My Five Breastfeeding Mistakes

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All throughout my pregnancy with Little A I knew that I wanted to breastfeed not because of what is fuelled down our throats ‘Breast is best’ but because everyone around me had successfully breastfed their children and I wanted to give it a go, I myself was breastfed for three years.

I liked the idea of mother’s milk containing anti bodies and the fact that it changed overtime to suit your baby, baby has a cold, the milk would change to help her, it’s summer so the milk would turn watery to accommodate baby’s thirst and so much more – what more could I want for my baby! I won’t go into more details of the benefits of breastfeeding as we hear it all the time.

Nevertheless, naïve old me prodded along the pregnancy without doing any research into breastfeeding. It never crossed my mind that I should because breastfeeding is a wonderful and natural experience, you just pop the baby on and that’s it! This is a mistake or what I prefer to call a  sin that I committed which I regret till this day and I know I probably will till the end of time.

By the end of this post, you probably think I am the most stupid person in the world but regardless of what you think I want to share my experience with you all because if any of you or anyone around you intend to breastfeed the little ones, you don’t make the same mistakes that I did.

So here goes… this is long so go and grab a cup of tea and a biscuit first!

Little A and I didn’t have the best of beginnings, she had a 4 day neonatal stay and I was left disabled unable to visit (you can read the details here). Due to her Jaundice even when I was at the hospital with her I was told by the Doctors that she needed formula to help her otherwise such and such can happen. With her being my Rainbow baby and being already poked with needles and drips, my mind took a u-turn for the negative and I just said ‘you obviously know better than me, just help her get better please,’.

Even though, I now know that some breastfed babies who end up with Jaundice don’t need formula at all, they just need time – I still don’t regret my decision on agreeing to give her formula at NICU because I just wanted to avoid the worst case scenario.

I still had the intention to breastfeed.

When I had been at the hospital I thought I was doing well because feeding her did help get her sugar levels up but I guess the jaundice and me being ordered to go home hindered our journey from the very beginning.

Little A came home on 28th February and I fed her all night, she wouldn’t settle and I thought my milk wasn’t enough, it was only day 4 so maybe it hadn’t come properly so ended up giving 30ml of formula that the hospital had given.

MISTAKE No1!

The baby needs to suck, suck and suck to send a message to your body to make milk! It didn’t matter if my milk hadn’t come in or not, this is somewhat how most new breastfeeding mums feel in the first few days as it’s difficult but you need to persevere.

The next day Little A was weighed and she had dropped weight slightly which is expected of all babies and I made the decision to ditch the formula and exclusively breastfeed regardless of whatever the situation.

One of the signs that your baby is getting milk is baby having regular wet and dirty nappies which she was so we had a nothing to worry about. Come Monday, 6th March, day 10, I had a visit from the Health Visitor and I happily gloated that I had been exclusively breastfeeding for the past few days. Little A was then weighed and the Health Visitor was not happy – Little A had not lost weight but her weight had stagnated. I was advised that I had to give her 20ml top ups of formula after breastfeeding her. So that’s what we did.

MISTAKE No2!

MISTAKE No3!

MISTAKE No4!

MISTAKE No5!