(2/4) “With all three of my older children, they were breastfeeding once a day when I decided to wean. The only thing I did was tell them starting a few months in advance. I would say ‘You know, you’re going to be 4 soon, and when that happens, we are going to be all done.’ It’s funny. They’ve all had different names for it. My youngest hasn’t given it a name yet but my oldest called
(1/4) “I think probably the most unique thing about my breastfeeding journey is that I’ve exclusively nursed all 4 of my children, and so far they have all weaned at 4 years old. I have been nursing a total of 8 years and 8 months without stopping through all the pregnancies, tandem nursing… this is my last child and he’s the only one still nursing. If he nurses for as long as his
(4/4) “I’ve been in the mama and baby community for years, I worked in a local boutique. So many moms have breastfeeding trouble and everyone’s breastfeeding relationship is so different, just between my two children I couldn’t have imagined how different it could be each time. I wanted to be able to share my story and reassure people it’s ok to use whatever tools you need,
(3/4) “Right now I’m lucky to be pumping about twice what my daughter can drink a day. So I am freezing all the extra. It’s just sort of come together that I have been connected with moms who needs extra milk. A friend of mine had noticed there was a mom looking for gluten-free breast milk online. I hadn’t even thought about it, but I have celiac disease, so I don’t eat gluten, so she
(2/4) “In the hospital I noticed her tongue tie right away. I put my finger in her mouth and had her suck on it and all I could feel were her gums instead of her tongue. She was just biting on my finger instead of sucking. I had seen and heard about tongue ties before, so for it to be that clearly identifiable straight away, concerned me. I had a hard time getting her to latch, the
(1/4) “I had two really different experiences, with my children being ten years apart. I expected it would be a little different, but it was much more than I thought it would be. With my firstborn, I was bound and determined to breastfeed no matter what. I had been warned it was hard, but after we got through the first couple weeks, breastfeeding was really simple. This time around,
(3/3) “I took a breastfeeding 101 type class with my husband. The class was awesome. I don’t remember much of the specifics; it was more like kind of a Q&A session. The teacher really instilled the confidence that you will be able to breastfeed. I think a lot of the attendees were kind of nervous that they wouldn’t be able to breastfeed or that they wouldn’t provide enough milk,
(2/3) “I am working full time. And she is at a really awesome child care provider. So I pump during the day at work when we are apart to provide milk for the next day. I pump when I’m on conference calls. I pump when I’m on the phone with my boss. It’s no big deal. I feel really supported. A while ago I was on the phone with tech support and he was like “I swear I hear this
(1/3) “I feel very lucky in my experience; it kind of all fell into place. I tried to prepare myself as much as I could. I attended a couple classes. On my second or third day postpartum, we called a lactation consultant because I didn’t know if my milk had come in yet. She weighed my daughter, and then had us breastfeed, then weighed her again. She assured me she had eaten twice the
(6/6) A: “Being transfeminine, especially because I don’t “pass”, I get a lot of people questioning my femininity and even my personhood. But now I’ve been able to feed my baby with my body, in this very feminine way. That’s not to say that trans men can’t produce breast milk. We know that is not true, that they definitely can. But breastfeeding is generally seen as being a really feminine
(5/6) B: "We’ve had a lot of really sweet experiences. Like one time, she came home late from work because the bus was late, and it was kind of a stressful day. I remember you laid down in bed and said, “I just don’t have the energy to pump tonight, I’m going to pump tomorrow” and I said ok. And the baby woke up a few minutes later and started nursing, and you got up, and you
(4/6) A: “To be honest, after the first hormones I took, I had written off even having a child that’s biologically mine. It was quite a process even having a baby. So back then it never even crossed my mind, being able to breastfeed. When we talked about it and we decided to go ahead and do this, I had no idea if it was actually going to work. But it’s worked well, I feel pretty good about it.
(3/6) B: “So we found a new doctor, who was really willing to talk about what it would take to make her breastfeeding happen. They added progesterone and a prescription to help induce lactation, the way they would for a woman adopting who wanted to breastfeed. But she had a horrible, horrible adverse reaction to it. She got dizzy and sick and confused and had blurred
(2/6) B: “When we decided to have our third baby, it occurred to me that maybe my wife would want to nurse the baby too, which would greatly help given my low supply. It took a while for us to find a supportive medical provider during my pregnancy to help her induce lactation. She is transgender, and was already able to express a few drops of milk due to hormone therapy, and
(1/6) B: "This is our third baby. I carried all three, but this is my wife's first biological child. I had chronic low supply with all of my babies because I have insufficient glandular tissue. It’s always been a real struggle, but each baby has found a way to nurse and bond with me in their own way. My first baby nursed for a whole five years despite the low supply. I did tandem nurse for a while,
(3/3) “We had to get the oil changed in my car, and I knew it would be an environment of all men. So I pumped in advance and brought milk in a bottle for her. A lady came up to me while I was feeding her, and said “you know, breast milk is the best kind of food for your baby.” I looked at her and said “I am so thankful you are concerned about the health of my child. This happens to be
(2/3) “Neither my mom nor my sister nursed. My mom attributed not being able to have a letdown to having c-sections with our births. My sister chose not to nurse. That’s partially why I never let myself set the year goal that I ultimately wanted in the back of my head. I set it for 6 months because I wanted to feel confident that I could achieve it. So my goal was 6 months. We
(1/3) “I had a really difficult birth. We had planned a water birth with midwives. When I was 8 days overdue, I went to the hospital in false labor, and they ended up inducing because her heart rate kept dropping. I was induced for 4 and a half days, and by the time she was almost two weeks overdue I was begging for a C-section, even though it had originally been the furthest
(3/3) “The best piece of advice I ever got: Don’t give up on your hardest day. It really resonated with me, because many days were my hardest day. It helped to think about only making changes on a day that was going well. If it is still something you want to do when it's going good, then do it. You know, part of me
(2/3) “I used a nipple shield for 2 months. It was hard getting a good latch that wasn’t horribly painful; even with the shield, it still hurt. Once I acclimated to the shield, I started slowly weaning off it. It was a rough transition. That first 2-3 months felt like I was nursing through gritted teeth. Eventually it got easier, and nursing went really well for us for a long time until he started getting