Breastfeeding

  

Let’s talk about breastfeeding.

First, I would like to say that this is my personal experience and there is no judgement if you don’t want to breastfeed. You do whatever is best for you and your baby!

I have breastfed/am breastfeeding both of my kids. With my son, I breastfed him until he was one and with my daughter, I’m breastfeeding her at the moment. 

Honestly, I love it.

I love how I don’t have to clean bottles. 

I love how I don’t even have bottles. 

I love how I don’t have to prepare anything before going out. 

I love how I don’t have to sterilise anything. 

I love how I don’t have to buy formula.

All I need are my breasts and I’m ready to go. 

However, I do understand that many people don’t feel this way.

When I was pregnant with my son, I did a lot of research. I had heard a lot of negativity saying it’s very hard and very painful. So I wanted to be well informed before I started my own journey. 

Very shortly after the kids were born, the midwives informed us they had a tongue-tie. 

As first time parents, we didn’t quite know what it was and felt very nervous getting it cut. But with a lot of research, we believed the benefit outweighed the risk, so we did it. With my son, two nurses came to our home one morning and cut it on our kitchen table. I didn’t even have the time to bite into my breakfast and it was done. 

With my daughter, as we knew the procedure, we wanted to do it straightaway. However, many hospitals these days don’t want to cut the tongue-tie, even if it’s a 100% case, until the child is older. Nevertheless, we got an appointment with the best children’s dentist here in Madrid and got it done. They told us she would have had problems rolling her tongue properly. Yet again, it took 2 seconds. She didn’t even cry and was put on my breast right away.

Now you might ask, what is tongue-tie?

• Tongue-tie (ankyloglossia) is where the strip of skin connecting the baby's tongue to the bottom of their mouth is shorter than usual.
• If you are breastfeeding, some babies are unable to open their mouths wide enough to latch on to the breast properly. 

Why did we think cutting the tongue-tie was necessary?

• My breasts were being cut open because the babies couldn’t latch on properly.

• They had difficulty lifting the tongue to the roof of the mouth or moving the tongue side to side.

• They had trouble sticking their tongue past the lower lip.

• My daughter’s tongue appeared heart-shaped.

• And in the future they could have had challenges making specific letter sounds such as "t," "d," "l" and "th".

I would really advise mamas if breastfeeding is painful and your nipples are being cut open, ask a medical practitioner to check your child’s tongue to see if he/she has a tongue-tie.

However, I do believe you need to give it time to become a pro-breastfeeder. You and your baby need to learn how to latch on (especially when they are newborns, their mouths are so small it’s easy for them to latch onto the nipple and not the actual breast). 

Also, lookout for signs of dairy allergies (blood in soil). My daughter has this at the moment and I’m unable to have any dairy. No milk, no cheese, no butter, no cream, no cakes with butter, nothing that might have milk.

Here are some more tips for mamas planning to breastfeed:

• Make sure baby’s mouth is open as wide as they can. To do so, point your nipple to baby’s nose and they will try to open up to get the breast. 

• If you feel baby is sucking the nipple and not the breast, redo it. Make sure the latch is good otherwise it can get painful.

• If breastfeeding is painful, talk to a breastfeeding consultant. They will help. You will be breastfeeding at least 8 to 10 times a day. You don’t want it to hurt. 

• Offer the breast at any time. You can never overfeed a breastfeeding baby and it’s so true. If baby is crying and you don’t know why, just give him/her the breast. During the early days, I was breastfeeding every 1 hour to 2 hours.

The most important advice I can give you is believe in yourself and trust yourself! 

To conclude, breastfeeding can be a beautiful bond between baby and you but it’s time consuming and if you don’t pump, baby has to be by your side at ALL times. 

I hope this article was helpful and you love breastfeeding as much as I do. 

Here are more information if needed:

https://www.nhs.uk/start-for-life/baby/feeding-your-baby/breastfeeding/

Sending peace & love