After overcoming lots of issues with establishing breastfeeding, I fed Elle for 12 and a half months, so today I’m going to attempt to share my experience from start to finish with you all. I’m aware it could well be an essay (!) so I promise I’ll try to keep things short and sweet…but if you take anything away from this post, please let it be that to begin with I absolutely HATED breastfeeding, but by the end I was very sad to stop. It’s a tough and very demanding journey, but definitely one I’d encourage you to try if you want to, as it’s by far the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.

Pregnancy Naivety

Although I was aware that breastfeeding could be difficult, I just didn’t think what these things would be like in real life. I mean who actually wants to imagine what it’s like having cracked bleeding nipples?! (FYI it’s hideous). I knew I wanted to breastfeed – I even had vidid dreams about breastfeeding during pregnancy, so it was a huge shock to me when things didn’t come naturally. Another example of my naivety – I was pretty certain that I’d switch to formula at 6 months, because I thought feeding past 6 months was just plain weird. I know – what a complete and utter idiot I was. It makes me cringe now to think that I was that easily manipulated by advertising before I’d even given birth! Moron. Anyway, life has a funny way of turning out and my opinion of breastfeeding was changed almost 180 degrees from the moment Elle was born…

The Beginning

A combination of several things made our start to breastfeeding just plain awful. Elle was jaundiced, so we were readmitted to hospital for light therapy treatment, she also had a tongue tie, and I have almost flat nipples (yes, apparently that is a thing – I didn’t really think it was until I googled breastfeeding technique videos and noticed that the ladies nipples were about 10cm longer than mine…) This essentially created a vicious circle – my nipples were getting more and more sore and cracked, Elle would fall asleep at every feed, and even when we stripped her down so that she would be awake to feed, her latch was so poor that she wasn’t taking in enough milk. Whenever she fed I would be in excruciating pain, I was sob throughout and I used to dread her getting hungry. I couldn’t have anything touching my nipples, so spent most of the night drenched in milk as I couldn’t bear to have a bra on and even showering was painful.

Luckily, Elle’s tongue tie was noticed and cut while we were back in hospital, which definitely helped a little. The wonderful consultant who did this also happened to be a breastfeeding specialist, who gave me lots of great tips for feeding (which you can read in this post). She also recommended that I use nipple shields – partly to allow me to heal, but also to actually give Elle something to latch on to. We were also advised by Elle’s paediatrician to give her formula top ups as she really needed to kick the jaundice, get her salt and sugar levels to where they should be, and start putting weight back on. This was not advised by the breastfeeding specialist, my midwife or HV – just to clarify, as establishing your supply in the early weeks is so crucial – but the moment the doctor asked us to start doing this I felt a huge sense of relief. It gave me a little bit of breathing space to pump some milk so that I could use my own milk to top her up.

It felt like an endless cycle of feeding, topping up and expressing, but somewhere around four weeks, Elle was back up to her birth weight, her blood salt and sugars were normal, the jaundice was gone, and I was managing to feed her (using the shields) without needing top ups. It felt like an absolute triumph.

Going to a breastfeeding support group helped massively too – there was a moment where a stranger (at the time) gave me a big hug and I’ll never forget her kindness (thank you Becky!)

If you are in this hazy newborn stage, I just want to reassure you that it’s ok to not enjoy it. I definitely did not enjoy the first few months. There were points during this time where all I wanted to do was to walk out of the door and not come back. But I promise it does get better. It really, really does…

The Middle

Six months came around very, very quickly (although if you’d spoken to me at the time I would have told you the days and nights were some of the longest of my life) and it had taken so much blood, sweat and tears to get feeding established that there was no chance in hell I was stopping!!! I feel incredibly luckily that I didn’t receive any pressure from family or friends to stop as both my Mum and Mother in Law fed for a long time and most of my NCT friends were still feeding too. I never felt embarrassed to feed in public either – perhaps because I felt proud of myself for getting to a point where I actually could. People still asked me if I was feeding using nipple shields, as if it wasn’t proper breastfeeding (!) but I found it didn’t affect my supply and was honestly the only way that Elle would latch on comfortably. (BTW my HV did suggest pumping a little prior to each feed to draw my nipple out, rather than using the shields, but there was no way I was faffing around sterilising and assembling a pump with a hungry baby screaming the place down for milk – plus I’d got using the shields down to a fine art, haha).

In the early days you are desperate to know when the feeds will become more consistent and I think it was around 5/6 months that I noticed that Elle fed 6 times a day (with no night feeds). When we started weaning at 6 months, Elle took to food well and by 7 months she had dropped to 5 feeds a day, with 3 very small meals, by 9 months it was 4 feeds a day, with 2 larger meals and a small evening meal. At 11 months she was just having a pre-breakfast feed and a bedtime feed, with 3 proper meals and then by 12 months the bedtime feed was becoming almost non existent, I guess because she was having meals and snacks by this point.

How do you know when they are ready to drop feeds? Honestly – it’s really obvious. I didn’t think I’d know, but when your baby would rather be giggling, pointing at things, pulling your hair and sticking their fingers up your nose than feeding – they are definitely ready. I probably force fed Elle a 3pm feed for a while, because when I stopped it, she started eating a lot more dinner!

One of the reasons I could feed Elle for so long is that I’m incredibly fortunate with my job – Elle came to meetings in the early days so I could sneak out to feed her. She was also only in childcare for half days, meaning that I only had to send her with one small bottle of expressed milk to keep her happy. I’d feed her when she got home and do my work in the evenings. I can honestly say that there is no way I could have continued for so long if I’d had to express bottles for a full day for Elle – so massive, massive respect to any Mums who go back to work and continue to breastfeed.

The End

It came as a huge surprise to me when Elle weaned. I had come to the decision that I would just continue to feed her until she self weaned (I know!!! There’s the 180 degree attitude change I mentioned…) but honestly didn’t think that it would happen that soon. One evening after her bath, we settled down in the bedroom for our usual quiet cuddle and feed in the dark, and she just went ballistic when I offered her the boob. Initially I thought perhaps it was teething or illness putting her off, but this continued with the morning feed too. I offered her a milk feed every morning and evening for 7 days – the same thing happened. I was also offering her milk in a beaker, but she just wasn’t interested at all. I was worried at first, but as she was eating solid food well, drinking lots of water, her sleep was normal and she’s putting on weight and growing as per her charts…so we’ve just gone with it. Plus I didn’t really have any issues with reducing my supply – no mastitis, engorgement or blocked ducts, so I think both Elle and my body were ready. Although having said that, it did make me sad that I didn’t know her last feed would be just that – I know everyone says it, but take it from me, cherish those moments because in a blink of an eye they are gone.

And if you’ve read this whole post – THANK YOU! Did any of you have a similar difficult start that you managed to overcome? Anyone else think there should be much better support for new Mums who really want to breastfeed?

Whatever stage of breastfeeding you’re at, I really hope it helps in some way and as always, please do share your experiences too.

Fern x

Image by Anna Clarke Photography