Breastfeeding: One Woman's Opinion

After 6 months of successful breastfeeding, I am slowly weaning my daughter. I'm having mixed feelings about the situation, to be honest. On one hand, six months is a long time, twice as long as my son had breast milk. On the other hand, I feel selfish that the factors primarily affecting this decision are about me, and not about her. Like everything else about breastfeeding, it makes me second guess myself constantly.

Overall, I've had a wonderful experience breastfeeding my daughter, certainly a better experience than attempting to breastfeed my son. My son never latched on correctly, struggling, frustrated, working himself up into a frantic panic for food, while I cried along with him, feeling inadequate and unprepared for motherhood. If I couldn't do this, supposedly the most basic, instinctive process on earth, how the hell was I supposed to do everything else? For weeks my husband fed my son with a syringe so we didn't "spoil" him with a bottle while I tried to figure out why I was such a failure. Half of greater Burlington saw my boobs, pinched my nipples, and smooshed my son's tiny head against me in an attempt to make it work. Still, no luck.

Thank God for my husband, who had a clear enough head about the situation to finally say "stop". Hearing him tell me that it was okay for it not to work perfectly, okay for my son to have a bottle instead, really helped me. After all, the "bonding" I was supposed to have with him while he nursed was not happening. In fact, the poor babe was learning to scream in fear and frustration every time he was placed at my breast. We started bottle-feeding pumped breast milk that day, and never looked back.

My experience with my daughter was the complete opposite. From the hour of her birth, she was comfortable and natural on the breast. She spent her first 48 hours eating like a champ, and when she unexpectedly had to spend some time in the NICU, she was not thrown off. When she finally got to come home with us, I had the number for a local lactation consultant, but chucked after 2 days of problem-free feeding. We were golden.

But while breast feeding has it's amazing moments, it also has its drawbacks. With my son, my husband and I were true partners for the first six weeks, taking equal turns with nightfeeding, lack of sleep, soothing the crying babe. We were a team, and I fell in love all over again watching him be such an amazing daddy to our little boy. With my daughter, she and I were so connected for the first six weeks, we were essentially one, just like when I was pregnant. And just like when I was pregnant, I often felt a little sad or a little resentful that my husband could not share the exact same experiences I had with our little peanut, by virtue of biology. I felt like it took him longer to really connect with her, mostly due to frustration that he couldn't comfort her in the same way I could. I often felt alone with her, even when others were in the room, because sometimes I was the only one that would do for her.

I also think that people need to stop doing women the disservice of telling them that breastfeeding will just happen naturally. Yes, sometimes it will, but often it won't, and if it doesn't happen right away, or at all, you are not a failure. It's easy to feel that way, but it's not true. Honestly, I have my theories about why one nursed so easily and one didn't, but all they are is theories. They are different kids who had different experiences, but were equally loved and well cared for. They are both happy, they are both healthy, neither dissolved into a pool of goo at the taste of formula. Good parents do what they need to do to keep their kids, their marriage and their sanity intact in the beginning, and that may or may not be breastfeeding.

I'm glad I was able to have the experience with one of my kids, but I am just as glad to be finishing up. No more strapping myself to the damn pump, no more leakage on my work clothes, no more frightening people with the threat of public nursing. Of course, this also means slightly less exclusive cuddle time with my little peanut, but I will make that trade off. We're on to solids now, and that brings enough adventures of its own.