Most people assume that when you're having your third baby, you have everything pretty much sussed out.
You've done it all before and you know what you're doing when it comes
to things like bathing, nappy changing, feeding and so on.
But for me, things were different with my third...I found that my
approach to parenting had changed a little and the ideals I had were
different...I wanted a more active role in deciding how the birth should
be, I wanted to try things such as cord ties which I'd never used
before...and the biggest change for me was feeding.
Throughout my first pregnancy, I had been told that I wouldn't be able
to breastfeed due to the medication that I needed to take to treat my
Graves disease...I agreed straight away of course, I didn't want to take
any risks with my health, it was important that I was healthy so that I
could look after my baby.
When my second child came along, things were less certain - I was no longer on
regular medication but the Drs did say that I needed to be prepared to
be put onto it following the birth if my body needed it, so I was able
to try breastfeeding if I wanted to but I may have had to stop if
medication was necessary.
I was unsure of what to do, and I didn't receive any encouragement to
try when I spoke about this to the midwife on the day of the birth - she simply
gave me a bottle, so I gave it to the baby and that was that.
When I fell pregnant for a third time, I knew I wanted it to be different - I knew I wanted to try breast feeding.
I tried to prepare myself as much as I could before hand, I read books
and asked questions of my friends who had breastfed for years, I thought
I was ready.
When Sailor was born, he latched on in the theatre straight away and the
midwife even declared him to be "feeding like a pro!" - I was
delighted, I thought we'd cracked it and that we'd never look back.
Fast forward to 12 hours later, sobbing in my hospital bed at 3 am, with
my baby screaming and me trying desperately over and over again to get
him to latch on - and things couldn't have been further from our great
start.
I really struggled in those first few weeks - Sailor had tongue tie
which needed to be snipped but nobody was available in my area to do it
right away, he had a poor sucking reflex too and struggled to even feed
from a bottle - instead he had to be fed by syringe.
There was one particular night when neither of us had slept a wink, when
I had spent the entire night trying to get him to latch on to no avail,
trying to pump as much as I could and syringe feed it to him but he
seemed to need more than I could provide and I didn't know what to do.
I pressed my buzzer and when the nurse came she found me crying my eyes
out, there were a million questions I wanted to ask her but I was too
upset - instead I just sputtered "It's useless, maybe I should just give
him formula"
I think I hoped that she'd encourage me or comfort me, give me a bit of a
pep talk...but she didn't. She went and got some formula, handed it to
me and left.
We did keep trying, and we managed to make it almost to the 6 month mark but it became too much and with a lack of proper support available - we reached the end of our breast feeding journey.
I wish I'd had more knowledge of where to look for help, or of products that might have been able to assist - I was recently shown the Minbie breast pump which comes with the option of a double pump, and is lightweight and portable so would have been easy to use whilst on the go.
The Minbie bottles have a revolutionary nipple design which which allows baby to keep their natural latch and feed using the same technique they're born with and use during breastfeeding, so that nipple confusion is avoided.
There's a great video here which explains more about the Minbie pump from a mum who has used it:
I wish I had known about this back then, but if we ever do have a fourth child - I will certainly be giving the Minbie pump and bottle system a try!
You can find out more here: https://minbie.com/
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