My breastfeeding journey
Before I found out that I was pregnant with my daughter I thought I wouldn't breastfeed. The thought of breastfeeding felt odd to me. But maybe part of it was that I was young and still getting used to my adult body. I got pregnant when I was 22 and early on in pregnancy I decided that of course I wanted to breastfeed. I don't know what happened, it was like it changed from one day to another, maybe it was the pregnancy hormones. During my pregnancy I read lots of books, most of them about birth but one was specifically about breastfeeding.
When my daughter was born there was no question, I was going to breastfeed, and I did. Unfortunately I had read books, mostly from the US, saying babies should eat every 3-4 hours so there was a lot of crying in the beginning of my daughter's life. It wasn't until she was a couple of weeks old that I stopped looking at the clock and started listening to my intuition when it came to caring for her. Cosleeping, feeding when she wanted and just being in the moment more.
But before I got to that, let's backtrack. When I got home with my two day old daughter from the hospital I can't remember anyone saying she would need to feed all the time for a couple of days before she would calm down and the milk supply had increased. I was told to breastfeed freely, but no one explained to me what that really meant. So when a Midwife came to our house to check up on us and take a routine blood test I was exhausted. I had gone up at night, sat in my rocking chair with my breastfeeding pillow, holding my tiny 2,8 kilo baby trying to breastfeed. My whole nipples were bloody. Both of them. Breastfeeding was painful. The Midwife showed me how to breastfeed lying down; a game changer! And because she thought my daughter had a yellow tint to her skin (sigh of newborn jaundice) she suggested I give my daughter a bit of formula. She handed me a small package of ready mixed formula and told me to give her some on a teaspoon. That decision I know now meant that my daughter wasn't fully breastfeed statistically. There is a decrease in breastfeeding in Sweden because of things like this. But this is a rant that I will spare you of, today.
So I gave my daughter a little formula. Not much, maybe ½ deciliter in total, maybe less. And I continue to struggle with breastfeeding. One night I sat crying holding her thinking "I'd rather give birth again than to breastfeed." Her father tried to convince me that I should just give her formula instead, he wasn't breastfed and didn't see the big deal. But I was determined to make it work. Something inside of me just told me to continue.
Even though every time I breastfed the scabs on my nipples came off and they would bleed again, I continued. I only laid down and breastfed and that helped my daughter's latch on the nipple to become better and over time my nipples healed. There was such a gradual change that when my daughter was around six weeks breastfeeding worked quite well and I couldn't remember when it had become better. She gained weight, pooped a lot, grew out of her clothes and was a happy baby.
I breastfed until she was four months. Then she started waking up more at night so the nurse at BVC suggested I start giving her porridge at night. She specifically said "I am not supposed to tell you to start until she is six months old, but you can start now." So I did. Knowing what I know now I wish she would have supported me through this phase that my daughter was going through. She could have told me that it was normal, that maybe it was a growth spur or a developmental spur, they come and go, and that this too would pass. Instead she suggested that I go against what that World Health Organization recommends, which is exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months.
My breastfeeding journey with my daughter ended when she was nine months. She was eating more and more solids and I had introduced her to this milk porridge that is common in Sweden called Valling. She took her bottle and night and others could feed her so I think I wasn't bothered with breastfeeding less and less. One day we just stopped. It wasn't planned, it just kind of happened.
What I wish I would have known throughout this is that it's normal to breastfeed at night past a year. That breast milk does not cause cavities. That the WHO recommends breastfeeding for two years and beyond. That there is nothing weird with breastfeeding children past the age of one. That there are so many health benefits that come with breastfeeding. And that babies have periods when they may want to breastfeed less, that doesn't mean you have to stop.
When my daughter got older learned a lot more about breastfeeding and knew that my approach would be very different if I decided to have more children. And it was. Maybe I will share more about breastfeeding my sons in the future.
