My mother’s face looked anguished as she held my infant daughter to my breast so she could feed. I was unable to move, attached to a stiff hospital bed, tubes running around my body as the painful pinch of IV drips pulling at needles lodged in both my hands and arms held me in place.
“Can’t she just bottle feed the baby?”, my mother approached a nurse tending to my weeping puncture points as another needle bled out through weakened tissue.
“No mum,” I carefully placed my hand on her arm, “I want to keep breastfeeding, it’s the only thing I have any control over”.
This certainly wasn’t how I pictured it, the start of my mothering and breastfeeding journey. I had suffered a serious complication three weeks post birth and was readmitted to hospital with my tiny daughter. My husband helped me maintain breastfeeding whilst I recovered, even massaging lumps out of my breast as she fed (now that certainly wasn’t in our wedding vows). And now here I am, 26.5 months of breastfeeding experience under my belt, three babies who have each fed very differently, one baby who is still breastfeeding, and a household who knows not what a bottle is.
I do get asked often from misunderstood observers, “Why don’t you use a bottle?”. Perhaps they think it will give me some kind of break? Maybe it will allow my husband to be ‘more involved’ in the feeding process? Maybe they feel uncomfortable when I get my breasts out to feed my hungry baby? Or they perhaps assume they are helping me? But don’t they realise, I breastfeed because I’m lazy.
That’s right, breastfeeding is the perfect excuse to escape household chores. “Sorry honey, I can’t wash the dishes, baby is feeding…again”. It’s great for excusing yourself at an event when you are not interested in talking to anyone there, “Oh, where’s the feeding room? I’ll just be out here, feeding my baby and enjoying the view” (and the relative silence as I relax to the sound of my baby gulping away happily). Let’s not forget the extra time I have achieved watching television or lying in bed as I feed my baby, “No, he’s not asleep at the breast, he’s still feeding”. And I’ve never seen the logic in getting up in the middle of the night to warm a bottle when I am able and willing to breastfeed, meaning I don’t even need to leave the bed, let alone open my eyes.
I’m lucky, in the sense that my husband has always been supportive of my breastfeeding 100%. I don’t really need an excuse not to do the dishes as my job as a Mummy, and my desire to breastfeed is recognised and valued. My husband is one of the smart ones, who understands breastfeeding takes time and energy, so he picks up any slack. Our role as parents is shared, and he doesn’t miss out through my breastfeeding. No, it simply means he gets more nappy changes!
I support a woman’s decision to feed her baby as she chooses, with bottle or breast. Either way she is going to need the support of her family behind her. Every one in our household knows the value of our feeding journey that we begin as infants. My Miss 2 is quick to point out when baby needs to be “Eating Boo Boos Mummy” and my Miss 3 has even offered to feed him for me insisting she has her own milk supply. They don’t know how to feed a baby any other way, and this means they have learnt not to hide infant feeding, but rather rejoice in it, as it truly is a beautiful thing.
You go girl!