Last week, my breasts went on strike. Or my breastpump broke. I’m still not sure what happened, and while it was happening, I couldn’t decide which was  worse. Things seem to be back to normal now, but even though  Baby Boy is almost 4 months old, I have yet to fully solve the mystery that is breastfeeding. In fact the purists would be appalled at what passes for breastfeeding in my house.

For me, the experience of breastfeeding has ranged from very challenging and frustrating to incredibly rewarding. I know that I am not alone in this, so I thought I would share some of what I have encountered along the way.

The Latch

Our troubles started just after Baby Boy was born. Initially, I thought we were doing okay, however a meeting with a lactation consultant at the hospital’s breastfeeding clinic indicated that Baby Boy was not latching properly and therefore not getting enough to eat, resulting in a worrisome weight loss.

We ended up visiting the breastfeeding clinic 4 times in the first week after being released from the hospital. Nipple shields, hand expressing techniques, and a breastpump, were all offered to facilitate getting the breastmilk out to compensate for Baby Boy’s “goofy suck”, and syringes and small cups were provided to deliver the milk to him when he was not able to get it directly from the breast.

In those early days, I would start by offering Baby Boy my breast, being careful to arrange myself into the proper position for him to get on. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, the  result was Baby Boy screaming as soon as he came anywhere near my naked breast, while punching it repeatedly with his little fists (aka “breastyelling”). This would go on for 5 to 10 minutes straight, at which point Baby Boy would be past the point of no return, and I’d move on to pumping, and then feeding Baby Boy using a small cup or syringe.

We would have a successful feed or two, and then the following day he would not latch at all. There were a few days where I actually gave up on even trying him on the breast, since it was so frustrating for both of us, not to mention demoralizing for me.

On days when I did try to get him on, I never knew if an attempt would work, and if so, for how long. Sometimes, I would get him on for a few minutes, but then he’d break the latch and it would be impossible to get him back on again.

By the end of the second week, things were finally starting to click. Baby Boy was latching more consistently, and staying on for longer. When he did slip off, I was able to get him latched on again fairly easily. The lactation consultant let us introduce the bottle for pumped milk, which was much easier to use than syringe feeding.

I had been feeding Baby Boy almost exclusively from my left breast, since I found it easier to get good positioning on that side, and didn’t want to add to our frustrations by fumbling around on the right side. Once we got over that initial hump though, I started to work on getting the same success on the right side.

The Time Commitment

Unfortunately, once we got the latching figured out, new frustrations cropped up. Ironically, once we figured out how to get Baby Boy on the breast, it was impossible to get him off. The lactation consultants at the breastfeeding clinic who saw me breastfeed had commented that he did not seem very efficient at feeding. Instead of feeding for 20 or 30 minutes, Baby Boy would typically stay on for over an hour. I had several feeds that approached an hour and half. Any time I sat down to breastfeed, I could expect to be at it for at least 45 minutes, though typically longer. After a while, I started to break the latch once we got past an hour, in the hopes that Baby Boy would get the hint to speed things up.

Meanwhile, I continued to pump and supplement with bottle feeding. Pumping for 15 to 20 minutes, and bottle feeding at a later time for 15 to 20 minutes was a lot more manageable than being out of commission for an hour at a time with breastfeeding (especially where night or early morning feedings were concerned).

The Pain

Around this time, breastfeeding started to be very painful. At the start of each session, I would suck in my breath and mentally prepare myself for the searing pain as Baby Boy chomped right down on my nipples as he got comfortable. Because of this, my nipples ended up mangled and sore. My left nipple was in especially rough shape (not the least because I kept picking loosened skin off, thinking it was dried milk – yuck!), so at this time I stopped feeding on the left breast in order to give it a chance to heal. As always, I continued to pump both breasts.

I knew that Baby Boy was probably latching on too shallowly, but I couldn’t seem to get him to take in more of my breast than he was doing.

And that was just my first month of breastfeeding! Stay tuned for Part 2.