I am so proud of you!! I agree- breastfeeding is a priceless gift we give ourselves AND our children!! I really enjoy you and your blog- I am so happy we are friends via the computer and just wish I had known you better when we lived in the same town!! Joseph is eating 3 meals a day of babyfood, and then kind of just nurses on demand throughout the day- which isn’t that much! He only likes to nurse in the quiet- when we are downstairs he is too interested in what is brothers are doing!!

You know what really helped those first few days? Those soothies gel patches! They were awesome. I think the toughest part is getting through the first week and a half.

Because of how close in age my boys are and I did bf while pregnant, I pretty much bf for over 4.5 years straight. Done now, though.

I really think the biggest obstacle to success for moms is their medical and support people. If you can ensure that your childbirth care provider(s)and provider(s) for your child after birth are fully educated and supportive of breastfeeding, it makes ALL the difference in the world. If they are NOT, then you can pretty much guarantee failure and it will not be a Mom’s fault. Once you have those people in place the thing that has been most important for me, is my own attitude. For me, there was never any other option except breastfeeding. I would not even consider using formula, at all, period. It might as well have never existed. So for me, failure was never an option, it wasn’t on the table.

Mind you, I was raised by a Mom who breastfed me and taught me that Motherhood and Breastfeeding went together like breathing and air. You have a baby, you breastfeed. You itch, you scratch. The sky is up, water is wet, rocks are hard and babies are nurtured at the breast. It was a simple unchanging rule in the universe. That magic goal we Lactivists talk about was the gift my Mother gave me, she normalised Breastfeeding. Because I had that assumption, and because I DID have medical providers who understood and were able to support that determination, any problems that I encountered were simply challenges, never insurmountable obstacles. Where that really got put to the test was with later children. With my first, once I was taught the football hold and then side-lying by a supportive and knowledgeable nurse I was off and running. The only concern I ever had was that my daughter was feeding constantly. My first visit to my new family doctor, who had breastfed her own three kids reassured me that she was gaining like crazy and that feeding constantly was normal. I kept her in bed with me and slept when she did and we made it through. My second child was again birthed in (the same) baby-friendly hospital and I had no problems and nursed him for even longer to 18 mths. My third and fourth children were born in a smaller hospital, in a different town where the staff are NOT baby-friendly. Without giving details, they were both given bottles of formula against my will and in the case of my fourth I was actively prevented from breastfeeding for nearly two days.If I hadn’t had my previous positive experiences breastfeeding, and a belief that there was NO other option for feeding, I would NOT have fought against uncooperative staff and later cracked and bleeding nipples due to the bad latch caused by nipple confusion. I also wouldn’t have pushed so hard to NOT supplement when weight gain was a concern with my fourth. Luckily, I had supportive providers once I got out of the hospital! If I can suffer so much JUST from bad policy in a hospital, with my knowledge and attitude, how can a less educated and passionate Mom have a hope?