Today we share with you the breastfeeding story of a user whose problems with breastfeeding made her doubt her instincts: “I was losing confidence in myself.” | If you also want to share your story with our readers and app users, please send it over to [email protected].

 

Every day was a battle. I was convinced I would be breastfeeding my daughter, and the first few days seemed to be going great. The healthcare professionals told me the latch was good, although the pain was intense. Weeks went by, and my baby’s weight dropped. No one saw anything wrong, but everyone around me insisted on supplementing with formula. The pediatricians called us into their office every other day for weighing. I stopped going to the appointments and sent my partner because I could not resist the pressure, their judgments, and the belittling, and nobody dared to say such things to the baby’s father. They didn’t make the situation as bad for him as they did for me.

It was horrible. I made appointments with different midwives who tried to help, but it was summer and every time, a different holiday replacement was filling in at the clinic. I had video calls with a lactation consultant, and we exchanged videos of the feeds. It was just after Covid-19, and there were no regular support groups or empathy in general.

Breastfeeding was a real physical effort: I tried impossible positions to improve the latch and pumping to try to increase my milk supply. I had hardly any rest. I was moving away from my instincts, and I was losing confidence in breastfeeding and in myself.

Then my partner was no longer in the same boat and decided that supplementing would be the best thing to do. I disagreed with it, but I doubted everything. I didn’t know if I had lost my mind and was actually messing with my daughter’s health. It was very stressful.

We decided on supplementing. I struggled at every feed to see the bottle, to give it to her and I felt horrible that I couldn’t fill it with my own milk (because I just got very little milk pumping). Still, I didn’t give up; my partner reminded me of the effort I was making and what a good mummy I was for our little girl.

Then I started enjoying it, and we managed to reduce the supplementing. At four months, I even started to enjoy giving her a bottle. I tried with a syringe with a cup, and we tried everything. But we were in an endless cycle: breastfeeding, then syringe feeding, then breast pumping, and starting all over again. So we kept trying to reduce this, so we could do other things. It was a real battle. There was a lot of pain, feelings of betrayal, and a lack of support. I think it was one of the darkest and most fragile times I have ever been through in my life.

At four months, I was finally able to find my tribe. The postnatal yoga group helped me to bounce back. Today I can say that my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter loves to breastfeed (now I can even playfully squirt her eye with my milk), and we thoroughly enjoy our hard-fought breastfeeding journey.

It wasn’t easy, and I wasn’t expecting it at all! I had a great pregnancy and a fun and enjoyable birth. All of this really caught me off guard. Never in my life did I have so many doubts, not knowing what to do and how to react. I was completely out of my depth.

I hope and wish that other women who have to go through this find support from well-trained and updated healthcare professionals and emotional support. Breastfeeding is a superpower; it is beautiful. And yet, it can also be very difficult.

 

Do you need help with breastfeeding?

If you would like the LactApp breastfeeding experts to accompany you in any phase of your breastfeeding journey, you can book an online consultation or find them in the Consultation Channel of our free LactApp app, available for iPhone and Android.