My breastfeeding journey started with our first daughter Ava, in 2018 I was a registered nurse and midwife. In my mind I thought I’m trained this will be easy my baby will latch and off we go!
I went to the breastfeeding classes to make sure I was prepared and thought that it will still be easy.
Ava was born in September 2018 and initially latched well from what I thought, I’m a midwife I teach women how to do this all the time. We were discharged on day 3 and my milk was well on its way to coming in. Buy day 5 it was in and I was extremely engorged, I had to send my husband off to go and get a pump to relieve some of the pressure so Ava could latch.
Also by day 5 I was experiencing extreme nipple trauma, cracked bruised and bleeding but assumed this was normal and just pushed through. By day 10 I was dreading feeding my daughter and anxiety set in each time she would wake for a feed because it was so toe curling painful. I hated breastfeeding and didn’t see how this was going to get any easier and I was going to make it a month let alone the 12 months I wanted to get to.
I started expressing to give my nipples a rest in hope they would recover and “toughen” up so that I could continue to feed my baby. I dreaded night times the most I felt so isolated and lonely, Ava would be unsettled crying, back arching and vomiting her feeds. I tried cutting out dairy, soy and coffee in hopes that would help settle her little belly. I asked for help from CAFHs re feeding issues and they said she’s gaining weight slowly and tongue ties are a fad. Ava was 3 months old at this stage and refusing to breastfeed, she couldn’t cope with my letdown and would go for 6 plus hours between feeds.
I eventually contacted a IBCLC and she came to our house assessed Ava she had a top lip and tongue tie. I had these revised and started seeing a chiropractor, once Ava recovered from her tie revision our feeding journey started to come together, she slept better, stopped vomiting, gained weight and night times didn’t seem so isolating.
We made it to 20 months before I was forced to wean her due to starting fertility treatment to get our second daughter. This broke my heart and I wish I researched better the risks of the effects of the medication I was prescribed, we wouldn’t have had to wean so abruptly at all.
Fast forward to when our second daughter Piper was born in 2021. I contacted the same IBCLC I used for Ava, she came over to our home when Piper was 5 days old to check for the correct latch and ties. Piper fed beautifully from the start but I wanted to avoid going down the same path as what I experienced with Ava.
When Piper was 15 months old I returned to work as a registered nurse and midwife making sure I’d pump to try and maintain some sort of a supply. I was always reassuring having the support and advice from Asha when I returned to work when I found that my supply was dipping.
I am now 35 weeks pregnant with our 3rd baby and still breastfeeding my nearly 2 year old daughter. Our next feeding journey may include tandem feeding. Something I am looking forward to trying and making work if possible.
I’m a big advocate on making sure women seek help early in their feeding journeys and set small goals and reassess each goal to a new goal when you get there. I originally wanted to get to 3 months 6 months and then 12 months etc