Right from the very beginning, hubby and me were one and unified that my Baby Riduan should be breastfeed as soon as he is delivered. I honestly thought it was the most natural and basic instinct of any mother and felt like it was a no-brainer. I didn't even find the time to read up about it or even expect any sort of challenges. Guess how wrong I was? Well, I was about 80% wrong. Yup that's right...What I really need right now is to bust out a Jim Rohn quote so that I can mentally slap myself:
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail!
It ain't no walk in the park honey
It was a skill that I needed to learn and it almost crushed me to bits. If it wasn't for the support that I got from my darling hubby, my family and friends, I think I would have given up right from the first three hours after giving birth. With this in mind, I do hope that this sharing from me will encourage new mothers out there to brave out the first few unexpectedly challenging days of breastfeeding and stick to it.
Challenge #1: No nurse! Don't give baby the bottle!
Sometimes it boggles the mind how private medical practices work nowadays. Feeding our babies should start within the first hour as soon as he or she is out from our tummies right? Guess how long Baby Riduan waited before I managed to feed him? A full three hours! Madness! It took all of my leftover energy after his birth to stop them from feeding Baby Riduan formula milk. There's a kazillion reasons why breastfeeding is awesome (infact, this brilliant website has 101 reasons!) but essentially breastfeeding provides perfect nutrition for our little babes. So mommies, challenge the system and let your babies have the best nutrition naturally!
Challenge #2: Latch me on mommy =(
I very clearly remember that in the first two weeks I nearly gave up. I just couldn't get Baby Riduan to latch on and feed. He would cry for hours at a time just because he didn't get enough milk from me. Well mommy forgot one crucial message from the term "breastfeeding"...mommy was nipple feeding! Haha, I nearly fell off my chair laughing hard when I came across that bit of information ^_^ That set me out on a mission to learn HOW to breastfeed and I did a ton of searching:
- Go meet your midwife - This is the number one person that any new unexperienced breastfeeding mother should meet. She will set you straight on how to hold your baby and where to aim your baby's mouth. InsyaAllah, it will be soooo much easier with the help of this wonderful lady
- Read up! - I read countless amount of internet sharing and subscribed to online support groups so that I can better understand where I went wrong. Here you can read a lot about the basics of breastfeeding. Here and here are great support groups
- Talk about it with other mommies - This helps A LOT. Not only are these fantastic ladies loaded with years of experience, they are very supportive too! I got a lot of help from my bestfriend Linda who already has two darling daughters and she was the one who spotted that I didn't manage to latch on Baby Riduan properly and everything about what I was doing looked awkward. She was the one who put me on my road of searching. And then there was Kak Yati who was my partner in breastfeeding research as she was pregnant with her second baby the same time as me. Check out my Samsung Galaxy SII screenshot that I took of our conversation way back then:
Challenge #3: It hurts baby!
This has everything to do with Challenge #2. In my wee experience, if you fail to latch on the baby properly, chances are you are going to really hurt yourself. Not only your baby wont get enough milk but you yourself will suffer much pain and agony. At the beginning because I didn't know any better, one of my nipples cracked and I dread breastfeeding. Plus, since I only then preferred the one side that didn't hurt, now they are both lopsided. Double whammy. Hoho, do not under-estimate the power of baby's feeding. So then I went on another hunt to ease the pain so to speak. What I found out was that it all has to do with proper latching. Once I got that mastered, everything evened out and I found out from my midwife that a cracked nipple can easily be remedied with your own breast milk, much like a moisturizer.
And last but not least, all of this thought me a wonderful lesson
God gave me a wonderfully easy way to feed my baby. Personally, I think this is one of the many reasons why I love becoming a full-time stay at home mommy, working my business from the cosy belly of my home and it is my duty to share my experience to those who are searching. Yes, it was hard and yes, I nearly gave up. But the rewards are priceless. So hang in there new mommies, its worth the hard work and pain!
Thank you all for letting me share this with you ^_^
Your friend,
{ Aisyah }