Good morning! Today’s newsletter is twice as long as usual. I thought of splitting it into two parts as I’ll be out next week for Sunny’s Annaprashan, a Hindu ceremony celebrating her introduction to solid food, but it made more sense to publish it all together. So I’ll see you in two Sundays (paid content will continue as normal). At the top, I want to warn anyone who’s sensitive to motherhood content that today’s essay is very much about motherhood.
I tuned out of all breastfeeding content in prenatal education. Hold the baby firm, nipple to upper lip, head moves freely, easy done. I knew all the theory. I didn’t realise it’d be like a group project with an unwilling participant.
In the early days of postpartum, dealing with tongue ties, bleeding nipples and mastitis, I remember thinking, “Why did I never read that this could be hard?” Clearly I had been exposed to the concept but tuned it out thinking “that won’t be me!”
9 weeks in and I still wonder every day if it’s time to stop bfing. Thank you Haley and all MB readers for generously sharing your stories (I’ve read all the comments). I know it’ll eventually make my decision easier.
When I first read this, I hadn’t even decided to take my IUD out yet. I would in Oct ‘24 and get pregnant in Nov ‘24 and my baby is now 4 months old.
I had heard a lot of be brutally honest about their experience of breastfeeding (not knowing that I was close to going down the path of motherhood) and their accounts, along with this essay, helped me make the decision to formula feed.
I’ve always felt very certain about the decision and I’m glad I read this. Thank you for your presence in my decision making process. I’m finding that I can’t even find words to say what I want to say to you right now. I wish you could understand the peace I felt about the decision I made so that you could understand how grateful I am to you.
I read this while pregnant earlier this summer and sobbed from the raw emotions in both the essay and everyone’s experiences. I have a four-month old now and remembered this essay today and reread it. I’m 4 months into a tough journey with breastfeeding and sobbing again. This has been such a personal battle that has felt both rewarding (when my baby and I are nursing well) and painful (when the physical pain and mental anguish mix). Today was the first day that I thought about weaning and it’s so scary staring into the future.
This resonates so hard I’m weeping. Had DMER with my first and a difficult breastfeeding experience. Switched to exclusive pumping about 8 weeks in, continued that for 6 more months, had so much guilt about not giving breast milk and being unable to nurse. First baby is now almost 3.
Breastfeeding for #2 was a breeze - only a little pain in the first days but then no pain at all (yes silverettes really help!!). Had DMER. But recommended to supplement and was encouraged to pump. When the LCs brought out the pump at the hospital - I knew I had trauma from the first time around, but I was almost hyperventilating. Never again. 2nd baby is now 4 months and is my sweet, chunky, happy formula baby. I’m working on ditching the guilt but oooof it’s not easy. Thank you Haley for putting this all out there.
A couple of weeks late to the game here but currently deep in my own breastfeeding journey 2 weeks after giving birth. I never gave much thought to it before just that I would like to breastfeed and planned to do so when my son was born. Little did I know the multitude of problems and issues that came along with it.
The midwives and hospital staff were also very rude and each one telling me a different thing. I never had any colostrum come in and my baby never wanted to nurse from the beginning. In the hospital over 3 days I had several staff throughout the day and night squeezing my boobs saying I must be doing something wrong and then with shock confirming that yes there was nothing coming out. They gave me a pump and I sat there pumping in tears as the bottles never filled up, not even a drop. By day 2 they forced him to have formula, fed through a straw onto my boob or when that didn’t take with him sucking my finger and the straw. No one seemed to provide me with much support past this and upon leaving the hospital he was bottle fed as it’s the only way he could eat.
I continued pumping and slowly managed to get very small amounts out, like 15ml for an hour of pumping. My hormones were going crazy and I was weeping uncontrollably for days. How could it be this hard?! I’ve often described this journey to friends as harder than the actual birth. I would rather give birth to him again than struggle through this complicated and very often painful journey.
Sorry for the long post, it helps me writing about it as I’m sure it helped you and everyone else who has suffered on their own journey. The more I read and talk about it with people the more I realize that it’s very rare to have an easy breastfeeding experience.
Still pushing through to try and make my own happen despite the rocky formula fed beginning! Good luck to all the other mamas out there!
Thanks for this— it’s really validating. I hope the decision to stop has brought you peace (the last graf suggests it has). Stopping after 2.5 months was the best decision I made: I was getting depressed and my husband and doctor basically urged me to move to formula. Weaning is emotional as you say, but my daughter and I have never looked back!
I also spent too much money on LCs (I realize that’s a huge privilege) and it still didn’t work. They were nice but one kinda gaslit me. The motherhood-industrial complex is wild. I appreciated the satire of it in the movie Babes.
Thank you, thank you for writing! I sent to my husband to read and as he finishes the first paragraph he turns to me and asks, “did you write this.” The LC experience is so relatable. I also cannot express how enthused I am to learn that the “Sunday scaries” feeling I have at the beginning of pumping more than nursing has a name. Wow, it’s been almost 8 months of thinking those strange feelings I have at the beginning of my letdown was just a me thing.
I would have loved to read something like this when I was trying to breastfeed over two decades ago, and I love that my daughters will have resources like this if needed.
Thank you thank you thank you for writing this. I have a scratchy throat and desperately want to cry because you've described my experience almost exactly. I couldn't believe it the first time I spoke to someone who said that breastfeeding had never hurt. Never! The nights I was suffering with mastitis, boob dangling in a salty sink, cold compresses shoved down my bra, the furious little face of my baby as we both struggled and fought to be fed and feed. When I read the line 'enough', something released inside for me. It was enough, but god I kept going and going for the same reasons you described.
Thank you so much Haley for crystallising the most complex parts of motherhood into words - I write this as I feed from a sore left boob with a blocked duct. I have at times both fantasised about what life will be like once our breastfeeding journey is complete, but simultaneously felt devastated that this is inevitable. Thank you so much for writing about motherhood with skill, honesty and heart.
I'm not sure I have ever wanted to reach through a screen and hug a complete and total stranger as much as I do right this moment. Sending you that hug through this screen, impossibly, anyway.
This was a beautiful read! The way it captures the undescribable beauty and suffering of breastfeeding is moving. I guess every experience is different but the same in essence — I felt every single word ❤️
So well written!! My baby is eight months and we’ve been breastfeeding since day 1. It’s the most magical, mystical, expansive experience and yet it feels like keeps me hostage. It was really painful for my friend who had her baby almost a year before me and she weaned after three months. It’s just the most confounding thing. She had a little ceremony for her last feed and put the journey behind her. Idk when my day is coming. Baby is has taken to scratching my nipple while it’s in his mouth to self sooth🙄 haha anyway I’m soaking it up while I can. Nothing lasts forever.
This brought a tear to my eye. I have my first baby now who’s four months old, I have such mixed feelings about breastfeeding , it’s like being in Jail yet the most beautiful precious place I’ve ever been, and this really captures much of that
I tuned out of all breastfeeding content in prenatal education. Hold the baby firm, nipple to upper lip, head moves freely, easy done. I knew all the theory. I didn’t realise it’d be like a group project with an unwilling participant.
In the early days of postpartum, dealing with tongue ties, bleeding nipples and mastitis, I remember thinking, “Why did I never read that this could be hard?” Clearly I had been exposed to the concept but tuned it out thinking “that won’t be me!”
9 weeks in and I still wonder every day if it’s time to stop bfing. Thank you Haley and all MB readers for generously sharing your stories (I’ve read all the comments). I know it’ll eventually make my decision easier.
When I first read this, I hadn’t even decided to take my IUD out yet. I would in Oct ‘24 and get pregnant in Nov ‘24 and my baby is now 4 months old.
I had heard a lot of be brutally honest about their experience of breastfeeding (not knowing that I was close to going down the path of motherhood) and their accounts, along with this essay, helped me make the decision to formula feed.
I’ve always felt very certain about the decision and I’m glad I read this. Thank you for your presence in my decision making process. I’m finding that I can’t even find words to say what I want to say to you right now. I wish you could understand the peace I felt about the decision I made so that you could understand how grateful I am to you.
I read this while pregnant earlier this summer and sobbed from the raw emotions in both the essay and everyone’s experiences. I have a four-month old now and remembered this essay today and reread it. I’m 4 months into a tough journey with breastfeeding and sobbing again. This has been such a personal battle that has felt both rewarding (when my baby and I are nursing well) and painful (when the physical pain and mental anguish mix). Today was the first day that I thought about weaning and it’s so scary staring into the future.
Fed Is Best: The Unintended Harms of the "Breast Is Best" Message and How to Find the Right Approach for You and Your Baby https://a.co/d/i83pUpX
This resonates so hard I’m weeping. Had DMER with my first and a difficult breastfeeding experience. Switched to exclusive pumping about 8 weeks in, continued that for 6 more months, had so much guilt about not giving breast milk and being unable to nurse. First baby is now almost 3.
Breastfeeding for #2 was a breeze - only a little pain in the first days but then no pain at all (yes silverettes really help!!). Had DMER. But recommended to supplement and was encouraged to pump. When the LCs brought out the pump at the hospital - I knew I had trauma from the first time around, but I was almost hyperventilating. Never again. 2nd baby is now 4 months and is my sweet, chunky, happy formula baby. I’m working on ditching the guilt but oooof it’s not easy. Thank you Haley for putting this all out there.
A couple of weeks late to the game here but currently deep in my own breastfeeding journey 2 weeks after giving birth. I never gave much thought to it before just that I would like to breastfeed and planned to do so when my son was born. Little did I know the multitude of problems and issues that came along with it.
The midwives and hospital staff were also very rude and each one telling me a different thing. I never had any colostrum come in and my baby never wanted to nurse from the beginning. In the hospital over 3 days I had several staff throughout the day and night squeezing my boobs saying I must be doing something wrong and then with shock confirming that yes there was nothing coming out. They gave me a pump and I sat there pumping in tears as the bottles never filled up, not even a drop. By day 2 they forced him to have formula, fed through a straw onto my boob or when that didn’t take with him sucking my finger and the straw. No one seemed to provide me with much support past this and upon leaving the hospital he was bottle fed as it’s the only way he could eat.
I continued pumping and slowly managed to get very small amounts out, like 15ml for an hour of pumping. My hormones were going crazy and I was weeping uncontrollably for days. How could it be this hard?! I’ve often described this journey to friends as harder than the actual birth. I would rather give birth to him again than struggle through this complicated and very often painful journey.
Sorry for the long post, it helps me writing about it as I’m sure it helped you and everyone else who has suffered on their own journey. The more I read and talk about it with people the more I realize that it’s very rare to have an easy breastfeeding experience.
Still pushing through to try and make my own happen despite the rocky formula fed beginning! Good luck to all the other mamas out there!
Thanks for this— it’s really validating. I hope the decision to stop has brought you peace (the last graf suggests it has). Stopping after 2.5 months was the best decision I made: I was getting depressed and my husband and doctor basically urged me to move to formula. Weaning is emotional as you say, but my daughter and I have never looked back!
I also spent too much money on LCs (I realize that’s a huge privilege) and it still didn’t work. They were nice but one kinda gaslit me. The motherhood-industrial complex is wild. I appreciated the satire of it in the movie Babes.
Ohh Haley! For your next bub, try nipple shields and silverettes ❤️
I second Silverettes! I had milk blisters and they really helped.
Thank you, thank you for writing! I sent to my husband to read and as he finishes the first paragraph he turns to me and asks, “did you write this.” The LC experience is so relatable. I also cannot express how enthused I am to learn that the “Sunday scaries” feeling I have at the beginning of pumping more than nursing has a name. Wow, it’s been almost 8 months of thinking those strange feelings I have at the beginning of my letdown was just a me thing.
I would have loved to read something like this when I was trying to breastfeed over two decades ago, and I love that my daughters will have resources like this if needed.
Also, did we have the same LCs? You describe them perfectly lol.
Thank you thank you thank you for writing this. I have a scratchy throat and desperately want to cry because you've described my experience almost exactly. I couldn't believe it the first time I spoke to someone who said that breastfeeding had never hurt. Never! The nights I was suffering with mastitis, boob dangling in a salty sink, cold compresses shoved down my bra, the furious little face of my baby as we both struggled and fought to be fed and feed. When I read the line 'enough', something released inside for me. It was enough, but god I kept going and going for the same reasons you described.
Thank you so much Haley for crystallising the most complex parts of motherhood into words - I write this as I feed from a sore left boob with a blocked duct. I have at times both fantasised about what life will be like once our breastfeeding journey is complete, but simultaneously felt devastated that this is inevitable. Thank you so much for writing about motherhood with skill, honesty and heart.
I'm not sure I have ever wanted to reach through a screen and hug a complete and total stranger as much as I do right this moment. Sending you that hug through this screen, impossibly, anyway.
This was a beautiful read! The way it captures the undescribable beauty and suffering of breastfeeding is moving. I guess every experience is different but the same in essence — I felt every single word ❤️
So well written!! My baby is eight months and we’ve been breastfeeding since day 1. It’s the most magical, mystical, expansive experience and yet it feels like keeps me hostage. It was really painful for my friend who had her baby almost a year before me and she weaned after three months. It’s just the most confounding thing. She had a little ceremony for her last feed and put the journey behind her. Idk when my day is coming. Baby is has taken to scratching my nipple while it’s in his mouth to self sooth🙄 haha anyway I’m soaking it up while I can. Nothing lasts forever.
Same spot as you Yanique! It’s such an awesome responsibility, emphasis on both.
This brought a tear to my eye. I have my first baby now who’s four months old, I have such mixed feelings about breastfeeding , it’s like being in Jail yet the most beautiful precious place I’ve ever been, and this really captures much of that