My Breastfeeding Journey as a Working Mom (draft)
Any woman who has gone through pregnancy and birth has a good chance of getting constantly reminded of how wonderfully beneficial it would be to breastfeed her baby, like lower risks of postpartum hemorrhage, SIDS, depression, and certain types of cancers; greater immune protection for the baby, not to mention the convenience of popping out a boob anytime baby was hungry and not having to deal with mixing formula and washing bottles. It sounded like a heck of a good deal so going in, I was hell bent on making it work.
At the same time, I was hearing horror stories everywhere about the strife, especially the mental tax. Not every mom can breastfeed despite trying every tactic on the planet, that it was going to be really, really difficult, and that the logistics of it all spent many women spiraling into postpartum depression or anxiety and switching to formula, because for goodness’ sakes, an unhappy mom cannot tend to her baby. And of course, layer on the usual shame that women, especially mothers, get for the decisions they make in regards to their baby and you get a perfect set-up for a mental breakdown.
In today’s day in age, so many women are unsupported in their motherhood journey, especially with maternal care deserts and the OB-GYN shortage plaguing the United States today. And so many women are unable to get support from IBCLC’s aka lactation consultants. I am not a medical professional so am not qualified to give medical advice. I do, however, feel compelled to share my story as a way to get one person’s experience out there and explain what at least worked for me, and what a breastfeeding journey could look like.
Weeks 1-3: How to Survive & Establish Supply
These are the hardest weeks, so the first thing you should do to prepare is remind yourself that this period is not forever.
I was fortunate enough to have a relatively uneventful birth and privileged enough to experience golden hour with my newborn. Within the first hour of birth, my nurse helped me get my baby in position for breastfeeding, a slightly awkward exercise as it was my first time, but she latched right away. My fears about nipple pain were unfounded. Despite experiencing quite a lot of nipple pain during pregnancy, my baby’s suckle was not painful. However, some attempts at latching did end up with fairly sharp pain. The hospital had lanolin I could use (safe for baby), but be aware that it will stain your clothing.
I was surprised that I was already producing colostrum at that point. I did not harvest colostrum in the days leading up to birth, as some women did, and honestly I’m not sure if it would’ve helped me since my baby was full term. Newborn stomachs are the size of a grape so she did not need much to feel satisfied. However, my 5 pound peanut had trouble drawing enough milk and would cry to nurse frequently - what felt like every hour. Second Night Syndrome was a rude awakening.
Several things I learned from the first two weeks of breastfeeding that I did not learn from any of the numerous YouTube videos and preparation articles:
Breastfeeding frequency & duration: I was bringing baby to breast about 14-16 times a day. Newborns need to nurse or eat every 1-3 hours. I knew this in my head, but in practice, I was shocked at how much of my day I was spending couchbound. And when we say 1-3 hours, we say 1-3 hours from the start of the previous feed. That means if she feeds at 7:00 for 30 minutes, then her next feed could be anywhere between 8:00 and 10:00. For my baby, she would feed every 90 minutes to 2 hours on average. In other words, there is a very short break in between feeds in which you can maybe hand baby to your partner and take a short nap or a shower.
Hand expression saved my milk supply: Hand expression is the easiest, most reliable way to boost supply in the early days, but it is a skill that takes some practice. However, once you master hand expression, I guarantee your confidence with breastfeeding will increase a ton. I found this video helpful. My early attempts at pumping felt dismal. I was so ready to bust out the fancy Spectra Synergy Gold SG that I had gotten through insurance, and didn’t realize that I would be yielding 1 oz at best per pump session. Rather than deal with washing all the parts, I hand expressed after every feed to boost my supply. In those early weeks it was important to signal to my body that my baby needed a steady supply of milk. I used hand expression not just to signal to my body that there was a tiny baby who needed milk, but also to start building a stash. More on this below.
Middle of the night feeds: Night shifts were unsurprisingly really, really hard. But not necessarily in the way I thought. My initial expectation was that I would just be awoken by the baby crying. Instead, I had to wake up my baby to feed! She was a sleepy, small peanut and I would set alarms every 3 hours to get her up and bring her to breast. If your baby is gaining weight well, you may not need to do this, but because my baby was so tiny, we were monitoring her growth very closely. Sometimes she would fall asleep without eating enough which meant I needed to find a way to annoy her to keep her awake (cold towels were more effective than tickling her feet). Since this meant we were going to be super sleep deprived, we were afraid that one of us would be holding her and fall asleep by accident. One strategy my husband and I used was taking shifts in separate rooms. We were lucky enough to have a bassinet that attached to our stroller so we simply wheeled her into the other bedroom when we switched. This was our strategy:
All day: Hand express after every feed and collect milk in bottles
Around 9:00 PM: Nurse baby, then express milk into a bottle right before going to sleep in our bedroom.
Around 12:00 PM or whenever baby started to fuss for food: Hubby would feed her a bottle of expressed milk (she was tiny and only took 1-2 oz) around midnight, put her to sleep if she wasn’t already and go to sleep,
Between 2 and 3 AM: She woke up somewhere in this time window; he would bring the baby to me to nurse and he would go back to the other room to sleep.
3:00 AM - 6:00 AM: I would take her subsequent feeds through the rest of the night by using my phone alarms.
We used this method for about the first 2-3 months and most of the time, both of us got at least 4 hours of continuous sleep. This, of course, assumes that baby will fall asleep between feeds without too much trouble, which did not always happen, but with survival mode, we just had to try our best. During the day, we would make sure to nap when we could. As we approached 2 months, baby was gaining weight well and we didn’t need to set nightly alarms - we simply let her wake us when she was hungry.
Nursing mother’s neck: The soreness in my neck and shoulders from all the looking down at my baby and making sure she was latched properly was pretty awful. Even now after 7 months I still get awful tightness at times. My only advice here is to set aside time to stretch your shoulders and back for a few minutes every day. The “cobra” pose is wonderful.
Breastfeeding pillow: Every mom has their preference on breastfeeding positions and while yes you can just use a regular pillow, I really loved my “My Brest Friend” pillow. I loved it so much I also bought the inflatable version for travel. This pillow has a buckle that you clip around your waist/hips and provides lumbar support while you nurse. You also don’t really need to hold the weight of the baby since the pillow supports the baby for you.
Bottles and cleaning: I knew it would be a lot of supplies as soon as I got my first breast pump. One of my generous coworkers got us the Dr. Brown sanitizer which we still use today. I’m also a huge fan of Mila’s Keeper bottles - they are pretty and the silicone ones are great for pumping, plus they are plastic free. For feeding we use the Nanobebe silicone bottles - she took the bottle and nipple right away so we never needed any other ones. I have heard however that not all parents are so lucky and have to find a particular one that baby will tolerate. Nipples also have different levels of flow. Either way, get yourself a bottle brush (we like Oxo), a bottle drying rack, and a sanitizer if you want to avoid boiling bottles all the time. You can also use a microwave.
Nipple pain: I mentioned this briefly above, but you’d be surprised at how your body adapts. I had some pretty painful moments with cracking/bleeding, but steeled myself through. I used Silverettes and nipple balm for the first couple months. These days though, I have no need for them.
Nursing bras: Ugh, this is a very personal choice. I found these to be very affordable and surprisingly comfortable. I machine wash in wash bags and air dry.
4 Weeks - 4 Months: Supply Management, Mastitis/Clogged Ducts, Stash Building
I had very minor leakage for a few weeks as my supply was getting established. I never leaked so badly that I needed breast pads, but I did encounter mastitis when I accidentally overdid my supply increase or when my baby slept longer than usual.
