The Glamour of Breastfeeding

Yeah, right. Well, I finally went to a lactation specialist this week and got a lot of help. She told me stuff the LS's in the hospital never mentioned, like how if baby keeps coming off the breast but wants more, and she's making a lot of noise breathing, it's because the milk is coming too fast. Solution? Slouch down backwards so gravity will help slow the flow. So now I'm slouching down to the point of reclining, and Lily is doing great! This makes me very happy. And it doesn't hurt, what a miracle! The other thing the LS said was that when the milk is coming too fast, baby will draw back her suck from the whole aereole to the tip of the nipple, which is excruciatingly painful. Aha! Finally some useful information.

I was really crabby for several weeks after bringing her home, about the bill of goods I was sold about breastfeeding. The medical profession really pushes hard on the idea of breastfeeding being the best thing for you to do for baby, but they don't talk about the difficulties. The general message is that if it hurts, you must be doing it wrong. Thank you so much, I needed that self-esteem boost, especially being a new mom and trying to figure all this out.

I'm not doing all the little widgety adjustments the LS told me, but hey, I'm getting the main thing, getting her latched on and comfy and it doesn't hurt me. It's just ridiculous how many tiny adjustments they show you, like I'm going to remember all that. Not to mention the fact that it's a wrestling match with hungry baby to get her latched on right, during which she can get frustrated (along with me) and start crying. Of course then I have a nice big open mouth to aim at the breast and if I can get her on the crying stops immediately! Magic!