I’d like to say thank you so much to @alicedavieswhitelaw for sharing her journey.
“Ok so my story goes a little like this…
Before I fell I was pregnant, I knew that if I was lucky enough to be a mother I’d like to breastfeed. Throughout my pregnancy I maintained the mindset that I would breastfeed if I could, but wouldn’t put huge amounts of pressure on myself in the early days. I had an elective c-section due to medical reasons and was aware that this can delay the establishment of milk supply. I managed to harvest approximately 10ml of colostrum in the last couple of weeks of my pregnancy and thought that would help whilst my milk supply came in. Margot latched really well in the first hour she was born and I was so happy we had broken through this barrier. However, que the first of two nights in hospital together where she cluster fed solid for around 12 hours, had all of the colostrum I harvested and was still hungry, I was starting to feel really downbeat about my body not being able to feed my baby.
The feeding team at the hospital were wonderful, reassuring me that her latch was great, but encouraging me to use some pretty forceful techniques to get her to feed. I left hospital on Day 2 and my milk supply was still taking some time to come in, so we opted to give Margot some formula top ups to satisfy what seemed to be an insatiable hunger at the time, alongside me pumping after each breastfeed. The Triple-feeding regime was hard work! Thankfully, from Day 5, my body established a great supply and we were able to exclusively breastfeed and have been doing so ever since. I did seek the advice of our local community breastfeeding team shortly after Margot was born, and despite them being really supportive, each had a different view of how she was feeding or should feed. One told me she had a great latch and was a textbook breastfeeding baby, another had the opinion that she was nipple-feeding and I should only feed in certain positions to overcome this. Positions which only resulted in cracked and sore nipples and lots of Lasinoh! We used nipple shields on Days 6 and 7 to allow them to heal, a choice which a third support worker suggested we would never be able to return from and queried if she had a tongue tie. At this point I questioned the advice they were giving, if there was one thing I knew (even as a first time mother), I knew she did not have a tongue tie as she could stick her tongue out in such a cheeky manner already!
After a week filled with triple-feeding, lots of cluster feeding and various feeding support visits, I learnt to trust my instincts and the feeding journey Margot and I were on together. I let her feed how she wanted to, when she wanted to and never looked back. From Day 8 we dropped the nipple shields and have fed fantastically (and pain free) from that day on. She is now almost 5 months old and I fully intend to keep on breastfeeding throughout her first year.
Our bodies are incredible, as are our babies and I’m so thankful I have a pendant from boobiejewels to encapsulate this.”
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