Breastfeeding: The Early Days

Recently I've had some pretty severe complications with breastfeeding and its prompted me to do extensive research into the subject. Doing that has made me recall the first few weeks home from the hospital and how amazing and awful it was!

The first few days: Breastfeeding, although supposedly natural, did not come that easy to me. As I put it to a friend, we didn't have breastfeeding complications right away and yet it was the hardest thing I've ever done. Our latch was correct, my positioning was correct, the baby was getting milk, my milk came in just fine, and I avoided engorgement. Any lactation expert will tell you that all of that adds up to a successful breastfeeding start. However, the nursing sessions were fraught with tension. In the hospital it was simply inexperience. I constantly felt like I might be doing something wrong. Plus, the baby kept going to sleep so it was a constant fight to keep him eating.

Jackson was very colicky at night the first six weeks and that included when he was eating. I remember sitting on the couch, literally pulling on my hair (and screaming a little) while James gently bounced the baby to get him to calm down again. Every feeding we would go through an intricate dance of Jackson eating for five minutes (whining under his breathe all the while), then breaking off and going into an all out screaming session. James would take him, calm him down and then give him back. We would go back and forth three or four times before I felt like he had gotten enough milk.

The whole 6 weeks of colic I felt like it had to be my milk. Little did I know that this is extremely common for breastfeeding mothers. They blame it on something they ate, something they did to sour the milk (such as exercise), or an inadequate supply. Since then I have read that when a mother of a formula fed infant has a colicky baby, she tends to blame it on other things such as a draft or that the baby is overly hot. This put things in perspective for me and helped me shed the guilt. Still, it was a huge relief for him to grow out of the colicky stage and have him be happy for feedings.

In the end, I thank God that I was able to get through it. I think our success has plenty to do with my wonderful supportive husband who patiently took the baby when I got too overwhelmed to keep coaxing him to eat. Although we have had plenty more roadblocks to continuing breastfeeding, its nice to look back at such a difficult time and know that we persevered!