My son, Nolan, was born February of 2014. My goal was to breastfeed Nolan until he was at least one year old.
I had breastfed my oldest for 6 weeks, but being a single mom and not having a lot of knowledge and support made it difficult. He was given formula to help him gain weight shortly after leaving the hospital.
Eight years later I had my daughter. I had done a lot of reading and had an online support group for breastfeeding. I was able to breastfeed her until she was 7-8 months old when I was 2-3 months pregnant with her little brother. I was on medication for the nausea and vomiting that caused my milk to dry up. I had intended on tandem feeding them, but once he was born she didn't remember how to latch.
When my youngest was born, he breastfed about an hour immediately after his birth. He was the first one that I didn't really struggle with getting to latch. I was still connected with my online support group. However Nolan had pretty bad reflux so when he was 2 months old I went dairy free to help improve his reflux. It did indeed help and it also helped give me the motivation to continue because we didn't want to have him on soy formula and he couldn't have dairy. I went back to work when Nolan was 6 weeks old and pumped 4-5 times a day to get him what he needed.
There were times where we barely made it with the amount of milk he'd need the next day as I never had the huge stock pile of milk in the freezer, but we made it. We made it to a year and continued on past a year. Breastfeeding is very hard work, but it is worth it, especially in the middle of the night when you can just latch and go back to sleep. It was also nice always having food with us so there was less in the diaper bag. The right knowledge and support make all the difference in the world.
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