Breastfeeding at last!

Baby Y did not latch on and feed from the breast until he was four months old. He only ever drank from one breast, and ended up being mixed fed. But this is the story of how I successfully breastfed him until he was nearly three years old. 

Y was my third child. I had desperately wanted to breastfeed my two older daughters but issues with latching, pain, and believing that it simply wouldn’t work for me, meant I didn’t seek help. With both my daughters, I expressed my milk for a couple of weeks. However, I didn’t know the importance of regular pumping, so my sessions gradually yielded less milk and I stopped pumping. 

My friend and LLL breastfeeding counsellor Karis mentioned that I might be carrying trauma from not being able to breastfeed my girls and I really think this was the case. I can still vividly remember taking my firstborn for one of her health visitor appointments. Another woman was breastfeeding her baby near me. I was simultaneously amazed and deeply saddened by the fact I could hear huge gulps and swallows of milk. I felt such a failure, and disappointed that my body couldn’t do this most natural of things. Later, another LLL Leader told me that the only “natural” thing about breastfeeding is the milk itself. Everything else, including positioning the baby and building a supply, is down to hard work, persistence, and help from women in the community with knowledge of breastfeeding. In breastfeeding communities, mothers, aunts and grandmothers would have supported the new mother. In non-breastfeeding communities, I cannot overstate the importance of people like my LLL Leaders Karis, Karon, and Patricia, who helped me immensely. 

Baby Y was born via c-section. I attempted to get him onto my breast as soon as we were in the recovery room and a midwife told me he had a good latch. The problems started soon after.  I have one fully inverted and one flat nipple. Baby Y was able to draw out the flat one, but a shallow latch quickly led to cracked nipples, with toe-curling pain and bleeding.

I bought silver nipple shields, gel patches, silicone breast shields –  whatever was available, I bought!  These were Covid times and my husband was with me at home. Every time I tried to breastfeed I’d hold my (often engorged) breast in position while my husband gently and quickly moved Y into place against my body.  Karis described breastfeeding as a team sport: you, baby and others. I couldn’t have done this without her, Patricia, Karon, and my husband. A small but powerful group!

Despite all the help, baby Y had dry lips, his weight dropped, and he became too sleepy to latch. He developed jaundice and was admitted to hospital for light therapy. At this point we started using some formula. Knowing how much I wanted to breastfeed, Karis encouraged me to start pumping. I expressed every three hours, including at midnight and 3am. Anyone who has done this knows how exhausting it is. But I kept on, knowing I would survive the exhaustion and that my goal was to build my milk supply.  I used a double pump and watched one 20 minute comedy episode for each session (thanks Patricia for that amazing tip!)  

We discovered that our baby had a tongue tie, which was treated. I kept up the pumping and soon had enough to feed Y mostly expressed breastmilk every day, plus a small amount of formula. Before each bottle we attempted to latch on. The cracking and bleeding was so bad that I often had to take a break for several days while I waited for my nipples to heal. 

Patricia reminded me that pumping is breastfeeding. She told me that I was amazing for “triple feeding” Baby Y. I was pumping, attempting a latch, and giving him a bottle of breastmilk or formula. If you are doing this, please know how wonderful you are, even if you never get the latch you desire. 

Several weeks later, my nipples had fully healed and I had built up enough of a milk stash that I was able to plan ahead for months. One of my calculations allowed me to give Y a bottle of breastmilk every day for a year, if I chose to spread It that far!  It was immensely satisfying and I was starting to feel at peace with my breastfeeding journey looking different to others’. We took longer trips out and I pumped at the beach and in the car. Sometimes I even pumped knowing I wouldn’t have anywhere to store the milk, and added it to Y’s bath later instead!

Then one night, when Y was four months old, he latched on. 

I would never have believed such a late start to breastfeeding was possible, but Karis, Patricia, and Karon had always believed it could. I can still hear Karis’ gentle and encouraging voice, telling me that his mouth would get bigger and stronger and that it would happen, if I held him skin to skin and kept offering the breast. Patricia had also encouraged me to keep pumping and to offer, offer, offer. Karon had put me in touch with another mother in an almost identical situation to my own, whose baby did eventually latch on. I wanted to believe them of course –  I so desperately wanted to breastfeed – but it seemed less and less likely as time passed. 

When it happened, it was the middle of the night.  Karis had said that babies’ reflexes are often strongest then, so I decided to use Y’s sleepy state to offer the breast. He latched on and drank and drank and drank. I couldn’t believe it! Imagine harps playing, clouds parting… Euphoria is the closest word to what I felt in that moment.

In the days after, I breastfed as often as possible, giving extra milk by bottle in between. Breastfeeding became uncomfortable again, and it turned out that Y’s tongue had reattached. An osteopath also told us that Y had a very tense jaw which made it difficult for him to open his mouth wide. He could only really “chomp” with his lips. These “mechanical” obstacles would have made it  difficult for Y to latch, even without my flat and inverted nipples. 

Eventually we settled into a routine that worked for us: three or four long and cosy breastfeeds a day and bottles in between. I took the decision to stop pumping. Breastfeeding was the first thing we did in the morning and the last thing before Y went to bed at night. It was only ever from one side, and always in the same “beginner” position on my nursing pillow. I had to use breast compressions every time. By the end of our breastfeeding journey, at nearly three years old, he was so big that it seemed as though his legs would extend out of the door!  He will be five soon and I am still so proud of what I achieved. 

My desire to breastfeed didn’t come from the belief that formula is bad – my formula-fed daughters were strong and thriving.  When my  stash of frozen breastmilk dwindled, Baby Y was also fed formula in between breastfeeds, so my frozen stash would last longer. It wasn’t the “breast is best” message, or any other external factor. I’m from a Muslim, south Asian background and I had assumed that there would be a gentle push towards breastfeeding in my community, but it was quite the opposite: “fill up that little tummy with a nice, big bottle of formula” was the message! 

I wanted to breastfeed for myself. I wanted to experience something which to me, seemed natural and utterly beautiful. And because it didn’t come easily to me, and due to my earlier “failures”, it felt even more precious and beautiful. I absolutely felt the release of oxytocin every time I fed him. If I heard the harps playing on that first latching on, then every subsequent feed was spent floating on clouds. 

The beautiful memories of breastfeeding Y will stay with me as some of the most precious of my life. If you feel a strong desire to breastfeed, please know that if I could do it, then really and truly, with the right people supporting you, anyone can.

A, LLL East London.