Breastfeeding for me has been a rough start for both girls. There were times with my first that I was ready to give up and switch to formula. Had it not been for sheer will and to prove my mother wrong (she thought I was crazy for even wanting to attempt to breastfeed in the first place) I would have.

The truth is, breastfeeding is very natural, but also can be extremely difficult in the beginning. I’m going to share my experience in this post, but you can read this one to see some of the things that surprised me about breastfeeding when I first started.

My experience breastfeeding with Isabel

With my first, I felt like a fish out of water in the hospital. What I thought was going to be so natural was really hard to figure out. The positioning was hard, baby is so tiny, and the nurses and lactation consultants were not that helpful. In fact, they kind of made me feel stupid.

When Isabel was first born, the doctors all gave her a clean bill of health – everything was working fine with her mouth, no sign of ties, the sucking reflex was good, but for some reason, she still just wasn’t latching correctly and it was a little painful. It wasn’t too bad, but when we left the hospital and had to deal with things on our own things took a turn for the worse.

My nipples were cracked, bleeding and I was crying every 2 hours because it was so painful to feed her. We went back to the lactation consultant and she said no, everything looks good, I don’t know why you’re struggling… not helpful! By day 11 I had, had it. I wasn’t sleeping, I was in so much pain, I was starting to dread feeding times, I felt so bad for my crying newborn, I was ready to give up.

Finding La Leche League

I looked online and found La Leche League was a program for breastfeeding help and so I looked up my local group and called one of the moderators. I told her I was ready to give up, that I didn’t understand why it was so painful, and she literally showed up to my house THAT NIGHT to try and help. She gave me different positions to try, helped me figure out cup feeding in case I wanted a break, and provided so much emotional help that I desperately needed at that time. I cannot stress enough how much LLL saved me in that time. (I still go to meetings to this day!).

Finding Lip & Tongue Ties

Later, she suggested that maybe something was going on with baby, even though 3 different doctors and 2 lactation consultants told us that everything was okay. I eventually found a Facebook group with a very experienced IBLC who was virtually able to meet with me to look at Isabel and asses her mouth. She told me that she did see both severe lip and tongue ties. Finally an answer! But WHY, WHY did everyone else tell me that things were totally ok? Well, she told me that doctors, pediatricians and even a lot of lactation consultants are not properly trained in ties and unfortunately miss a majority of them. A little bit of pain in the first couple days to weeks can be normal as you adjust to the new sensations of nursing. But continued severe pain, cracking, bleeding is NOT normal.

At 4 months, we took Isabel to a pediatric dentist and got her tongue and lip ties revised. It took her a little bit of time to figure out how to work her new mouth and muscles, but by 5 months we were totally painless and breastfeeding like champs. I nursed her until 18 months when I got pregnant with my second.

My experience breastfeeding Juliana

When Juliana was born, and she tried to latch the first time, I knew right away that she had ties too. I wanted her assessed by a pediatric dentist IMMEDIATELY because I did not want to go through the same thing again. I had to pump and feed her with a bottle for the first few days because it was so painful. I ended up being able to get her revised at 6 days old. She had some trouble figuring out her mouth, and needed some extra help, but by 2 weeks we were only experiencing minor pain, and by 2 months everything was great. She’s now 6 months and we’re going strong.

I don’t tell this story to scare you, I just tell it so that 1. if you are going through this, you know that YOU ARE NOT ALONE!! and 2. because if you are expecting your first child and everyone just tells you how natural it is and that it is all sunshine and rainbows, you may be in for a tough reality. I highly suggest that you read this post if you are an expecting mother!