Got Milk: Breastfeeding, Part 1

One of the big unknowns for me about actually having my baby was breastfeeding.  We learned about it in my prenatal class, but it's kind of hard to really feel prepared....  So I have a few posts for you about nursing.  If you're not ready to think about it yet, just skip these and come back later.

I was really lucky that breastfeeding worked well with Jack.  It's not that it never hurt, or that I didn't have any frustrating moments.  But overall, the whole experience was as good as I ever could have hoped (and obviously Jack thinks so too, since he's still going strong with no signs of weaning fourteen months later...).  I know that's not everyone's experience, and I have a lot of respect for women who stick with it even when it's tough.

I found this posted today on Today's Parent, and it has a lot of what I was going to say about nursing, so I thought I would just include the link instead of restating everything.

http://www.todaysparent.com/blogs/tracys-mama-memoirs/5-things-i-wish-id-known-about-breastfeeding

Really, it's hard to prepare for what it will be like. One thing I would add is to buy at least a couple of loose shirts you can nurse in and a couple of soft nursing bras (the softer, the better. The girls are sore). I'm not sure why I didn't buy anything like that before Jack was born, but I regretted it after.  I also should have bought a night bra or some nursing pyjamas.  That would have saved me a whole lot of milk-soaked laundry....

I think the other really important point the article makes is that, at the end of the day, the goal is to have a well-fed baby. If breastfeeding is making you miserable and interfering with your bonding time, it might be time to stop. Enjoying your baby is the most important thing.

Did You Know....?

Newborns are fascinating little creatures.  Here's one of the amazing (and weird) things about them.

I was a bit nervous about how breastfeeding would go, especially in the first few days.  It's one of those things I felt like I couldn't really prepare for.  I was worried my baby wouldn't be able to latch and then would starve...Then one of my doctors told me this weird (and strangely reassuring) little factoid:

Babies are born with something called brown fat.  It's the same thing bears have in their bodies that allows them to hibernate (true story). As humans, we only have brown fat for the first few days of our lives and then never again. Since a woman's milk doesn't come in right away after giving birth, nature has given newborns extra fuel to burn in those early days. In fact, babies can basically live off just that fat for two or three days.

It's like nature is saying "it's ok if you need some time to get this nursing thing going.  This baby is going to be just fine."

Crazy, eh?

Thought of the Day

We all spend time comparing ourselves to others.  I'm not sure exactly why we do (maybe to see where we fit in the world?) but I'm confident that everyone has compared themselves to someone else at some point.

As a mom, there are days I wonder about how I stack up to other moms.  Am I making the right choices?  Is it bad that I don't use only cloth diapers, or that I do use jars of baby food?  Do I read to my baby enough?  Should I spend time teaching him names of colours or what sounds animals make?  Am I enough?

Those questions are bad enough when you're just asking them of yourself.  But when you add other moms into the picture, it's always worse.  Other moms seem more rested, better dressed and more put together.  They bake, craft, and make all their own baby food, diapers, and toys.  Their babies use sign language, can name and imitate every animal at the zoo, eat only organics, sleep 12 hours a night (which they started doing at three weeks old), and are learning to read.

Being a mom can be really empowering, but it can also highlight all your insecurities.  You become strong in one way, and completely vulnerable in another.

So I have a new mantra for those insecure days.  I read it somewhere, so maybe you've seen it to.  It's the best reminder I have found to stop from getting down on myself when those "Maybe I should be ..." thoughts creep up:

"The reason we struggle with insecurities is that we spend time comparing our behind-the-scenes to everyone else's highlight reel."

So when you have one of those days as a mom, try thinking about that idea.  Then tell yourself you are enough -- so much more than enough.