Let’s get tit faced...

What is it they say? ‘Breast is best’...yeah well thats all well and good until your nipples are on the verge of falling off and you are slowly slipping into the mental state of an overcooked jacket potato! Since finding out I was preggers I knew I wanted to breast feed but MY GOD was I totally unprepared for the shit storm I was about to go through once Indi was born. 

After I had come round from the trauma of having an emergency c section under general anaesthetic, we were all taken to a recovery room where we spent the next few hours as a family of 3. I had my obs taken, was given some painkillers and then Indi was given to me for a feed. Now, when I say ‘given to me’ what I mean is, the midwife placed her on me, latched her on for me, surrounded me in pillows, elevated the bed for me, tucked my hair behind my ears, placed a drink nearby within touching distance and made sure I was comfortable - all of which is totally ‘do-able’ on your own when you’ve never breastfed a baby before and have just come round from major abdominal surgery...sense the sarcasm?! She turned to me and said ‘right, she’s latched on so anything between 5 mins and an hour is a normal time to feed, just keep an eye on her jaw to make sure she doesn’t fall asleep’ before leaving the room and leaving me to it. 5 minutes to an hour?! That’s quite a wide time span for such a little person, but I took her word for it and let Indi crack on. About 45 mins passed and she unlatched herself and fell asleep. Now being new to all this I had in my mind the longer she’s on the more milk she’s getting, even though at this stage she’s not actually getting milk, she’s getting colostrum which is a thick creamy substance which is full of nutrients and antibodies which ‘gives your baby the best start’ (as every new Mum gets told/bombarded with as soon as the baby has stuck its head out your vag, or in my case, stomach). The midwife came back, had a look at my boob and said ‘ooooh she’s got a hard suck hasn’t she!’ I just laughed and said ‘has she?’ thinking in the back of my mind, how the fuck do I know?!, I’ve never done this before, I’ve got nothing to compare it to and I’ve been pumped with god knows how many painkillers she could be getting the colostrum out with a knife and fork for all I know! She put Indi on the other side to see if she wanted more, which she did, and subtly said ‘she’s bruised you a bit on the right hand side so we’ll see how she goes on the left.’ Before leaving the room, again. Brilliant, with the amount of bruises I’ve gained since being here, for one reason or another, I’m going to look like a frigging dot to dot by the time I get home! Anyway, Indi stayed on for a further 30 mins, bruised the hell out of the left hand side and then had a nap looking very pleased with the purple rainbows she had left over each nipple. 

We eventually went back up to the ward and she fed a few more times. I was latching her on myself now, thinking I was doing it right and taking myself back to the video I watched at my anti natal class. No one at the hospital had shown me what to do or even watched me put her on so I was going by what I remembered from the video...’nose to nipple, wait for the baby to open it’s mouth and then latch them on so it looks like they’ve got a big chunk of boob in their mouth’. Now, I’m not being funny, it doesn’t matter how many times you watch a video, you can’t actually get a feel for it until you practice and to practice you need a baby, funnily enough, so it’s all well and good watching these things but really it’s a bit of a waste of time. You wouldn’t watch a video on YouTube of Beyoncé belting the shit out of something from dreamgirls and then be expected to put on a world wide sell out tour with your BFF’s as backing dancers, your Mum as your manager and your child friendly Ford ecosport as your tour bus so why do people think that you’re going to be a breast feeding pro by watching other people show you how to do it on an online video?! That aside, I was feeding her myself, thinking I was doing a marvellous job, until the day we were discharged from hospital. 

We were waiting for our papers to be signed off so I thought I would try and get Indi to feed to make her a little bit sleepy for when we had to put her in the car seat to take her home. I’d just like to add at this point that she was NOT sleepy in the slightest and actually screamed the whole way from the ward to the car so loudly I thought her tonsils were going to jump out of her throat with their suitcases and march back into the hospital to be disposed of. Anyway, back to the point, she latched on ‘fine’ and was feeding away until suddenly I felt her chomp down on my nipple like one of those people on the magnum advert. I honestly thought she had grown teeth in the space between her last feed and now. It was the most painful thing I had experienced since being in hospital and made the c-section feel like a paper cut. I reluctantly kept her on as she was clearly getting something out of me and just thought ‘this must be the uncomfortable stage everyone goes on about’ and just soldiered on whilst screwing my face up like I’d just done a tequila slammer. Now, I’ve got a pretty high pain threshold - I didn’t have any pain relief for my contractions, I only had paracetamol and ibuprofen after coming round from the op and I only really continued taking them regularly at home because S was nagging me to but, MY GOD, by day 5 I was in absolute agony and was syncing the paracetamol and ibuprofen with Indi’s feeds to make them a little more bearable. My midwife and MAMA from one to one came to see me for a check up and to see how I was getting on and when I showed them my bangers, their faces said it all. My midwife looked at me with a pitiful stare and just said ‘what the hell has happened?!’ It was like a miniature murder scene, there was blood, bruises, blood blisters, cracks, dry skin, scabs, in fact, the only thing missing was the kitchen sink and a cuddly toy!! I was seriously considering a funeral for my, once pink and perfectly formed, nipples which had turned into something worthy of dr Christian and his dodgy barnet on embarrassing bodies. I couldn’t even touch them they were that sore and showering was like a 007 mission in itself. I had to lower the pressure of the water, because having it too high hurt like a motherfucker (and would have probably blasted them off my body and down the plug hole) I had to lather up the shower gel and squeeze the bubbles off the shower puff from a distance so they just ran down my body as applying it direct was like rubbing sandpaper on them and drying myself with a towel was unthinkable! I had to air dry which was a major pain in the ass because if I stood there for too long I would start leaking like a kids drinks bottle that hadn’t had the lid put on properly which completely defeated the object of having a fucking shower in the first place!

It got to the point where I, nor my nipples, could take anymore, but being the stubborn cow I am, and having it in my head I would be failing Indi if I put her on formula - which I know is bloody ridiculous but I was going through that lovely ‘hormonal breakdown stage’ at the time and was adamant that if I stopped now I would be the worst mother alive and have the breast feeding police banging on the door for feeding my baby poison (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, aren’t hormones amazing at screwing with your head!) I decided, with a little persuasion from my midwife, to express and bottle feed her whilst I healed. Now, this might seem like a totally acceptable solution to any normal person, but at the time, I was not normal. I wasn’t even the slightest bit normal. I was, in fact, completely over thinking EVERYTHING, acting like the world was going to end, that Indi would resent me for the rest of her life and that I would end up on Jeremy Kyle one day in the future with the tag line: ‘Out of control kids, drug special: started on the bottle now I’m here’. I was so worried that she would get too used to the bottle and not be able to latch onto me again...also known as nipple confusion - another term that is slapped round your face as a new mum. Well let me tell you, that is a complete load of bollocks. Indi fed from a bottle for about a week, and although it was major ass ache from my point of view by having to wake up every 2 hours in the night to express enough to feed her, she went back to breastfeeding absolutely fine.

I look back now and think what the hell were you worrying about but we get pumped (excuse the pun) with so much crap and conflicting advice in the early days that it makes you question your instincts when really you just need to do what is best for you and your fun bags whether that be expressing, formula feeding or a combination of the two. If your baby is hungry they will drink whatever you give them...just as long as it’s not a Long Island ice tea...save that for your wild Saturday night in front of the telly!!

I have since cancelled the funeral arrangements for my milk pillows and the urge to self amputate them has thankfully passed and I am now exclusively breastfeeding successfully. I had a little help from some nipple shields in the first few weeks after introducing Indi back to the boob however I no longer need them and feeding has now become a comfortable part of our daily routine. It hasn’t come without its inconveniences though. Before getting pregnant I was never one to wear overly low cut tops or to draw attention to that area because, let’s face it, I was a fully fledged member of the itty bitty titty club, but since my milk has come in it’s gone from dolly mixture to Dolly Parton. Clothing is now tight around my chest and if I dare to wear a button up shirt I sure as hell need to hope that Indi doesn’t sleep for longer than a few hours otherwise there’s a risk of blinding a passer by with a button pinging off where they have fillelasinohd up since her last feed. I could keep Lansinoh in business from my purchases of breast pads and bra changes are DAILY occurrence now. (Don’t pretend that you already change your bra everyday...everyone knows that’s not true!). I’m pretty sure half of Colchester has also copped an eyeful of my milk machines including the postman and Asos delivery driver and where S would usually be a bit more concerned about how much of my flesh his mates saw on a night out, they too have been in the company of ‘the gold top sisters’ as they are usually hanging out whilst a FIFA sesh is underway. 

Indi is coming up to 3 months old now and I think I’ve decided to just carry on for as long as possible and let her give it up when she’s ready. Obviously if it gets to the ‘bitty’ stage from Little Britain, I may need to intervene, however once I start introducing food to her diet in a few months she will probably want it less so we’ll just see what happens. Below is a list of pros and cons I’ve found in the past 3 months which some people may find helpful, enlightening, or comforting to know that other people are having the same experiences, so here they are:

Cons:

1. Feeling like your nipples are going to self distruct on every feed in the first few weeks

2. Having to remortgage your house to buy enough nipple cream, cooling gel compresses, breast pads and nipple shields to get you through the first month 

3. Smelling like an empty McDonald’s milkshake cup that someone has left on a bench in the sunshine at the beach

4. Washing your bras, tops, pyjamas and bedsheets more frequently due to major milk leakage. I actually nearly drowned in my own milk the first time Indi slept through! True story!

5. Having to pre plan your outfit so you can easily feed in public without getting completely naked

6. Not buying clothes that you actually like because you look at them and think ‘nah, that will be a nightmare to feed in’ so you put it back on the rail and buy your 586th oversized tshirt that can easily be lifted up

7. The ‘fountain of let down’ when your baby gets distracted/accidentally unlatches themselves and your boob has turned into a supersoaker 5000 - not ideal when your baby gets squirted in the eye with breastmilk and continues the feed looking like a pirate, but it is good for getting the attention of your partner when they ‘don’t hear the baby stirring’ at 4am (and to deal with people mentioned in point 9).

8. If you are going to be away from your baby for the day you will still need to express roughly the same amount of times they feed to keep your supply up and to prevent you from turning into the superhero of motherhood also know as ‘Boulder boobs’. Those bad boys will get so hard and start bursting out your bra if you don’t, so make sure you pack a pump...or hand express into a prosecco glass like I did in the interval of a musical whilst perched on the toilet. 

9. You get the odd dickhead who is still living in the 1900’s and thinks that flashing your ankles makes you a prostitute...refer to point 7 to really give them something to moan about. 

Pros:

1. It’s free!!!! Which means you have more money to spend on clothes (although now you’re a Mum, you never actually buy clothes for yourself, instead you end up spending a fortune on stuff your baby will wear approximately twice before either growing out of it or pooing over it)

2. You won’t give yourself dermatitis from sterilising the shit out of everything used to prepare and feed your baby with - I barely do my own washing up, why would I want to add to it?! 

3. Breastmilk is the correct temperature for your baby so you don’t need to turn into Goldilocks and the three bears by worrying if it’s too hot or too cold. Be assured that it’s just right. 

4. It’s got a longer shelf life than formula that’s been made up. Once expressed, breastmilk can be left at room temperature for up to 6 hours and will keep in the fridge for up to 5 days or in the freezer for up to 5 months. Once heated from the fridge/freezer, it’s good for up to an hour so no need to worry if your baby doesn’t drink it all in one go. 

5. It’s full of antibodies which can help fight infection. If your baby looks like it’s got a sore finger, dab it with breastmilk, sore eye? Cold boiled water or breastmilk, nappy rash? Breastmilk. *Broken bone? Breastmilk. *please note, this one has not been scientifically tested. 

6. It can help to reduce your mum tum (apparently!) Not entirely sure about this one although the amount of cake, biscuits and chocolate I’ve consumed just recently probably hasn’t worked in harmony with this theory?! 

7. You can still enjoy a drink!! (I write this with a prosecco in hand). Recent study shows that having the odd drink or two doesn’t affect your milk in the slightest, in fact, it’s the equivalent of throwing a shot into a swimming pool. Your body will filter out the alcohol before it even reaches your milk so you don’t need to worry about your baby waking up with a hangover, you on the other hand, well, that depends how much of a lightweight you are.

8. And finally...if you run out of semi skimmed and you can’t be arsed to go to the shop....need I say anymore?! 

On a serious note though, to all the new mums out there, it doesn’t mater what you decide to feed your baby, just know you are doing an amazing job! Our bodies grew these little miracles and there’s enough pressure on new mums as it is, without the headline ‘breast is best’ being thrown in our faces all the time. MILK is best and as long as your baby is happy and healthy, that’s the main and most important thing. 

L xx