June 10th through 17th, there’s an awesome sale happening. It’s called The Natural Mothering ebook Bundle.
35+ books and FREE bonuses — a $525 value, for only $29.97!
See full sale details, and some of the books written by experts.
Only for imperfect mothers! Get help with infant care, teaching kids to clean, quick dinners, and more!
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Each month, we have one book that is featured. This means it only costs you $5! Take advantage of this great deal to add to your collection and try some delicious new recipes!
This month’s book is Simply Summer. This summer, enjoy delicious, fresh recipes, like our favorite Mexican Pork Roast, Bacon-Wrapped Chicken with Italian Salsa (yum!), and Peach Upside Down Cake. Treat your family and friends!
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Recently, the Weston A. Price Foundation kicked up a fuss with their unusual breastfeeding recommendations. I wrote my response to this last week.
One take away from this situation, though, was that it does matter what you eat. Your breastmilk will be awesome no matter what, but diet does impact quality and nutritional content (not to mention eating well is really important for your health, since your body will give your baby what it needs first).
While I can’t claim to have the “perfect” answer — everyone is different — I know what works well for me. I have had the easiest recovery after Nathan’s birth (he’s #4 in 5 years) and he’s grown the most rapidly. I’d say our breastfeeding experience has been very positive, and I have felt well and had a lot of energy. In fact, I felt basically normal by three weeks postpartum.
My goal today is to share with you what works for me. Maybe it will be a starting point for you — maybe not. Hopefully it helps to read someone else’s successful experience!
I didn’t recover well after Jacob’s birth. It was a really stressful time for our family and my rest/recovery was not a priority, and I did not know that I was seriously deficient in magnesium (and possibly other things). I did “okay” except for feeling very tired, stressed, and having strong chocolate cravings. I also struggled to lose the weight (for the first time) and had some issues with constipation (related to mag. deficiency).
I decided before I even got pregnant again that recovery would be a serious priority after my next pregnancy. Somehow I’d imagined sitting on the couch, snuggling a baby girl and reading stories and quietly directing homeschool….
(Laugh now. I had another sweet baby boy, and my kids don’t sit quietly. Ever. We spent far more time chasing them outside and trying to keep everything going around the house than anything else.)
Still, I took this recovery business seriously. I barely got out of bed in the first week, and then I got around only sometimes and kept it low-key for another week or so. By three weeks, I was feeling basically back to normal. Baby’s almost a month old now and it’s “life as usual,” minus being a little more tired! (He does great at night. Goes to bed between 10 and 12 and co-sleeps with me, squirming and rooting if he needs to nurse but otherwise sleeping quietly for 4 – 5 hours. Then I have to sit up to change him, and we sleep a bit more. When I had help, we’d sleep like this about 11 – 9 everyday. Sadly I have no more help, so now I’m up by 7 with the older kids! That makes for a tired mama, until this little one starts going to bed by 8 or 9 like the others.)
But the food. I’m supposed to be talking about diet.
The things I crave most:
I’m craving nutrient-rich foods with a lot of fat in them. If I eat sugar or white flour, I don’t feel well. It’s like my body’s mad that I’m “wasting” calories on that stuff!
I’ve been making a lot of low-sugar homemade ice cream (I use raw milk) and topping it with crispy walnuts. Many days I have a few soaked English muffins with lots of butter for breakfast. I feel best on the days I eat the most butter. I’ve been buying Kerrygold, and I do notice I feel better with that vs. “regular” butter (that isn’t grass-fed). Normally I love vegetables and I have been eating plenty on the side or in soups (usually covered in more butter if they’re not in soup), but this time that’s not what makes me feel the best. I need the fat to produce all the milk this little one needs!
(In four weeks he’s gained about 2.5 lbs. and 3″ over birth weight. He’s growing fast!)
I’ve made a lot of different kinds of soups: taco soup, lasagna soup, baked potato soup, broccoli cheddar soup, chicken noodle soup, and more. I make big batches and keep them on hand. I eat soup pretty much everyday, sometimes more than once. I eat leftover soup if I don’t know what else to eat or I need a snack.
I also salt everything to taste with Real Salt.
As for what I’m drinking, I have a lot of water, my postpartum herbal tea, kombucha, and sometimes water kefir. And occasionally I make some herbal tea just for fun.
These foods contain some important nutrients:
There’s more, but those are some of the highlights. (In fact, you can read more about the importance of various nutrients and good sources of them in my new book, A Practical Guide to Children’s Health.)
For me, I really need these nutrients to create healthy breastmilk. I’d venture to guess I’m not alone in this area.
The WAPF breastfeeding mothers’ diet is actually a very good recommendation (I don’t disagree with them on everything; I think they’ve done a lot of good work and advocacy). I find myself largely following what they recommended, just based on what feels right to me. I don’t eat liver and I don’t eat as much fish (maybe once a week or every other week). But in general my diet is similar to this.
If you need some help simplifying a healthy diet for pregnancy or breastfeeding, you might be interested in my book Healthy Pregnancy Super Foods. It has only two rules: avoid junk food, and consume super foods. There are 30 recipes that are each bursting with super foods to help you do exactly that!
I would encourage any woman who is pregnant or breastfeeding to consume a diet that makes her feel awesome — something nutrient-dense. Whether you focus on greens and coconut oil or beef and butter (like me!), you need the healthy stuff now more than ever.
Next week I’ll be sharing how I’m increasing the nutrient density of my family’s diet and also getting my budget down! It’s possible and I’m happy with my new system so far. 
This week, the “Bundle of the Week” is all about pregnancy and baby! It fits in so nicely with this post and it even includes two of my books!
Here’s what’s in it:
Healthy Pregnancy Super Foods by Kate Tietje
In Healthy Pregnancy Super Foods, Kate simplifies pregnancy nutrition with just two rules: 1) Don’t eat junk food and 2) Eat super foods. This ebook includes details about the super foods you should be eating (and a basic list of what you should avoid), what pregnant women’s nutritional needs are, and offers more than 30 super food recipes.
Fearless Birth by Kristen Burgess
Fear of giving birth is a very real thing, but through the Fearless Birth workbook and bonus tools, Kristen helps you understand the source of your fears, create positive images of birth, let go of fear and approach labor and birth with confidence and peace of mind.
Unbound Birth by Jennifer Yarbrough
Unbound Birth: How to Have a Natural Birth in the Hospital is an inspiring collection of natural hospital birth stories. With determination, information, preparation, and support, Jennifer offers women hope for the beauty of a natural birth within a hospital setting.
The Minimalist Mom’s Guide to Baby’s First Year by Rachel Jonat
Parenting is a demanding job, and the first year with a new baby iz exciting, ever so tiring and filled to the brim with baby toys, gadgets and gizmos. In The Minimalist Mom’s Guide to the Baby’s First Year, Rachel shares her own journey into motherhood and the lessons she learned about avoiding the clutter trap of too much baby stuff, slowing down to enjoy the early months with your new baby, saving money, creating a peaceful home and finding more time in your day for things like sleep!
Breast to Bib by Kate Tietje
If you’ve ever wondered how to get a baby started with real food, this is your go-to guide. In Breast to Bib, Kate offers help with breastfeeding and discusses low milk supply and homemade formula options as well as how and when to introduce solids and tips for handling picky toddlers. Plus you’ll find 27 healthy, family-friendly recipes to get you started!
The deal is this: all 5 of these books can be yours for just $7.40. That’s a substantial savings! (Each of my two books are normally $8.95 a piece.) The only catch is that this deal is only good through next Monday at 7:59 AM — one week only. So if you want it…you need to buy it now!
Get the pregnancy and baby bundle today. Feel free to ask me questions if you’re curious about the contents of the books and if they’d be a good fit for you!
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This one’s going to be a now-rare, good-old-fashioned rant. Because I mean it: I’m tired of lactivists.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe in breastfeeding as much as the next girl. Maybe, in some cases, more. After all, I’m currently tri-andem nursing my 4-year-old, 2.5-year-old, and 7-month-old. Yes. My 4-year-old is still breastfeeding. So obviously I believe in breastfeeding, extended breastfeeding, child-led weaning, and all that stuff.
And I absolutely intend to support women who want to breastfeed, and I wish far more women had support. I strongly dislike the way society treats breastfeeding mothers, as if it’s sexual and deviant. I think it’s important to stand up for mother’s rights and stop all this nonsense that is the breastfeeding debate (should you/shouldn’t you, is public okay, at what age “should” you stop, and so on). So you could say in general I fall on the side of the lactivists.
But.
A lot of lactivists are so stuck in their way of thinking that they just don’t see reality anymore. They don’t see the “other side” at all. That means the women struggling…who really can’t breastfeed. The women who emotionally don’t want to do it. The women who are approaching all this confusing territory of motherhood and breastfeeding for the first time and are desperately seeking help…only to basically be told that they just don’t get it and have a tirade of “facts” thrown at them. How is this helpful?
The Leaky Boob has done a whole series on this. I won’t reiterate everything she’s said. I will share my own anecdote.
As I said, I’ve been a breastfeeding mom for more than four consecutive years. I’ve read many books, published journal articles, I have nursed three babies, and have those 4 years of practical, real-world experience — which includes tandem and triandem nursing, three newborns and infants, two toddlers, and breastfeeding through two pregnancies. Suffice to say that I’ve heard it all and seen most of it first-hand too.
One night we were struggling, though. I’d been sick for a few days and had hardly eaten anything. My milk supply was way down. My baby was frustrated, and when he’s frustrated, he refuses to even try, despite that he is starving. I was faced with a conundrum: screaming, refusing-to-sleep baby who was hungry…and I couldn’t magically make my milk supply go back up within the next 10 minutes to satisfy him. What to do?
So, perhaps stupidly, I put the question to my Facebook page. ”What would you do?”
What followed was…amazing.
“Don’t you understand supply and demand? You can’t supplement him or you’ll lose your supply. It’s a slippery slope, once you start you can’t stop. Just keep putting him back to the breast, it’s never really empty. Supplements are inferior. If you have to, get donor milk, nothing else will do. It just doesn’t work that way, he just needs to nurse more often in order to tell your body to make more milk.” It went on like this for awhile, with some tirades in the middle on how awful commercial formula was.
Meanwhile, in real life, I still had a hungry, overtired, fussy baby who needed to be fed and would not nurse. I knew it was because I’d been sick. I knew once I got to feeling better and eating more that my supply would go back up. I knew that supplementing him once wouldn’t lead to the end of our breastfeeding relationship. I had no access to donor milk at 9 PM at night when I needed something right now. But the “advice” I got was anything but practical: it was the same sort of lactivist nonsense that is thrown at any woman who asks a question like mine.
If you’re wondering, I offered him a bottle of diluted raw milk. He took about an ounce. That was the only time I gave him anything and we resumed exclusive nursing with no problems the next day.
Sure, there are women who ask questions that need to be answered that way. For example, women whose babies are going through growth spurts may behave that way, and supplementing isn’t the answer there (usually). What works for us is to get into a bath together and nurse; the water relaxes both of us so that baby is willing to try harder and the milk lets down faster. Now, that’s a practical piece of advice! May not work for every woman, but it at least takes into consideration that a mother is frustrated and so is her baby.
More recently, someone asked about the fat content of breastmilk, and did it vary based on what you food you ate. Several pumping moms offered their observations that, yes, their milk did have more fat when they ate more fat. This was a helpful conversation for a mom who was curious.
But then one mom said — and several moms “liked” — that we ought not to talk about this, because the idea that breastmilk can change based on what you eat could discourage moms with a poor diet from breastfeeding at all! And we wouldn’t want to discourage them…would we?
Deliberately leaving out information about breastfeeding is no solution to the problem of low breastfeeding rates. If we don’t tell women there’s an adjustment period and that you can feel decidedly sore, and maybe even in pain sometimes, they’ll be shocked and upset when and if they experience it.
Yes, there’s some pain involved when you first start. And no, that doesn’t mean “you’re not doing it right.” Some babies need to be taught to latch properly and may be *almost* right, but not quite. Your breasts may not be accustomed to use and may become chapped and feel tender at latch-on and between feedings. This pain will not last, and if it does, then yes, something’s wrong. (If you still feel any pain after a month, get some help.) I was very sore and aching for a month after my first baby was born, mostly between feedings. I remember that as soon as the pain finally faded, it was time to feed her again. I hated wearing a bra or clothing at all because it compressed my breasts and made the ache worse. But after a month it was gone and never came back.
This is called honesty. And we need to use it, and then help moms deal with it. How will they know what is normal pain and what isn’t? And can you imagine a mother being told “No, of course it doesn’t hurt!” then starting to breastfeed and finding out it does? What will she say? Will she quit because she wasn’t prepared for that? Will she seek help, only to be told, “Then you’re doing it wrong?” How does that help her?
Instead, it would be a better idea to say, “Yes, expect some pain at first. Try using lanolin or coconut oil on your nipples. Don’t wear a bra if you can avoid it. Try cool washcloths or breast gel pads to soothe it. This won’t last.” She’s prepared for the reality…and has tools in her arsenal to deal with it.
With the quality of milk comment, here’s what I have to say about that:
Regardless of the fat or vitamin content of your milk, it contains stem cells, human growth factors, immunities, and other important components that can’t be replicated. The immunoglobin A coats your baby’s intestines in order to help them develop properly. Breastmilk functions as an immune system for a baby who doesn’t have one yet. None of these things can be replaced, so breastmilk is always superior for baby’s health.
But yes. It’s absolutely true that the nutritional quality of your milk is affected by what you eat. If you eat a low fat diet, your milk will be low in fat. If you’re very deficient in vitamin D or magnesium (both common), your milk will be too.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t breastfeed, because breastmilk is about a lot more than just nutrition, as stated above. But how can women know how to fix a problem if they are simply told “Your breastmilk is amazing no matter what?” It’s really a “yes – but” situation.
Thankfully changes are simple. Breastfeeding mothers should eat whole eggs, cooked in butter or bacon grease. They should drink whole milk. These are not difficult changes, and no, they won’t make you fat.
The bottom line is that we need to have a practical understanding of where women are. We need to honestly and openly encourage them and support them. We shouldn’t state facts from a textbook; we should look at a woman’s individual situation and help her to achieve her best possible outcome, whatever that is.
On the opposite side, we shouldn’t lie to women or neglect to mention certain facts because we don’t want to discourage them. We need to be honest and open there too.
Breastfeeding support requires patience, kindness, and an individualistic spirit. Not all women or all situations are the same. Some women really can’t breastfeed (more on this in my book, Breast to Bib, which is coming March 19th). Some women need temporary solutions to make it through — I pumped and used formula to supplement my first baby for six weeks! (Surprised?) — and we went on to stop supplementing and move to exclusive breastfeeding for a few months, and continue to breastfeed for four years (and counting)! What might I have done if someone had told me that pumping in the early weeks instead of nursing directly (she didn’t at all until the 6 week mark) wouldn’t build my supply properly and I had to get her to latch immediately? What if someone had told me that any supplementing would destroy my supply and lead to an early end to our breastfeeding relationship? What if someone had told me she’d get nipple confusion from the bottles and refuse to even try anymore?
Women are told these things all the time.
It’s true that my situation was unusual and a lot of women struggle and end up quitting if they face obstacles like that. But maybe they wouldn’t if they were told, “Do what you need to do to feed your baby and save your sanity; there’s always tomorrow. Keep at it. Nothing is going to ruin you forever.” There will be women who still can’t overcome the obstacles, but probably not as many.
So, let’s talk about it. Let’s support. Let’s be honest and open and stop spouting textbook drivel (unless really needed) and stop hiding issues and refusing to talk. These approaches do nothing. We can make breastfeeding normal and successful by being real!
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Were you shocked to discover that breastfeeding isn’t always as easy as it looks? Or are you a mom-to-be that really hasn’t given it much thought? I had thought that because breastfeeding is “normal” that it just couldn’t be that difficult. I. Was. Wrong. This post is my attempt to share, not just my experiences, but what I’ve learned. My hope is that something I write will someday help another mama. Although I’ve learned many, many things, below are the most important ones.
With my first baby, I KNEW something was wrong. She appeared to be latched on well (as far as I could see), but I was horribly engorged and she was losing weight quickly. By the end of the first week I had called lactation consultants, nurses, the doctor’s office… they all said, “You’re just a new mom. Don’t worry so much. You’re over-reacting.” I didn’t know how to handle that. They were the “experts,” and I was “just” a mom. By the time my baby was ten days old, she was obviously far below her birth weight. I called the doctor’s office and insisted that somebody see me. They finally agreed and we went in.
The doctor weighed her, looked at her chart to see what her birth weight had been and gasped. I clearly had plenty of milk and our baby appeared to be nursing well. Neither of us could figure out what the problem was, but she agreed that whatever it was, it was life-threatening. She decided to try to bottle-feed her as a last-ditch effort before admitting my ten-day-old baby to the hospital for dehydration. When she offered the bottle, we both saw the problem instantly. My baby was flattening her tongue against the roof of her mouth. The only milk she was getting was what dribbled in! The doctor forced her tongue down with the bottle nipple and she downed almost the entire bottle (that is a TON for a newborn!). From that moment on, she latched on perfectly.
Never, never, never let a doctor, nurse or lactation consultant dismiss your concerns. NEVER. My baby could have died because I was considered an over-reacting first-time-mom. If you end up being wrong and everything is fine, who cares?! The real danger is in allowing people to dismiss your concerns when they are valid.
As with my first baby, my second baby wasn’t nursing correctly. I thought that breastfeeding the second baby would be a piece of cake! It wasn’t. Every baby is different and this particular baby couldn’t latch-on. I knew what she should be doing, but I just couldn’t get her to do it! She wouldn’t open her mouth wide enough and her latch was very shallow. I followed all of the “normal” advice and used all of the “tricks”, but nothing helped. Within a week I was bleeding on both sides and just the thought of nursing made me burst into tears. I have had two large babies with no drugs, so I consider myself to be pretty tough. This HURT!
When all of the advice I was getting clearly wasn’t helping, I finally asked my midwife what I should do. She gave me the number of a lactation consultant. I wasn’t very optimistic, but I texted her. I described exactly what was happening (shallow latch, mouth not opening wide, clicking sounds, dimpling cheek) and she said it sounded like either a tongue tie or an upper lip tie. Huh?! She sent me a link with photos, which made it very clear that our baby had an upper lip tie! We took her to the dentist that she recommended and he confirmed a very tight upper lip tie AND a moderate tongue tie! We had both clipped right away, and later that week we went to see a different lactation consultant who has quite a bit of experience in helping with breastfeeding after a lip or tongue tie is clipped.
It took four different people to get us to the point of being able to breastfeed. We are now working with an osteopath recommended by the same lactation consultant who recommended the dentist. After just one appointment, our baby is able to open her mouth wider and nurse longer! Babykins has some issues with muscle and joint tightness, like torticollis, that will take several visits to fix. I’ll be writing a post about our experiences with osteopathy in a few weeks. Without all of these people helping us, I would almost certainly be pumping and bottle-feeding right now. We also received tons of help from my parents and encouragement and prayers from many different people.
I hope that I haven’t scared any of you ladies out there who haven’t had a baby, yet! Please don’t think that it’s always as crazy as my experiences have been. Many, many women never have the slightest problem and I’m very glad of that. However, if I had known how difficult it COULD be, I would have been more prepared. If you are expecting your first baby, here are some ways that you can prepare.
Nourishing a baby from your own body is a beautiful thing and the close bond between a mama and her baby is so precious. It is so important for us ladies to encourage one another during those early days, but it is also important to have compassion for those women who have been unable to breastfeed. If we share our experiences and encourage each other, maybe more women will have the knowledge and support they need to succeed!
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Image by sdminor81
Before I even got pregnant, I knew I would breastfeed. A lot of women go at it open-minded; they would like to try but are okay if it doesn’t work out. But, for me, I HAD to do it. First, I’ll share my experience with breastfeeding newborns, then give you some tips I’ve learned along the way.
Bekah was born at 9:13 PM on January 26th, 2008. There had been some light meconium staining, so they handed her to me for only a few seconds (I absolutely could not believe that such a big, real person had just come from me, and that she was now mine forever!). Then they took her away to clean her up and suction her and test her repeatedly. I know now this was not necessary, but I didn’t know that at the time. They also spent quite awhile sewing me up. They gave her back to me around 10. I didn’t know a thing about breastfeeding other than what I’d read in books and online, but I figured I’d try. So I pulled my hospital gown down and attempted to latch Bekah. She was just staring at me. The look on her face was clearly, “Where AM I?” She had absolutely no interest in breastfeeding; she did not root or even pay attention at all.
Bekah was taken from me again to bathe and not brought back until after midnight, when she was starving and extremely tired. I tried to latch her on, once the nurse had set up the pillows and positioned her, but she just yelled around my breast. Finally the nurse grabbed my breast in one hand and her head in the other and shoved them together. She latched and nursed well, for about 20 minutes. Then she slept for 4 hours, at which point I started to get nervous and tried to feed her again. After that she was wanting to nurse every hour or two. We left around 9:30 that night, just 24 hours after her birth.
I fed her around 10:30 that night, then tried to sleep, but couldn’t, and she wouldn’t. I was up with her most of the night. She was crying and acting hungry, but she wouldn’t nurse lying down, and I felt like I had absolutely nothing for her. Eventually I brought her downstairs around 6 am and held her and let her suck my finger and talked to her, telling her daddy would fix it. At 8, I woke Ben and told him to just give her formula, and I went to bed and crashed. At 10:30 I got up and tried again to feed her.
For the next few days I managed to nurse her a few times a day, with supplements. On day 4 my milk was in but she would not nurse. I tried ALL day but she just cried and cried. I eventually called the nurses after crying for awhile myself, and they told me to feed her however I could. I gave her a bottle of formula and she drank it like a starving child and went to sleep. I couldn’t believe I had inadvertently starved my child.
The next day I was really engorged because she wouldn’t nurse. She would start to, then pull back and scream. We went out that night and bought a good, double electric pump (Medela Pump-in-Style) and I pumped and fed her the milk in a bottle.
For the next six weeks, I continued to pump and bottle feed her. I occasionally tried to get her to latch, but this was met with screams and meltdowns. It took 45 minutes to feed her and she seemed hungry immediately after. I felt like I just didn’t have enough milk for her. Most evenings she was very fussy and seemed hungry, so we ended up supplementing with a bottle of formula. She got usually 2 oz. or so a day. We had gotten Similac milk and soy formulas for free in the mail, so we gave her whichever was closer at the time. At the time I thought soy was healthy (!) and I sort of thought she did better on that (actually…she probably did. Because later she had issues with milk/ cheese and to my knowledge she’s not allergic to soy).
I hated to think of having to pump for a YEAR, my original goal. I couldn’t see that I’d make it. So at 6 weeks I said, enough. I was determined to get her to latch. Suddenly, though, she didn’t scream when I tried to nurse her. I could nurse her lying down. I was in a lot of pain from the unaccustomed sucking, but I managed. The pain only lasted about 10 weeks, and was worst after a feeding. I felt so sore and anything touching my nipples at all was unbearable, for about an hour after each feeding. Just when I was feeling better, it would be time to feed her again. But, we made it through.
It couldn’t be that easy, though. I was not eating well and I was so depleted that when she was three months old, I felt awful all the time. I was tired, I had no energy, and I had horrible joint pain. I felt like she was “stealing my essence” every time I nursed (I’d felt this way, minus the joint pain, the whole time — and several times in the first few weeks I begged Ben to just take her away and give her formula and leave me alone). A year still seemed like an awfully long time. I was afraid to carry her around because I was in so much pain, I thought I’d drop her. Right after that I started to take a multivitamin and within a few days, the joint pain was gone. This was the start of my journey to a healthier lifestyle.
I grew annoyed with breastfeeding so often, even after we resolved the struggles. Bekah wanted to eat every hour usually. Two hours without a feeding was unusual. Sometimes it was less than an hour. She slept better at night, but still was waking to eat at least once (which of course is normal, but I didn’t know that). I felt like my whole life was taken over by breastfeeding. I was willing to let her nurse so often because I figured it would increase my supply — but it never seemed to. She was always hungry.
By 18 weeks (just after 4 months), I’d had enough and I started her on solids. This quickly became her main source of nutrition, at least for several months, although she continued breastfeeding. She still breastfeeds now, at 20 months. After she was a year, she breastfed more often than she had from 4 – 12 months, and still does. Probably half of her nutrition now comes from breastfeeding, at least some days.
Image by diathesis
Then there was Daniel. He was born at home, and was able to latch on with 10 minutes of his birth. He seemed to know exactly what to do, and even unlatched himself and re-latched when he hadn’t done it right the first time. He nursed for 40 minutes! Then he fell asleep for 11 hours. After that, he nursed about every 3 hours. I always felt like I had plenty of milk, even before my mature milk was in. Once my milk did come in, I was so full all the time that I was begging for a baby or toddler, SOMEONE to feed! I begged for a pump sometimes, but never needed one as Bekah was quite effective and happy to nurse!
Daniel’s three months now, and he has never had anything but breastmilk, straight from the breast. I’ve never pumped for him, never tried a bottle. At this point, we’ll probably wait another month and then introduce a sippy cup with a small amount of water or pumped milk (if I feel like it). He’ll never get a bottle, though.
The only problem I’ve had is when Daniel was 11 weeks, I had clogged milk duct and my left breast was very sore for a few days. I massaged it, put hot compresses on it, nursed frequently (usually Bekah, as she’s more efficient and can get more of the breast in her mouth), and took some lecithin. The problem resolved itself in about two days.
I learned several things about breastfeeding from these experiences:
*I had a forceful letdown, which is common in women with large breasts. This makes the baby gulp and choke and it upsets newborns a lot. It was why Bekah screamed, and why she could handle it when she was a bit older and bigger. You can nurse lying on your back so that gravity doesn’t help the milk flow faster to help solve this problem, or use a nipple shield (see a lactation consultant for specific help).
*Drugs used during labor CAN affect your ability to produce milk. They don’t affect all women that way, but I believe that was a factor for me.
*Eating a good diet, rich in healthy fats, is necessary for producing a good milk supply (when I was pregnant, I noticed I had more milk for Bekah when I’d eaten a lot of fat).
*The struggles are worth it to be able to breastfeed your baby.
Please visit Kelly Mom, or see a local lactation consultant for more help. The La Leche League can also be a good place for help.
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