Comments on: When to give up on breastfeeding

By: Beccy

Beccy — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 20:40:20 +0000

I agree that 2 weeks is way too short. I have breastfed 3 kids for 3y3m , 2y6m and 2y9m and still ongoing. But the first 5 weeks with my eldest were hell. He fed non-stop because I didn’t know the difference between comfort sucking (little fluttery motions, less frequent swallowing) and drinking seriously (more frequent swallowing), then he got a rotten latch from a tiny dummy that I gave him at 2 weeks because I was too embarrassed to nurse in public in a mall. I was in so much pain I thought I had thrush. Luckily I was completely stubborn, had good advice, and read a lot, so I never messed with the supply-and-demand of breastfeeding, and so I didn’t encounter supply dips like many of my friends. Interestingly, when I told my son’s nanny (who is African – we live in South Africa) that my friend gave up because she didn’t have enough milk for her baby, the nanny looked at me in complete bewilderment. She was a 45 year old grandmother and have never come across the concept of milk shortage. In her community it just doesn’t exist.

By: Rossa

Rossa — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 14:05:14 +0000

Women in the western world are spoiled brats. The sight of their sagging breasts hurts most, not the baby biting their nipple. My wife breast fed for a month only, I was pissed. My son is not going to get the full benefits of breast milk.

By: Sian

Sian — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 19:23:34 +0000

I’m a bit late to the party here, I know! I liked your post. I agreed with everything, especially your reason for writing it. It took 3, miserable, painful, yet well supported months (Surestart and la leche league volunteers) to get my daughter’s feeding established. I don’t regret persevering, for the joy (and magic wand) it’s brought to us both. I only have a comment for your sentence “It is normal for it to be difficult, but with the right type of support most moms can overcome those difficulties.” I would suggest it’s ‘common’, but that doesn’t mean it’s ‘normal’ to have weeks of difficulties breastfeeding. It’s more common than it should be for reasons including childbirth practices, cultural/social practices, infant feeding practices etc. Breastfeeding should be easy. When we can remove out all the obstacles in our culture for new mum’s hopefully these difficulties will be less common.

By: Renee

Renee — Mon, 02 May 2011 23:25:32 +0000

I too had a hard time breastfeeding. My son had a birth accident and was in the NICU for 6 days (they told us it would be a month!) While there, the hospital was totally unhelpful in terms of getting pumping started for him (he was in the NICU in a different hospital from he one I delivered in). It took them over 12 hours to get me a pump. Luckily, my milk supply ended up being crazy high. When I was released, I stayed at his hospital day and night, trying to nurse when they would let me, every 3 hours. The lactation consultants there (all 4 I saw there) were very unhelpful, insisting from the beginning that I needed a nipple shield. Of course they bottle-fed him formula in the NICU even though I said I’d feed him with a spoon, an eye dropper, anything but a bottle. They said it was a bottle or a nasal-gastric tube. Great choice. Anyway, after he came home we had 2 more LC’s and in the end he never latched on well enough to get enough nutrition. We even had to take him to the ER at 2 weeks because he lost a bunch of weight and was peeing red. I pumped for 13 months around the clock until my supply just dwindled too much. After he left the ER, he got nothing but breast milk until he started solid food at 6 months. I’m glad that I tried so hard, but I am sad that I did not have a nursing relationship with him. He was never my nursling. He’s almost 3 now, has gotten sick almost never so far, and we are very close, but I feel that he and I missed out on something very special.

By: Orsi

Orsi — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 16:47:36 +0000

It took about 3 months to get established with breastfeeding my first. After a lot of useless advice from the midwives, who were truly less than helpful unfortunately, I ended up turning to the internet and came across Kellymom.com, which is what saved my breastfeeding relationship. I feel that more training needs to be given to healthcare professionals in regards to breastfeeding, and a whole lot more support needs to be given to new mothers.

By: Erin

Erin — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 18:14:55 +0000

Wow. I haven’t read all your posts but I’ve read several and this one is by far the best (the most helpful)! I’ve had nothing but issues trying to breastfeed my babies. It’s going better with my second than with my first but I still don’t seem to produce enough milk to adequately feed her – as a result, I offer her a bottle with formula once she can’t get anything else from my boobs. This post reaffirms my persistence to stick with bfing as much as I can regardless of the pain, frustration and how much easier formula feeding would be. And, regardless of how many women in my sphere of influence suggest I give up (my second is now 2 months old). I should give credit to my supportive husband – the only real support I have. He supports me in whatever method I choose to feed our baby, but tells me regularly how proud he is of me for bfing and how he thinks I’m doing such a great job. He backs up his words with being as helpful as he can to me and with our toddler. I’m sure if I didn’t have his support I’d have given up on bfing between the 2-3 week mark when I was the most sleep-deprived and the pain was at its worst. Between you and my husband, I get what I need to stay the course. Thank you

By: Kathy

Kathy — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 17:11:27 +0000

Keep giving good advice, it is not easy and it is so tempting to throw in the towel especially during the early days of parenting when you are so dang tired and those free formula samples are sitting around.

I get so discouraged when I hear of someone giving up….. often like your commentor who had people around her giving bad advise and steering her to the formula. there are so many options and lactation consultants and advocates that are more than willing to try and give tips, tricks and advice.

Even though it is something natural – it still is learned for both momma and baby and sometimes not easy BUT SO WORTH THE EFFORT.

Thanks for your honesty.

Kathy

By: Mo

Mo — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 16:47:23 +0000

Yes, I was lucky to maybe get one oz from both breasts combined, I just didn’t bother after a while. I did find that a manual pump actually worked a lot better for me than my pump in style, but everyone is different. My second son would never take a bottle anyhow, which I guess worked out in the end with my difficulty in getting anything out.

This was a great post. I had severe difficulties with nursing my first son. When the midwives checked out my son’s latch they went on and on about how well he was nursing, etc. By the time he was 5 days old I was bleeding every time he’d nurse and I’d just cringe and cry each time he latched on. And what was worse was that I was being told to nurse him as often as I could since he was pretty severely jaundiced. I saw an LC who really didn’t help me at all. It wasn’t till I broke down a sobbing mess in the pediatrician’s waiting room when the nurse asked me how everything was going that she finally helped me to figure out what was going on. Tiny little lower lip tucked in. Took me several weeks to finally heal up after that, but thank god I had the support I did or I would have given up so much sooner. I went on to nurse into toddlerhood and loved every minute of it. And now I’m onto a new nursing relationship with my second son, currently 18 months old. Having the proper support, a partner or spouse who tells you that you can do and not to give up, is soooo important. If my husband or pediatrician had just once told me it was okay to just give him formula I would have done it in a heartbeat, despite how important it was to me to breastfeed.

By: JS

JS — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 16:37:32 +0000

It took me well over 3 months with my oldest to work out our issues, and I was given BAD advise. I was told to supplement with formula because he was not getting enough from my milk, instead of being told to increase my iron intake, eat oatmeal, heavier meals, eat better.. etc. I lacked a lot of fat in my milk, and he was a thin, tall baby, just like I was. Hence the bad advise. They figured he’d fatten up at the 2 week mark and he did not.

With baby #2, it was a breeze besides the fact his mouth is just so gosh darn tiny. I still have problems latching him sometimes at night and he’s 16 months now – with teeth!

My biggest supporter, were friends and online websites, and my husband. No one else. Even now the pediatricians think I am “the crazy American” for breastfeeding past 6 months, past 12 months and past 24 months.

By: Olivia

Olivia — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 20:51:27 +0000

I too am having major problems with breastfeeding…..we’re 7 weeks in now, and it’s so hard not to give up, but I’m too stubborn to give up with the progress we’ve made! I hope to eventually exclusively breastfeed, and I really hope that that’s not just a pipe dream!