Food for Thought

So my little boy has now reached 6 months (nearly 7 by the time I’m getting round to posting this). I can’t quite believe how quickly the time has flown by! The past 6 months have been the best of my life, but also the most physically demanding, the most exhausting and the most emotional! I think I’ve spent more of that time feeding my son than anything else, which got me thinking. How we feed our babies is such an emotive topic, and a really big deal for all mums everywhere. There are various options on how we do it, all of which come in for some criticism, in different ways. And we all have our own hopes and expectations for how feeding is going to go. Ultimately however, all mums have one aim with feeding their little ones – healthy babies who are putting on weight! We do whatever is necessary to achieve that.

I know of so many mums who weren’t able to feed the way they wanted, or for whom feeding wasn’t what they expected – mums who wanted a break but whose baby wouldn’t take a bottle, mums who were desperate to breastfeed but whose baby wouldn’t latch on, or who simply couldn’t produce enough milk. In a world where we all need a bit of love and support, it can help to know that we’re not alone. So in celebration of mums everywhere who are just doing what they can to keep their babies healthy and fed, I’ve asked a few of these wonderful mums to share their feeding stories. If you’re reading this and have your own feeding story to share, I’d love to hear it and maybe to add it to this blog post, if you’d be up for that! (You can reach me by writing in the comments section below – it will come to me before it goes up on the website so just say if it’s a message you don’t want published.)

What follows now are a series of stories from some of the mums I know who were happy to share their experience (and a few words to describe their baby), and I hope to add to it over time. My own is in there too. I hope it provides you with some encouragement or comfort, or if you’re not a mum, I hope it expands your knowledge a little of what it takes to feed a baby!

Open, Happy, Contrary…

I hoped to breastfeed my baby exclusively to 6 months – I went to the class, and expressed colostrum for 2 weeks before my due date. I felt well prepared for baby’s arrival and was looking forward to feeding him. Fast forward 3 days and I’m sat in a hospital bed, on my birthday, having had about 3 hours sleep all week, pumping colostrum while my husband feeds my baby colostrum I’d pumped earlier. I’m on a strict pumping and feeding schedule and waiting for a date to get baby’s severe tongue tie cut. I was exhausted, emotional, and pretty desperate for my milk to come in. I won’t go into the details, but we had 3 months of challenges, including having his tongue tie cut twice, trying and failing to wean him off nipple shields and 2 bouts of mastitis before I finally felt like we’d mastered it. He still uses nipple shields, but I’m grateful to them as they allow me to breastfeed, and it works for us.

Ultimately feeding has become a special time for me and my son to spend together, but I have to admit to days in the early months where I would dread every feed. Now feeding is our quality time, and sometimes it is also my downtime!

Precious, Happy, Love child…

To be honest, I did not really think about feeding much before my daughter was born. I think I was just so grateful to be pregnant and the only thing that I thought about was having a healthy baby, after trying for a long time to fall pregnant and with two unsuccessful IVF rounds. The first few days were quite emotional (good and bad) – good in that we were elated to see our beautiful healthy baby girl. And bad / challenging as she was born 5 weeks prematurely and had to be in the ICU for 10 days. The reality was that she had a drip and feeding tube and for her first feed she got 1ml of food. She was weighed daily and that become the most important aspect of the day.

I’d known in advance that I was likely to be unable to produce enough milk to breastfeed, but I did try in the first few weeks – even though she only got a few ml’s each feed, it was better than nothing. In my opinion a fed baby is all that’s important. She thrived pretty much from day one and feeds very well. She is an exceptionally well-behaved baby and I feel very, very blessed. She is very calm and has a very good nature.

Cheeky, Active, Healthy…

I wanted to breastfeed initially and although I struggled for about 8 weeks in the beginning (to latch him on properly) and for my son to get used to breastfeeding, I persevered. It was also painful and as it was winter I struggled with feeling cold when feeding him especially in the middle of the night. I couldn’t lie down to feed him but always sat up, which was also difficult, not to mention exhausting. But I also thought it was easier than preparing formula and making sure that it was the right temperature and cleaning the bottles etc. Also, babies are not great at waiting, so I thought it’d take longer to prepare the bottle. However, as my son was growing up, I would have liked bottle-feeding alongside breastfeeding, but my son didn’t like the bottles or the different formula milk we’ve tried, so we stuck with breastfeeding. I’m not sure if this is connected, but he also wakes up often in the night.

Healthy, Fun, Sassy…

I had a relaxed approach before I had my daughter – ideally I was going to breastfeed but I wasn’t going to stress if it didn’t work out. My mum struggled to breastfeed me and my brother so I had an idea that it might not be easy. The first few days actually went quite well. My daughter latched on well and I felt I was getting the hang of it. But once my milk came in I started to struggle – she would latch on but then quickly come off, and it was frustrating as the midwives and specialists were telling me I had a good latch but as quickly as my daughter went on she would come off again. It became more and more painful and I was gradually getting more and more concerned that she wasn’t getting enough milk. By the time the baby blues kicked in on day 4 or 5 I was really struggling and so I started to express and give her a bottle, which she responded well to.

My daughter had breast milk for around 2 weeks. I then moved onto formula as I was struggling to fit in time to express and found the whole process exhausting. I was very upset and embarrassed when I made the switch (far from the carefree attitude I had planned to have) and it took me a while to accept the fact that my baby wouldn’t be breastfed – at the time I felt like a failure. I’m now very happy with my choice; my daughter loves her milk and is a very healthy and happy baby.

Happy, Curious, Sociable…

My intention was to breastfeed if possible for at least 6 months, and I expected I would wean baby by 1 year. I was very lucky that breastfeeding wasn’t an issue for us; my little one found his latch almost immediately, and although it was sometimes a little uncomfortable when he was feeding lots, it’s generally never been difficult. However, I think I was surprised by how long it took him to feed, as well as how much help he needed to latch on during the first few weeks. I remember having to hold the back of his neck whilst he latched and getting my husband to hold his hands out of the way, as otherwise he’d get over excited and try to suck his hands, then get angry that he wasn’t getting any milk! I think I probably also wasn’t really prepared for how constant feeding was in the first few days. Also, my son has never taken a bottle so he’s been heavily dependent on me.

I’m aware that we’ve been so incredibly lucky to have a pretty easy ride of it with breastfeeding, plus now he’s older it’s a lovely chance to snuggle up together. I only plan on having two children, God willing, so I don’t imagine this is something I’ll get to do very much relative to the length of my life, so I intend to enjoy it whilst I can, and I’m happy to keep offering night and morning feeds for the foreseeable future, until he’s ready to stop really.

 

So I hope you’ve found this interesting / encouraging / illuminating… And for those of you who have made it to the end of this post, I’ll leave you with a final thought, from 1 Thessalonians 5:11.

“So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.”