Help Me Get Breastfeeding Right The Second Time Around
Ok, warning, this is long! Suffice to say that breastfeeding DS was an absolute disaster. Basically anything that could go wrong for us, did go wrong and to this day I am so disappointed in myself, and really the whole situation and how it deteriorated right before my eyes.
I have very strong beliefs about the importance of breastfeeding. There was no question in my mind that we would breastfeed. To me, humans feed their babies, pure & simple. Artificial feeding was not an option for us. So to have it all come crashing down for us was such an emotional blow, and I am looking forward to doing a much better job with our second bub. So all you wonderfully supportive ladies here on BB, help me get this right the second time!
A bit about our experience the first time around. I had an emergency c-section which was hurdle number one if you like. I do believe it had an impact on our breastfeeding journey, though I know many other mums who have c-sections establish breastfeeding really well. DS had a strong suck but very poor attachment. His tiny little mouth and a high arched palate (which was discovered at about 10 days old) meant that the nipple trauma in those early days was brutal.
So he came off the boob and I started expressing to give the BBs a rest and speed up the healing process. Then the infections started. Every time we were almost ready to try and attach him again, another obstacle would find us. First it was nipple thrush. Next a staph infection in one of the wounds on my left BB. My nipples were not healing and the expressing was simply damaging them even further. My supply couldn’t keep up. The final straw was a major bout of mastitis and a particularly nasty bacterial infection in one of the cracks that really never healed. I was so sick and exhausted – my body was completely spent and I was going backwards fast. I was surviving on moments of sleep caught here and there. At five weeks when the last lot of infections took hold, I switched to formula. To say I was disappointed is an understatement – I’m still not ok with it. But we have to move on.
At the end of the day, I know that our experience came down to really back luck & bad timing for the most part. I truly believe I did everything I could have to get things right. I had great support - my midwife who visited regularly, called me on the phone, sat with me through feeds trying to get things right. I visited the LCs at the hospital postnatal clinic twice a week to keep troubleshooting all these problems that kept cropping up. DP was with me EVERY STEP of the way. He was just amazing. Gripped my hands at those feeds where I was bleeding & raw. Got up to bottle feed DS while I would be expressing at all hours of the night. Fed me nutritious food. I truly don’t know what I could have done differently? I felt then and I still feel now like a failure – I was weak and selfish. I feel I should have continued in the face of whatever pain or illness I was experiencing, because that really wasn’t the most important thing – DS was and I feel like I’ve let him down.
So tell me, what do you think I can do to give myself and my next bub the best chance to succeed at breastfeeding? I know I need to let go of some of the emotional baggage from my experience with DS. But practical things I guess? I guess I feel like I did all the right things to prepare for breastfeeding and it still all went wrong? I felt like I had such little influence on the problems we faced. I went to a b/f education session with the Birth Centre I intended to birth at. I had a great midwife and great LCs to support me. Great support at home. I’m an ABA member and went to my local group and talked to the counsellors. I logged on here at BB and posted for ideas & support.
So help me out with anything I haven’t thought of that might be useful. I know that I’ll try and get to an ABA specific breastfeeding education session. And I have the details of a private LC that I will ring as soon as bub is born, to come to my house ANYWAY, just to have that support at my fingertips. I’m going to use cloth breast pads instead of those hideous disposable ones. And I’m going to hope like mad that things just work a little bit better than they did the first time round. And keep my fingers crossed.
If you’ve read all of this, well done & thanks!