Before I was a mom, I hadn’t given a lot of thought as to how and what I would feed my children. I hadn’t grown up around any babies other than the occasional visit with my nieces who were both breastfed. Unfortunately, that was a private journey for my sister so my exposure to breastfeeding was extremely limited. Then, at age 18, I gave birth to my son. The first question the nursing staff asked me just seconds after he was born was “are you going to breastfeed?”. Wow, right? It was a tough question for someone who had just spent three grueling hours pushing out a 9 pound baby. I was dumbfounded and muttered out a simple “sure”.
That moment was the beginning of a heart wrenching struggle in my journey through motherhood. My first week of feeding this very hungry little boy with little to no education on breastfeeding was catastrophic (in my mind) at best. Not only did I struggle physically with the pain but emotionally knowing that I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know how.
Fortunately, I had a very understanding husband who helped me transition to bottle feeding our son. While it didn’t lessen the “mommy guilt” it did help relieve some of my duties while recovering and we had quite a happy, well-fed baby on our hands. That experience plus the combined experiences of feeding the two children that followed taught us both important lessons as parents. I was able to finally learn how to breastfeed a child which I did for nearly 14 months. I was also able to bottle and breastfeed our third child giving us and her the best of both worlds.
I’d love to hear about your struggles and successes in feeding your newborns at home.
Feel free to share your experiences here or visit the Philips AVENT Mom Tribe on Mom Bloggers Club where you can share your new mom experiences and we’re giving away great prizes this week including: (2) infant starter kits and (2) baby monitors and (1) spout cup!
To enter, join our discussion and complete one of the listed activities. Don’t forget you can also follow the conversation with the Twitter #PhilipsAVENTMomTribe hashtag.
As a compensated Philips AVENT Mom Ambassador for Mom Bloggers Club, I will be periodically sharing my parenting experiences and contest news.
I was very lucky and blessed during my pregnancy that I did not have any breastfeeding issues. My daughter was very good from the start!