sense of pride that you are accomplishing something that is tough to do! And, it's free. Let's be honest, that's nice too.
So basically - I can't answer the question in the title of this post. I have no idea if I love or hate breastfeeding. It changes from day to day and even feeding to feeding. Very often I wonder why I'm even still doing it. At this point, I'm moving more consistently away from hate - but we'll see how long that lasts. Just know, if it's something you're trying to do, it is tough, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!
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