Thursday 21 July 2011

The post I would like to write...

...and which, at some point, I definitely will be writing, will be the one called "my breastfeeding journey". It will document how flippin hard breastfeeding is, our initial early struggles with jaundice, the whole tongue tie saga, the ridiculousness of being trapped only able to do the rugby hold on one side (which, if you're not all over this, means you need a big stack of cushions and therefore really can't pull it off discreetly in starbucks), the traumas and self-doubt of evening cluster feeding, and then a line or two at the end that says "...but now, after nn weeks, we're still nursing and both loving it".
If you're a caring concerned reader of this blog, please can you send my way any positive vibes you have available to make that "nn" above be around, I don't know, 9-10 weeks? I am still gracelessly, wilfully, painfully determined that my perfect, gorgeous, thriving, worth-more-than-gold sausage is going to get the best food for him for at least six months, but I can't say I'm loving it yet: I'm loving the effects, and I'm loving the fact we're managing it, but the process? The process still hurts, still makes me question my adequacy and my resources and reserves, and I'm still working at going with the flow on how much it immobilises me, and I do wish it was easier.
(Of course, I'd been planning to write this post for a couple of days, and the reason that, exceptionally, I have time to do so this evening is that he had a really really good long feed oo, a couple of hours ago, and has been absolutely fast asleep ever since. So, hardly a long traumatic evening of cluster feeding, and what's more, the really good long feed, on both sides, didn't even hurt. One of the wisest pieces of advice I had from one of the squillion experts I've talked to on this, though, was to take it one feed at a time. She said it was a mistake to think "right, we've now cracked this" just as it was to think "this proves it's terrible", and that in fact it was likely to get better gradually. This and "never give up on a bad day" are keeping me going).
(Included in the "my breastfeeding journey" post will be discussions of two more books, 36 The womanly art of breastfeeding (La Leche League) and 37 Ina May's guide to breastfeeding. You can never accuse me of not reading up around a subject - I might even also tell you all about 38 Understanding your crying baby (Kitzinger) which is a laughable reading choice for mother of possibly the sunniest baby that's ever been made)

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