Our brush with breastfeeding!

I call it our brush with breastfeeding, but we did last four weeks. Given that it was four weeks of traumatized nipples that were too sore to even touch the tshirt i was wearing, rashes, mastitis, sleep deprivation, no weight gain for the baby, unsuccessful expressing, bottle top ups, nipple shields, sore and lumpy breasts - i think that we gave it a shot. Even the lactation consultant we were seeing was surprised we went for as long as we did. I can't say it was enjoyable, though i did feel sad to stop. Sad i guess that the one special thing that only i could do for the baby was ending, that the closeness of it was ending. I also felt relief - relief at the thought of being able to let my poor breasts heal, at the thought of having no pain anywhere in my body - for the first time in 10 months. I think for me, my painful experience of breastfeeding probably only detracted from this beautiful early time with our baby, prohibited the enjoyment i could have felt. Don't get me wrong - it was still an enjoyable time - but i think would have been more so if we didn't have such a nasty time of breastfeeding.

It's all history now though. We weaned at four weeks to bottles and Spence then thrived, finally getting the nutrition he needed he has now caught up to his expected weight and has really filled out. And me...the wean ended up being alot faster than we thought as Spence stopped taking the breast when we got down to 2 bottles and 4 breastfeeds per day - he no longer would take the breast and so our slow wean became an immediate wean. This was a painful week for me, but after the soreness went away, i felt a million bucks!