Ahh, breastfeeding. It can be reallllyyyy hard. There were so many days with BOTH girls that I just wanted to give up. But I had a great support system, and I really believe it is the best thing for baby so I wanted to stick with it even though I had a horrible start to my journey both times.

Now obviously there are people who cannot breastfeed or choose not to breastfeed for one reason or another, and that is OK. Really, as long as baby is getting fed then everything is good in the world. Personally, I chose to breastfeed and I hope my story can help you if you are struggling or if you are an expecting first time mom and just want the honest real truth about breastfeeding.

People always told me it was natural and it would just happen, but the truth is, although it may be natural, it certainly is NOT easy. I had a really hard time starting out, you can read about my experience here. Here are some other things that I didn’t know about before starting my breastfeeding journey.

What Surprised Me About Breastfeeding

First, your milk doesn’t come in right away. For the first few days you only have colostrum or ‘liquid gold’ as it’s sometimes called. It is packed with fat and immune builders for baby. It is essential for those first few days of life. But, once your milk does start to come in, holy cow! You might get so engorged that your boobs might be rock solid. They will be completely filled and can be really painful. Baby might even have a hard time latching if your boobs get so swollen and full.

When they are full and your let down is so powerful, baby might unlatch because it’s too strong and milk might shoot across the room. I can’t tell you how many times that has happened to me and how frustrating it can be! And speaking of let downs, I didn’t expect to be able to feel it, but it kind of tingles.

You also might leak. Women leak different amounts, and I leaked more with Isabel than I have with Juliana, but WOW did I leak with Isabel. It was not abnormal to wake up to a completely soaked bed even if I had nursing pads on.

I was also surprised by how often babies eat. They say they will eat every 2-3 hours, but often times, especially in the early days, it is much more than that. Did you know that babies don’t just nurse because they are hungry? They also nurse when they want comfort, when they’re sick, scared, want eye contact, when they are sleepy, thirsty, want to be held, miss mom, when they are trying to increase your supply, to curb the pain from teething and to build immunity.

WHEW! I’ll talk more about this and cluster feeding in a second, but I say this because I didn’t quite realize the extent to which you kind of feel like you aren’t even your own person anymore. Baby is constantly latched onto you and you sometimes feel like you are just a cow getting constantly milked. Your body is no longer your own. It is a very hard adjustment.

Another thing that I didn’t realize is that there are so many issues or complications that can arise from breastfeeding. I won’t get into them too much here because they could be a post on their own, but some examples are:

-mastitis (like the flu because of a clogged duct)

-ties (structural issues with babies mouth that make it painful)

-thrush (excess yeast and deficiency of good bacteria which can cause extreme pain)

Breastfeeding and Cluster Feeding

Cluster feeding is when baby nurses nonstop or wants to nurse after only small break. This increases your milk supply when baby needs more. Nursing is supply and demand, so if you don’t have the amount of milk that baby wants, they will nurse more often to make more milk. This is totally normal and happens often when baby is a newborn, but even continues to happen through growth spurts and mental leaps too (which happen at roughly 7-10days, 3,6, and 9 weeks, 3, 6, 9 and 12 months).

Cluster feeding caught me totally off guard, and I’ll I can say is to make sure you have a good TV show or movie to watch when baby is going through those stages.

Breastfeeding and Baby Sleep

In the early months (and forever if you choose to nurse that way), babies should be able to nurse ON DEMAND – not on a schedule that you have in your head. This can be especially difficult at night. Seriously, sleep deprivation took on a whole new meaning with Isabel. I really wasn’t prepared for it.

What kind of made this easier for me was coming to the realization that frequent waking and nursing in the night DECREASES the risk for SIDS. It also helps baby maintain their blood sugar and keeps your milk supply up for baby.

You’ll also start to get good at ‘dream feeding’ which is when you nurse baby without actually waking them up. This helps curb some of the middle of the night wake ups. For example, if you go to bed at 10, but baby usually wakes up for the first time around 11, you could just dream feed baby at 10 when you go to bed which will hopefully get them to sleep until 12 or 1 rather than waking up at 11.

Breastfeed and Dad

I was surprised to learn that when we first started out, your spouse can kind of feel left out. Baby is in survival mode, and really just wants mom. It’s kind of hard when they are really only awake for 45 minutes at a time early on and half of that could be spent eating.

For me, pumping to let him do a feed was just pointless, yes maybe it would have let him feel more involved, but that would have been time for me to pump, more dishes, confusion for baby etc.. So, Dan did all the diaper changes, read to her, and had special 1 on 1 time with her while I took a nap or did some self care. You’ll have to find other ways for dad to build his own special bond with baby.

Nursing in Public

Lastly, I never really gave a thought to nursing in public before I was actually nursing. I didn’t realize that there was such a taboo about it either. But if you didn’t know, if you are allowed to be somewhere, you are allowed to breastfeed there. In all 50 states (included DC, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands) it is legal to publicly breastfeed. Even in private establishments! If you are asked to leave or move it can be considered harassment and violates your legal rights. You can ask for a manager and even seek legal counsel if you want to.

Now, I’m not saying that it is always worth the fight, but I just found that very interesting to know and I thought you might too.

I hope this doesn’t scare you too much about breastfeeding, but in truth it is a hard adjustment. It will get easier though! I will be making a whole video on the topic too, you can check my channel here. If you’re interested in a more in depth conversation about some topics specifically let me know!

You got this mama!