I am
currently nursing my fourth child who is seven months old. I have exclusively
breastfeed all of my children. I have been fortunate enough to not have to give
any of my children a single drop of formula.
I treasure the time I have spent nursing my
babies. My oldest is six years old and I have been pregnant and/or nursing
since he was born. When my oldest was born I knew I wanted to breastfeed
despite not being around anyone other than my sister in law who has breastfed.
It wasn’t something that was commonplace in my family. My grandmother didn’t
nurse and my mother didn’t nurse me either. I was told it would be difficult,
but I was up for the challenge.
My oldest struggled with his latch at first
and there were a lot of tears from both him and me in the first month of
nursing. I had to use a nipple shield at first and he screamed every time it
was time to feed. We fought each other for what seemed like hours for him to
latch. I was determined to stick with it and my perseverance paid off. We were
able to ditch the nipple shield and I nursed him for sixteen months until I
became pregnant with my second. Looking back I realize now after having nursed
four babies that I had an oversupply and overactive letdown so he was
overeating and didn’t fit into the fifteen minutes on each side every three
hours nursing expectation.
The next go
around with my second I knew that five minutes on one side was all she needed
to get enough milk because of my overactive let down. She was a much happier
nursling. Everything went much smoother the second go around because I was more
confident in knowing exactly what my baby needed even if it wasn’t what the
books said.
Since then I’ve nursed all my babies on
demand. Another thing that has changed from nursing my first baby to now the
fourth, is how much more comfortable I am nursing in public. There really is
something to the whole #normalize breastfeeding
campaign. I wasn’t exposed to anyone nursing in public therefore I thought with
my first that I had to nurse before we left the house, in the car, or if we
were out and about I would find a fitting room to nurse him. Fast-forward to
two kids and that was less feasible. I now nurse whenever baby is hungry and
wherever that happens to be. I wish I could go back in time and tell my one
child self that it was ok to nurse in public because it is a natural, beautiful
thing that might even empower someone else to do the same when they see other
moms nursing in public.
In total I have nursed 54 months and counting.
Nursing is hard work, but as with most things if you put in the hard work you
reap the benefits. The benefits of nursing are numerous for both mom and baby.
I can’t remember what life was like before nursing and I won’t know what to do
with myself when I’m not nursing anymore. I get sad thinking about when my
nursing journey will end and how much I’m going to miss those extra calories I
get to use each day.
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