Our Breastfeeding Stories

Wow you have done fab Ang hun :aww:

wow ang your story is amazing :aww:

I'm getting so emotional reading all of your stories lol. Heres mine...

I have no friends or family who i no that have :boob: but i always knew i was going to bf bethany. I went to parentcraft lessons at the hospital and part of it was about feeding baby. And they made it sound so negative in a way - dont think they meant to but i think they put a lot of the mums to be off. But i still knew i would :boob:

I had a long labour 33 hours and as soon as she was born we did skin to skin contact. Followed by adam doing skin to skin with baby too. No one helped to latch baby on and i ended up having to practically beg the mw to help about 4 hours after birth!

She latched on no problem and fed for a full hour! Then she fell asleep for the rest of the day! I fed her that night quite a lot and kept trying to put her down in her crib like people tell you "your supposed to do". These people usually havent bf!

The second night was even worse - i sat up all night with bethany suckling. I was worn out and tired and it got to 7am and adam finally woke up (he slept all night) and i said to him i dont think i'm going to be able to last with bf. I was in tears i was that tired. My mum was staying at ours and took baby downstairs for a few hours so i could have a couple of hours sleep.

The mw came that afternoon. Baby had been a sleep a good 6 hours sleep by then and after accusing me of ff because she'd been asleep so long (still dont think she believed me that i hadnt) she made me wake her up so she could check that she was latched on right as it wasnt 'normal' to be suckling all night. She said the latch was fine.

I always remember she made me lie down and do some exercises why she was there. I told her i was extemely sore - mainly because of my 2nd degree tearing. And she said the sooner i'm up and about the better. I cried when she went because she was awful to me. I was walking like john wayne i was that sore and i wanted to chill for a few days not be walking round town like she told me to!

The third night we tried something different - we co-slept. I've said it before but i'll say it again it was a life saver! I got to sleep bethany got to feed all night if she wanted to. And i werent feeling like a zombie all day at last!

Those first few week my nipples were really sore and had the 10 second toe curl everytime she fed - a few mw checked she was latched on correctly and they said she was. The soreness went after a few week - guess they were just sensitive.

6 months later and were still :boob: and i just love it so much. Nothing beats looking down at her whilst she's nursing and she looks up at me with a sparkle in her eye. And when she's finished nursing and she smiles up at me with a bit of milk dribbling down her chin. Makes my heart melt everytime :aww:

It makes me cry everytime i read these . I will write one i promise im abit like Katie and dont want to jinx anything.

Thats lovely Helen! (apart from the awful midwife - i seriously could not walk for the first 10 days after having Daisy!)
I love these breastfeeding stories! I think its lovely that we all feel the same about breastfeeding our babies, that other people just can't understand. Why would anyone not want to breastfeed and miss out on this experience????? :aww:

Mine are quite long sorry :iconredface:

Me ad OH had plannedto try for a baby, but I had never given any thought into how I was going to feed my children. I didn't know many people with children and those I did mainly formula fed. I had lost my mum when I was 14 and never knew how I had bee fed. As my pregnancy progressed I becameinterested in breastfeeding and decidedto give it a go. I had my breastfeeding class and thought it would be a doddle.

After going 13 days over, a long labour and lots of drugs I finally delievered Seren. I fed her for the first time 10mins after she was born and thought to myself "this is easy, no problems". Seren was born to be breastfed, she knew where the boob was and what it was for. She slept for a very long time after her birth and I was awoken by her crying in the early hoursof the morning so I tried to latch her on again. Couldn't do it. Amidwife came in and put her on my boob for me. The next day the same, couldn't get the hang of latching her on. It became incredibly painful. Seren would scream for the boob, and want it constantly. The girl in the cubicle next to me had a baby that fed and then slept, so I was convinced something was wrong.I had no idea it was normal for newborns to be fed so often and became convinced I wasn't producing anything. No-one told me it was ok, just left me to it though they did give me a leaflet to read

It came to a head two days after she was born. I was exhausted as she was waking all night and I couldn't sleep in the day as I was on a busy ward. I said to the midwife I was worried about not producing milk so she advised I should express. I was left to it and after half an hour had managed to squeeze a drop of colostrum out which to me underlined the message I had nothing in me (again no-one said it was normal). I then cracked and begged them to give Seren formula as I was sure she was starving. I was made to feel awful for my decision, they wouldn't let me feed her the formula so I felt like a complete failure.

I was desperate to go home and had asked on the second day if I could. I was told I could so excitedly phoned up OH and asked him to bring the carseat etc. In the morning another midwife commented on howhappy I looked and when I said it was because I was going home, she told me I couldn't as I was struggling with the feeding. I was sobbing and they got a Dr to talk to me, I eventually managed to persuade him to let me go home after I promised to top up if I felt she was hungry which I did. I was still having terrible problems latching her on, and when I got homeI had the pleasent experience of my nipple "opening" and a massive blood blister hanging out, and blood in the milk etc.

Eventually the pain got better, though not for a while. I was still topping up as I still felt I had no milk but was determined to feed exclusively. I managed to do so when Seren was just over 2 months (I was soproud when I went for her 12 week jabs and could say I was exclusively boobfeeding). I battled through mastitis only to get thrush because of the anti b's.

I was eventually diagnosed with PND, and had a battle against pressure from my GP and HV to stop breastfeeding. I also had a great visit to a GP who basicallytoldme I shouldn't get so het up about breastfeeding as in a few years they will probably find out formula is just as good as breastmilk - and that his wife had formula fed and his kids were fine (I had gone in with suspected thrush which he said I didn't have, so I had to argue to get a prescription which amazingly cleared up the pain - hmmm). However after all this I got into the swing of things and we never looked back. Seren was a big feeder, would feed for 30-40mins, sometimes every hour, never more then 2 hours unless she was asleep but she wasn't putting on a lotof weight and myold insecurities came back but I still carried on. we finished when she was 20months old as I was pregnant and my milk slowed and she decided to not feed anymore

I thought it would be plain sailing the second time as I had faced most problems. When Cally was born she shot out and I was in shock as the birth happened so fast. It was a while before I got to feed her, and she wasn't that interested, had a suck and then slept. I manged to get the latch better but still got sore ad as a result started using nipple shields. This led to Cally getting too dependant on them and having difficulties in latching on without them which took another few weeks to sort out. However since then she has been great. Is a very different feeder to her sister, only feeds for about 15-20 mins every two and half hours, and she has piledon the weight. I am hoping that she will decide to wean herself off too in the future.

Despite everything though, deciding to bresstfeed was the best decision I made. When I had PND I felt I could do nothing for Seren, that I wasn't good enough and I struggled to cuddle her. But I had to pick her up and hold her to feed so that really helped me to bond with her. And Cally now has the trick of feeding, then smiling up at me (and dribblig all the milk down me) and it is the best feeling ever.

sorry, told you it was long

Beanie it sounds like you've had to overcome a lot of problems whilst breastfeeding. Your story is an inspiration!

I swear i dont think half of docs and hv's no what they are talking about when it comes to breastfeeding

I love these stories, apart from they make me cry!! What an inspiration :aww:

It all began just seconds after Kaydi was born. She lay on my chest routing to be fed. I gave her a helping hand and she was latched on, what a lovely feeling. Her first feed was for 3/4 of an hour. I was so glad that i had made a point to tell the Midwives that i wanted to feed her as soon as she was born.

Things seemed to be going well. It was hard after the first few days , she was more awake. Kaydi started to feed all the time. I couldn't do anything apart from sit and feed. My breasts felt itchy inside. I was told this was normal. Just my milk coming in.

Midwives visited a couple of times, said things were going well. Health visitor visited, same again no worries. This is when i asked about Kaydi's tongue being white. I was told it was milk.

I took Kaydi to the clinic to get weighed, she had only put on an oz. The health visitor instantly told me i had to top up with formula because she wasn't gaining. She could see i was upset and said lets give it another week.

The week after the health visitor said she had to gain 4oz or we would have to see the Dr. Then she went on to say, if she doesn't put weight on the Dr will refer you to the hospital, and you don't want that do you. I left so upset feeling as if i had failed. With fingers crossed we went back, only to have gained 2oz. We went to see the Dr and guess what. We were told to top up with formula.

I went home sterilised everything, i was in tears. I had decided from reading different things that i was going to express my milk when i had given formula. I hadn't been told this by my health visitor or Dr. Luckily I had read enough online to know this was the best thing to keep my supply. I also started to take fenugreek and eat lots of oats. I was soon getting a stock in the freezer.

When i gave Kaydi her first formula feed i cried and cried. It was the last thing i wanted to do. She took it like she had never been fed, 4oz in one. She screamed when i tried to take it to wind her.

After a couple of weeks she started to gain weight. I swapped the one 4oz of formula a day, for the expressed breast milk i had stored. I was told not to by health visitor but i wanted her on breast milk. She carried on gaining. I spoke to the different health visitor and just happened to mention Kaydi's tongue again. She diagnosed it as thrush, said this may have been causing the problems.

I spoke to many people before i made this decision to stop the formula. Forums, Another Health visitor, the people at breastfeeding group and a breastfeeding councilor. It turned out that the breast milk has more calories/fat in it than formula. I do think i made the right decision to give the one bottle a day although i really didn't want to do it.

We still struggled with cluster feeding in the evenings but Kaydi slept from 11pm till 4am. So no complaints from me. I got up after 4am feed to express. Kaydi wants feeding all the time sometimes she won't go an hour between feeds.

Now at 3 months after a lot of struggling, constant feeding and still battling with thrush. Still not going longer than an hour between feeds. Were still going with no intension's to stop. We now get up more at night, 2am, 4am and then about 8.30am when Lana wakes us. We have more settled periods in the day. I'm still used as a dummy. But i don't really mind. Apart from thrush the only real problems we have are my husband and other people asking when am i going to stop. We still top up with a bottle of expressed milk, but this is more so daddy can give a feed than anything.

Were preparing for our next growth spurt. Were being too determined to stop. Were ready for any problems and any comments.

This is only the beginning, the story will continue........

I would like to thank all of you people who have supported us so far along our journey. I also like to offer support to those who need it.

(I apologise for my grammar and the length)

Claire and Kaydi