Breastfeeding is hard and yet so beautiful. Breastfeeding gives you this irreplaceable bond with your baby. It is time for just the two of you. You can relax and enjoy this special time with your baby. Breastfeeding will give you a special way to bond with your baby. I am not judging anybody who is not breastfeeding. Happy mummy=Happy baby When you are pregnant everybody is telling you how should breastfeed your baby. You read so many articles about breastfeeding to learn as much as possible. You may even attend a breastfeeding class (I know I did). Everything you read and hear gives you just a basic idea about breastfeeding. They tell you that it's hard and that it hurts, but to be honest, they sugar coat it. When you hear that it hurts you think "Ah yeah it hurts, of course, it does", but it bloody hurts like hell.
When I was pregnant, I knew that I would like to breastfeed and I thought that it would be so easy. Honestly, for me, breastfeeding was so challenging. At the start, every day I was thinking about how I am going to give up how I can't make it, how it hurts! To be completely honest at moments, I felt like I was letting down my baby if I didn't breastfeed her (hormones do their thing). When it comes to breastfeeding related "problems", we've had it all from thrush to tongue-tie, mastitis, oversupply, cracked nipples, vasospasm and nursing strike. Luckily, my baby absolutely hated the bottle and I had to breastfeed her (it's true when they say that babies are so smart). Eventually, it becomes so simple and easy. Around babies 3 months of age, the pain disappeared and breastfeeding became a part of me. As my baby is growing up and is nursing less, I am a bit sad that we don't get 'our moments' as often. She is now too busy doing other stuff.
At the start, breastfeeding is a time-consuming babies nurse often. I remember my sister in law telling me that she gave up because she felt like she didn't have time for anything. Luckily, my baby was never nursing every hour; she always had a nice schedule and slept great during the night (excluding the sleep regression phase).
Our most challenging stage during breastfeeding was the tongue tie and thrush. We fought thrush for around 3 months. I tried absolutely everything, every cream and alternative medicine that exists. And then one day it was just gone. The tongue tie was another major issue. My baby had a very bad tongue tie that was released the second day in the hospital. However, it reattached. After 2 months we had another tongue-tie release but this time a successful one.
Today, my baby girl is 7 and half months old and exclusively breastfed. I have to admit I am so proud of us. I never thought that we would make it this far. My initial goal was to breastfeed for at least 6 months exclusively.
Both of us were stubborn and pushed through all problems and are still enjoying breastfeeding. My heart stops everything when I think that she will stop breastfeeding soon enough. The time flies when you become a mummy. It feels like yesterday when we were heading to the hospital.
I am not writing this to scare you. I am writing this to encourage you and "prepare" that it is hard but so worth it. You will enjoy every second of it.
I will be writing more posts about breastfeeding and try to tackle all of the issues we had individually. I hope that it will help somebody and motivate you to keep going because breastfeeding is so worth it.