Baby Feeding Journey

I have been hesitant to write my experience this time. I have been sharing bits and pieces of it on Instagram but honestly this third time has been anything but easy and has caused me more “mom guilt” than any of the other two combined. I imagined this time to be so easy. To be the smoothest of them all. Mentally I was prepared for the early day struggles, I knew what I was in for and I underestimated that the battle could be completely different this time around and it was. A little back story will help and then we will get into where we are at now. I will also preface this with the fact I breastfed both the boys for a year each, not without challenges, but with relative ease once we got going. In my mind there was no other option for baby number three and if I’m being honest that is where most of my guilt currently lies. Anyways, let’s start at the beginning . . .

Scottie latched perfectly, my milk came, we were good to go. It seemed so easy and so lovely and I was very glad it was all working so well from the get-go. She cluster fed those first nights and I really thought we had the worst of it behind us and we would have an easy journey from then on. Well, that was not the case. It was not working. She was not getting enough milk. My letdown was slow (my milk didn’t pour out fast enough into her mouth), she was lazy and she was dehydrated by day four of her little life. If you have had a baby and know the early hormones post baby and what a wild ride they are, you will understand when I tell you I was sobbing, hysterical and devastated over this and felt beyond awful. I was letting down baby girl already and she was not even a week old. Thankfully we (I) was able to quickly get her back on track by pumping and bottle feeding her and on we went. She took the bottles easily, she started pooping and peeing properly again and everything was okay within 24 hours. I went back to trying to breastfeed as quickly as possible but there was trouble in paradise. We saw a lactation consultant only a few days after and as it turns out there was absolutely no reason Scottie was not breastfeeding. She just was not. Her latch was good, her mouth was great, her ability to suck and so on was all what it needed to be. But it was not working. We spent hours and hours trying different positions, techniques, nipple shields, the list goes on. Nothing worked. GREAT. So I decided to continue to pump and trying to breastfeed in between pumping. The amount of time it takes attempt to breastfeed, then pump, then bottle feed, the sterilize, and then repeat is one of the most mentally exhausting experiences I’ve ever been through (and I did this for two months with Beau so I was prepared for this but still, it ain’t fun). BUT I thought there was no way we were not going to get it. She would do it and we would be fine. One month later and three lactation appointments more. Nothing. Still pumping and bottling. If you have exclusively pumped before and not felt absolute dread the entire time you are some kind of superhero because it is the most exhausting and daunting task I have ever had to do. I want to note that maybe if I had no other children and no job and no business to run I could have felt more secure it doing this full-time all the time. But when you have two other young children and a beyond full-time career with no maternity leave, the requirement to pump 8+ times a day while also attempting to BF in-between and care for the newborn infant all at once, well it is, in my opinion, impossible. It honestly is a special kind of torture. However, I was lucky enough to have my husband home this summer on paternity leave so I told myself I would continue to pump because it was, for the time being, manageable, and what I felt was best for baby girl.

Just before the two month pumping mark my pump started to act up. It is the pump I have had through both the boys and has been well used and, to be frank, is just ancient. I knew I needed a new one but I was unsure what I was doing so just decided to keep using it as I figured we would be done with it so soon. Not the case and on a morning of many scheduled buying appointments in Toronto I got up early to get one pump in before I would be doing it all day on the road and boom it wasn’t working. Nothing I was fiddling with made a difference and it had me in absolute hysterics. I finally got it going after almost an hour of attempts and at this point I was a wreck. I was so off and felt stressed out on another level. My mental health was suffering so badly from the constant pumping and I feel like it was just robbing me of all the joy of my perfect newborn. This helped aid in my decision to decrease my pumping sessions and maybe do a little supplementing with formula. I did have quite a large freezer stash so I knew she wouldn’t need a lot but at the same time we were about to go on a vacation and I was also not going to be transporting frozen milk with me. Long story short after a lot of tears and feeling an insane amount of guilt I started to reduce my pumping sessions and honestly have never felt more relieved. All of the sudden my entire day did not revolve around whether or not I would be able to pump at every appropriate time. I was able to breath for a second and realize she was going to be fine either way and my goodness I cannot tell you how great that felt. Am I still sad that she won’t breastfeed? Yes. Does it bother me I could not make it happen when I did it for my other two children? Absolutely yes. But truthfully there was nothing else I could do. Girlfriend is a diva and that has nothing to do with me (well the diva part probably does but you know what I mean).

Where we are at now . . .

Scottie is four months old this week. I pump 2-3 (usually 2) times a day. Morning and Night. She gets a fresh bottle each time I pump, or half of one at least as my supply seems to be dipping, and her other feeds come from either my frozen supply or formula. When we are out and about formula is the easiest option for us so typically that is what we do. Some days she gets only breastmilk, other days she gets 50/50, and some days she gets mostly formula. It is working for all of us and for that I am grateful. She has not skipped a beat in the slightest and is thriving. Her weight is in the 50th percentile and her height is in the 97th so baby girl is gonna be tall like her mama!

In sharing this all of this, although a personal topic, I hope to help normalize the struggles of feeding a baby. It is not easy. Even my third round where I feel the most confident in my role as a mom it is still insanely hard. Breastfeeding doesn’t just come naturally for everyone. It does not always work the way you hope it will. Sometimes this feels like such a loss, and it can be so hard for you to mentally prepare for something like this before you have a baby and experience it for yourself. But just know once you are in it, whatever you have to do is okay. As long as your baby is fed and loved they are going to do great and so are you! I have to keep repeating this to myself because even now, although I am happy with my decision, I still find myself having days filled with lots of doubt and guilt. Being a mom is hard enough and the last thing we all need is to feel added mom guilt for things we should not feel guilty for because trust me when I say there is plenty of other things to beat yourself up about down the line LOL.

Happy Monday mamas, thanks for being here! Love ya, mean it, see ya later!

xo