Beautiful Breastfeeding

In order to normalize breastfeeding, those of us who do it have a big job on our hands. People need to see it. Need to realize that it's OK and need to support it.

It's no secret that I'm a huge breastfeeding advocate. But, what many overlook or just flat out ignore is I wasn't always a breastfeeding mother. Bentley was not breastfed past the first week of his life. I didn't have the support from friends, from family and I was on the fence as it was. I also didn't have the education nor did I have anyone to turn to for advice. 

When Bentley was born, I wasn't educated enough to know that milk doesn't come out at first, colostrum does and it can be very hard to hand express. I didn't think I had anything to offer my newly born son and the hospital staff wasn't much help to educate me. So we went straight to formula and Ben was the first one to feed him. I was also all wired up from my c-section with my gown over me and so even just holding him was a difficult task. 

The night we arrived home when Bentley was 2 days old, I left Bentley in the arms of his daddy and went to take a shower. That's when I noticed my milk had come in and all of a sudden I had a change of heart. But, instead of ditching the bottles and trying to breastfeed him right then and there, I waited until it was night and Ben was alseep and while he was at work so he wouldn't see me trying to nurse him and make me feel weird about it.

Of course I still didn't really have much in the education and knowledge department. Or the support department. So I couldn't get him to latch on for more than a second or two. Then he would scream and let me tell you, that boy could shatter windows.

Eventually I gave up completely. Something I didn't regret because for me, as long as my baby was fed, I was happy. But come Bentley's 6 month birthday, I started regretting my decision to not try harder and not educate myself on breastfeeding. My views on life and parenting had changed drastically. I started cloth diapering, I started making and using homemade natural cleaners. The only thing I couldn't do to make myself feel more like an adequate "crunchy" mom was breastfeed. 

Since then it has been my motivation to breastfeed Bailey and we have been successful for the last 5.5 months. In 13 days my little girl will have had 6 straight months of nothing but momma's milk!

So keep calm and breastfeed on!

Until next time, friends