(4/4) “My best advice would be to be patient with yourself. And be open minded about the possibilities, the potential difficulties, and also the amazing benefits. There’s just really nothing like seeing big brother/little brother, or any combination of siblings, holding hands while at the breast. It’s just amazing. There’s nothing else like it.”
(3/4) “After going through latching issues, yeast, rash, plugged ducts… just one thing after another, I discovered that I had a passion for lactation support work. I joined some breastfeeding support groups on Facebook, and I started reading about the struggles that other women had with breastfeeding. It became something that I really identified with. I’ve always wanted to help
(2/4) “Transitioning to tandem breastfeeding when my oldest was 22 months old and his brother was born was not as stressful or worrisome as I thought it was going to be. It was really easy. There was no jealousy or visible upset on my oldest child’s part, he was like ‘oh cool, I get to nurse and now there’s a new baby and we’re nursing together.’ It was a really smooth transition
(1/4) “With my older son, sometimes he will nurse, then hug my breasts and kiss my nipple and say how cute the breasts are and that he loves them. It weirded me out in the beginning, but now I find it endearing. I’m a survivor of childhood sexual assault, and at first it felt very uncomfortable to me to have him show affection to them; it gave me this creepy crawly feeling. But I let him do
(3/3) “I would advise new moms to look up tongue-ties because they are so common and so under diagnosed. Look out for the common symptoms like clicking or pain. Is your baby extremely gassy? Is your milk taking a while to come in? You know, look for those red flags and then have it properly evaluated by the right provider. A lot of doctors and lactation consultants
(2/3) “When baby number 2 was due, I educated myself as much as I could. I joined a Facebook group—Milky Mommas—run by lactation consultants. They give out all this great information! When she was born, it all came together and I thought, “Oh, I know where I went wrong!” They immediately caught her tongue-tie, and she developed jaundice because my milk was also taking
(1/3) “My experiences with breastfeeding after births happened at two different hospitals and they were completely different. With my first child, it wasn’t a baby- friendly hospital, which I think made a huge difference. I feel like there wasn’t enough education on the hospital’s part on teaching proper latching techniques or even looking for tongue-ties. They were not promoting
(4/4) “I don’t cover up when feeding anymore. I just don’t really care at this point. It’s funny, when I first started breastfeeding I was covering up in front of everybody. I had my nursing cover with me at all times, and when we went to my in-laws house I would always go upstairs into a bedroom to breastfeed. Now I’ll just pop it out. It’s all good. I just don’t care anymore, and I am so over
(3/4) “I was adopted, and my adoptive mom thinks the whole breastfeeding thing is weird. I think she is grossed out by it because she is one of those people who, if it’s something she’s not familiar with, she labels it was a weird choice. She just kept saying, “You can quit any time you know? You don’t have to breastfeed.” Now she keeps saying that my eldest daughter is really
(2/4) “When we had our second child, I was really hoping to breastfeed this time around. We are very sure she’s going to be our last baby and I really wanted the experience of breastfeeding if I could make it work. I was so shocked with how painful it was when I first started. I think a lot of people aren’t honest about how difficult those first few weeks are. I mean, it just feels like you’re
(1/4) “I have a four-year-old and a five month old. With my oldest, we tried really hard to breastfeed, but she was a big baby at a 10 pounds 4 ounces’ birth weight. From the beginning I was not making enough to fill her up. We were miserable and she was crying all the time. When we started supplementing after about two weeks it was really the beginning of the end. She started sleeping through the night at two and a half weeks old and we never looked back. From
(4/4) “If I find that I start getting touched out easily then instead of telling them no, I’ll either just kind of try to cut down on the number of sessions we do per day and distract them with a sippy cup of water or a snack because, you know, they might be hungry or they might just be bored. If I just couldn’t handle it then I would say “ok, but only for a couple of minutes” instead of just
(3/4) “The first time around, tandem nursing was incredibly difficult. I thought I had to nurse them both at the same time because the older one would ask every time the baby nursed. But I learned really quickly that that was just too much. I got so touched out, I couldn’t handle it. It took about 6 months for me to really get into a good groove with both of them nursing, but not
(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