Breastfeeding: What I Didn’t Expect When I Was Expecting
April 18, 2007 by Angela White, J.D., breastfeeding counselor
Filed under advantages of breastfeeding, breastfeeding, carnival, mothering, pregnancy
Stay tuned below for contributions from several breastfeeding bloggers on today’s theme: “What I didn’t expect when I was expecting.” Feel free to leave your own comment about what you didn’t expect about breastfeeding — good or bad!
When I was pregnant, I did a lot of reading about breastfeeding. I made a commitment to breastfeed as it clearly was the best thing for my baby. What I didn’t expect was that breastfeeding would become so much more than my baby’s source of nutrition. It served as:
~ pacifier
~ sleep inducer
~ pain reliever
~ immunity booster (I knew about this one, but I didn’t know I’d be so extremely grateful for this when the entire family had stomach flu and my daughter was the least sick of all of us.)
It took a while for both me and my baby to get the hang of breastfeeding, but once we did, breastfeeding became:
~ a quiet and restful time for both of us.
~ easier than bottle-feeding, by far! I didn’t have to prepare bottles in the night or pack a diaper bag full of ice and artificial milk when I went out during the day.
~ a good transition to solid foods. The flavors in the breast milk made my baby more receptive to solids when she was ready. At the same time, breast milk remained a significant source of my child’s nutrition.
~ something that would make my baby smile and giggle in anticipation!
I didn’t expect that I would ever want to nurse beyond one year. I didn’t realize that there would be huge advantages to toddler nursing. Breastfeeding became:
~ the key to taming tantrums instantly.
~ the only means to get my toddler to nap when even a car ride wouldn’t get her to nod off.
~ my toddler’s favorite way of reconnecting after a separation.
~ a big part of my mothering style.
I realize that not all mothers come to feel that way about breastfeeding, and that’s okay. It’s okay to take breastfeeding one day at a time. It’s okay to see what breastfeeding becomes for you and your baby!
Stay tuned for more contributions (see the underlined links) as they come in from:
~ Tanya at the Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog recalls the big changes that breastfeeding brought in her life
~ Sinead at BreastfeedingMums looks back over her seven years as a mother and shares what she wishes she’d known
~ Andi at Mama Knows Breast lists her top 10 things she didn’t expect
~ Jennifer at The Lactivist shares what she wishes someone would have told her
and our special guest contributors this month (blogs in alphabetical order):
~ Shelly at Adventures of a Breastfeeding Mother tells us what she didn’t expect about breastfeeding
~ Down with the Kids reflects back on breastfeeding as she weans her son in her post “Goodbye Booby”
~ Ashlee at New Mama’s Nest shares what she didn’t expect when breastfeeding her “early bird”
~ Heather at The Spice Choir talks about how breastfeeding changed her social interactions and connectivity
~ Melanie from Spit-Up on My Shoulder is a postpartum doula who has written a book entitled Why Didn’t Anyone Tell Me? True Stories of New Motherhood
~ Rixa at The True Face of Birth shares how doing her homework helped her have a pleasurable breastfeeding experience
Photo credit: Johan Cloete
What a lovely photograph!
I must admit I was one of those “Breastfeeding is natural, how hard could it be?” people. Especially since my mom had breastfed twins with no remarks about difficulty. I read everything and prepared completely for my natural birth and it was a wonderful experience, but I made no preparations for breastfeeding. Then, after my son was born, I just kept saying “breastfeeding is really hard!”
Nothing about it was intuitive and I felt totally confused and worried that my baby wasn’t getting enough to eat. This is especially funny to me now, since at 3 months he weighed 17 lb!
The thing that surprised me most about breastfeeding was the deep level of communication that I had developed with my baby. I honestly don’t think that you get to *know* your baby in the same way with bottle feeding. That feeling of unintuitive confusion in the beginning forced me to hone my intuition and pay close attention to my son.
And, of course, there’s the amazing joy that nursing brings to him.
I don’t think Id know how to be a mother without the help of breastfeeding. Obviously people do it, but for me I think it would be 1000 times harder.
Well said, Eilat! I feel the same way about breastfeeding becoming a part of mothering.
A second on the flu immunity! Last month the flu bug went through everyone in our house one way or another; my parents, and two siblings, plus my husband, daughter, and myself. My daughter got it the day after my sister but the day before her father and I. The minute she woke up that day, she sat up and wretched. I was so afraid the rest of the day would be horrible. It turned out to be so much better than I could have expected. Though she threw up several times throughout the day, the rest of the time she was her happy self, walking outside, nursing, playing. Incredible! The next day she spent most of her time with my father while my husband and I lay on respective couches and were sick and my mother took care of us.
I thought breastfeeding seemed so alien to me before my baby! But I really wanted to do it because I didn’t want to use formula. The more I learned about it, the more it made sense. I never see anyone breastfeeding in my neck of the woods, so it really seemed foreign. But the minute my baby was born, I knew I didn’t want to do things any other way. He’s almost a year old now, and I’ll probably extend my plans to breastfeed. Originally, I was aiming for a year. Now that that time is so near, I can’t stand the idea of weaning! It’s such a bonding time.