Breastfeeding: Five Thoughts, Eight Years On
Here Are Five Thoughts On Breastfeeding…Eight Years On From The Start…
One) It’s not just you. We really struggled with breastfeeding first-time-round, for a long time. It seemed to me like everyone else ‘got’ it, easily, and even people who had problems sorted them out when their baby was a newborn, and not weeks old like my baby was.
The main thought in my head, often through a haze of tears, was – why is it so easy for everyone else, and so very tricky for us?
But it wasn’t just us and it’s not just you who’s struggling
Two) We carried on, in the end, mainly due to access to breast-feeding support, which was vital, and also a privilege, down to a postcode lottery and luck – we were in non-pandemic times and happened to live where there was funding for regular NHS drop-in clinics.
Three) Access to NHS baby feeding support services are *essential* for new mums, and more funding is urgently needed.
Four) For us, feeding got better, and I went on to feed both these two beyond the baby years (which is also way more common than you’d think).
Read my posts on long-term breastfeeding:
- In praise of Tamara Ecclestone and breast feeding my three-year-old,
- I’m breastfeeding my four-year-old, here’s why
- 12 things you should know about breastfeeding an older child
Five) Despite the media doing their best to pit mums against each other when it comes to nursing and baby feeding (hello, patriarchy), everyone is ultimately doing the best they can for their baby.
Some of my previous posts on breastfeeding:
- Unexpectedly brilliant breastfeeding benefits
- Why I’m not embarrassed about public breastfeeding (and you shouldn’t be either)
- Busting myths about breastfeeding
You can also read my posts on:
- What it’s like having a newborn during the Coronavirus pandemic
- 13 thoughts on parenting in a pandemic
I originally wrote this for World Breast -Feeding Week, over on Instagram (follow me there, I’m Gill_Crawshaw)