![grayscale photo of a woman breastfeeding](https://i0.wp.com/feelgoodesprit.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/pexels-photo-12113226.jpeg?fit=867%2C1300&ssl=1)
I am one of the lucky ones I’d tell myself even when I was in the midst of my breastfeeding struggles. You see, in the UK, more women give their baby a bottle of formula by the end of the first week than are exclusively breastfeeding (1). Many women don’t receive the support they need, hold inaccurate views of how breastfeeding works, experience pressure from family and friends which ultimately makes us think we have a low milk supply or that formula is needed to ensure our baby is really being fed.
We quit breastfeeding too soon.
We feel absolutely rubbish yet can’t express it as it comes across as dramatic. Afterall, we have a happy and healthy baby so it shouldn’t matter how they are being fed, surely?
I felt exactly this. Well, at least for those first few weeks.
Is there such a thing as breastfeeding grief?
I hadn’t heard much about it before. It’s when women don’t achieve their breastfeeding goals and are saddened, sometimes depressed by something they felt should have been so natural that they weren’t able to do.
In fact 90% of women in the UK feel that they stopped in the first week, much sooner than they wanted to because of the lack of support (1).
When I was pregnant I was agnostic about breastfeeding and it wasn’t until I neared my due date when I realised I did want to give it a go. I’ll do it for six months is what I told myself since that’s the recommended duration – job done.
What I didn’t realise is how having a c-section can delay your milk supply, making it even more challenging to get your breastfeeding journey going. My milk came in on day 7.
The truth is that in those first seven days and in fact beyond, I had already given my daughter formula. I however had this burning desire to breastfeed and it wasn’t working. I felt overwhelmed and downtrodden by it all. It lit a fire so deep within me that I didn’t even realise existed.
I had to breastfeed.
On reflection, I was feeling as if the very thing I now wanted to do was slipping away from me day by day, formula top up by formula top up. I grieved the idea of not being able to ever achieve it.
I felt like a failure.
There were tears, the feeling of rejection when my daughter wouldn’t latch and inadequacy to other women who could simply pop out a boob and feed with such ease not to mention pump crazy amounts of milk when I would literally get dribs and drabs. It feels laughable now but definitely not in those moments.
The question that led to my burn out
As if being a new mum isn’t already enough to get your head around, I was in a crazy cycle of trying to make breastfeeding work by taking on the advice to pump and by doing so increase my milk supply to then eventually drop the amount of formula I was giving to my daughter.
The trouble was as the weeks went on I couldn’t keep up and the amount I was pumping was not enough.
I tried every type of pump as if there would be one that would miraculously help me extract lots of milk. That miracle never happened.
I even tried supplements which again may have helped, I’m really not sure. Not to mention the lactation tea and cookies.
After my daughter fell asleep for yet another nap, I would ask myself this one question: do I pump, eat or sleep?
Sleep became the last thing I did as I was so desperate to make breastfeeding work.
This quickly spiralled into feeling entirely tapped out. I was sleep deprived on a level I couldn’t cope with and I felt like I was trying to do the impossible.
My last resort
I was in week eight by this point and feeling like the window of any success with breastfeeding had surely passed however a mum friend recommended a breastfeeding cafe who had helped her.
I booked my place (this was during Covid times) and headed off in my car. My daughter hated car journeys so it was 20 minutes of constant crying. I still made it.
I spoke with them about my challenges and how this was the final try. They said one thing to me that changed everything, ‘What you’re experiencing, it’s totally normal’. That was it. All of my woes were put immediately at ease by normalising what I was experiencing.
It gave me permission to completely abandon the pumping and to feed on demand no matter how often my daughter came to the breast.
I felt liberated.
Why did it take this long to get here is what I pondered on my drive home?
Why had I been given such conflicting advice along my journey?
So here’s what I learned
- Get support as quickly as you can but most importantly from the right channels, and don’t be afraid to seek different advice until you find one that helps you.
- Trust your gut. If it’s not working then try something else.
- Be ready to unlearn what you thought you knew about breastfeeding and challenge your own thinking.
- Be able to accept that it’s okay to really desire something that others may not truly understand and it’s also okay to grieve it if it doesn’t work out.
- Don’t burn yourself out with pumping. If it isn’t working for you then feed on demand, there’s actually an even greater freedom with that.
Resources I found helpful:
- McAndrew, F., Thompson, J., Fellows, L., Large, A., Speed, M., & Renfrew, M. J. (2012). Infant feeding survey 2010. Leeds: Health and Social Care Information Centre.
Learn more about my breastfeeding journey: