I promise I won’t become a mommy blogger, but I’d love to share a bit on breastfeeding, as a new mother.
Many present breastfeeding as something that comes naturally. For some, it takes work.

My son was big at birth; not macroscopic, but close. At 37 weeks, he was almost 9 pounds. I had to have a C-section, and to prevent his sugar dropping, they gave him formula before I was able to breastfeed.

When baby was brought to me, we had latch issues. I felt like we were both struggling and frustrated, and I didn’t want him to be formula fed. Thankfully, I brought my breast pump with me to the hospital. That’s how we got the colostrum for him, and I had to cup feed.

There was one night where he was up every hour, hungry and unable to latch properly, bawling down the place with a post-op, exhausted mother. At 4 AM, a nurse came in and rescued me because she had heard all the crying over the hours. She didn’t hear me crying, but I was.

Baby was supplemented by formula and what little breast milk I had in the early stages. The day I was discharged, I had to ask Gordon to get the formula they used at the hospital. I felt like I couldn’t do the one thing I needed to do for my son. I didn’t want a soul to know.

The next day though, my milk came in. Thank God! I was able to give him more breast milk than formula. 2 days later, we cut formula completely. When we went to see the Paediatrician, she told me not to quit on breastfeeding baby. So, we stressed him a little in the days.

There were nights when Gordon had to be helping me to get him to latch on, but we’re doing better! He now breastfeeds directly from the breast and exclusively has breast milk from a bottle if we have any issues.

I feel proud and happy every time we get a good latch and he does his long feeds, like this morning at 6 AM. :D

A lactation consultant was also a great help to me. Importantly though, two Mommy friends who exclusively breastfed were the most encouraging.

One was offering to come to the house to help me with the latch issues.

Women need more information about issues like that. Women need more information to not feel like failures if they don’t get breastfeeding right immediately.

National Breastfeeding Week can help with that.

On IG, I saw the celebration of Black Breastfeeding Week last week. That’s where I learned a whole lot and appreciated that many women had the same challenges I had, and had nobody to turn to for information. Online spaces available now really help.