Breastfeeding is both easier and harder then I ever thought it would be from all the books I’ve read, people I’ve talked to and the feelings I had before I started.
I knew that every baby was different and that as a first time mother I’d be learning just as much if not more then the baby as he would be using instinct to help him.
Before he was born I’d decided that I was going to breastfeed completely until he was 6 months old and then wean him. I knew it would be hard at first but I was expecting it to settle quickly and have little trouble at the end in getting him to take the bottle as my mother never had a problem with me and weaning and my other friends with babies that breastfed loved it.
I did have a friend who had a problem with her first and getting started with breastfeeding but I (stupidly) thought that as each baby is unique it wouldn’t happen to me.
When my baby was born he wouldn’t open his mouth wide enough to get my nipple and some aureole into his mouth that he needed to to get a proper latch to have “productive” sucking. This meant that everyone from my mother to the midwife to the nurses to the doctor tried to get him to make a proper latch. He got frustrated and angry and I got frustrated and upset. This did not make for a successful time. He got dehydrated and they started him on bottles and monitored his blood sugars. I was still trying him on the breast as often as he was awake and sometimes even waking him up and before every bottle. He wasn’t sucking at all before we left the hospital 48hrs after he was born.
I left the hospital upset and tired with an equally upset and tired baby. But at least he was drinking from little bottles the hospital gave me.
My first full day home was spent going to the shopping for bottles for the baby (the 12 pack of ready made bottles, I was optimistic) and a breast-pump with bottles to help bring my milk on.
I spent the next week pumping every few hours, trying to breastfeed every bottle and taking detailed notes on everything into and out of my baby, including spit-ups (of which he could make the Olympic team 
).
When the health nurse called in the next week I showed her my lists and she tried to put me off breastfeeding by pointing out the difference in what I was producing and what the baby was drinking from the bottles. But I was determined and my mom was interfering (thank god) and she kept popping in with suggestion’s and products, from hot and cold towels before feeding to a supplemental feeding system. She must have spent a couple of hundred euros and days on the Internet trying to help.
But the best thing I did was to stop trying to breastfeed. I continued to pump but for 2 days I didn’t try to make the baby feed from me at all. A complete easing of stress. I basically waited until the baby forgot the strain of me trying to force him to feed. Before this he had developed such an aversion that he’s cry and arch his back if I even put him in the feeding position.
After 2 days I used the supplemental feeding device filled with breast milk and put the baby gently on the breast and didn’t try to force him to create a good latch, any sucking was good at that stage. It was a bit of a disaster as he hated the feeling of the tube in his mouth but liked the extra milk. He was used to the taste of breast milk as I’d been giving him everything I’d pumped. I’d pump and pump until I had a full bottle for him and then give him a full bottle, or lots of half bottles.
I never had to use the supplemental feeding device again as he got the idea that milk came from there, especially if I expressed a little before hand to get him started.
I then started to reduce what I gave him of the formula every day until he was only getting 100mls a day and mostly breast milk and then went totally breast.
At that stage I was feeding every 2 hours and my milk was best in the morning and worse at night, so I’d pump every morning to top him up with every night. There was a lot of washing and pumping and washing and pumping.
After 3 weeks of stress and pain (a lot literally, ouch my nipples) he was 100% breast milk fed.
There was a lot more over the next number of months but that’s how it started.
The hospital was trying too hard and just made it worse in the end, the saying “Too many cooks spoil the broth” came to mind more then once. I really needed someone to say just relax, the baby is fine and your milk needs to come in anyway (it took from Sunday morning when he was born to Thursday morning for my milk to come in), the latch will happen if you are less stressed and so is the baby.
I never gave up even when I was so close to screaming and had cried more then once over it and thought there was something wrong with me.
You have to work through the nipple pain and there are some great creams out there to help. The baby even got ok with the taste and texture (a residue is not a problem).
It is worth it!!
It is so nice to not worry about bottles at 2, 3, 4am. It’s nice to know you can pump when you have extra milk, e.g. in the morning and over a few days make up an extra bottle to use for babysitting or badly timed shopping, etc.
It so helps with weight lose, and completely compensates for that love of chocolate more then once a day. Though the books are right and you eating chocolate can effect the baby for the worse. 
A little doesn’t hurt too much though.
Next post to follow soon and I might even expand on what the downfalls are of weaning then. 
