Well-meant advice breastfeeding mums should ignore

We recently welcomed our very first nephew, Ethan, into the world; he’s a gorgeous little boy and everybody is completely smitten with him already.  It’s going to be so wonderful watching him grow up and I really hope he and Bubs become best pals.  He isn’t even a week old yet but Ethan’s mummy is already doing a great job – motherhood has brought out a new, calm confidence in her that is lovely to watch.  She is also getting to grips brilliantly with breastfeeding – much better than I did to begin with – and I’m very proud of her determination and commitment to giving him a great start in life.  I think Ethan’s arrival will bring a new dimension to our relationship as well – I can already feel a new sisterhood between us and I hope that as our boys grow up we get even closer as friends, sisters and mums!

OK enough of the gushing, before I make myself cry!  What I really wanted to say is that Ethan’s arrival has reminded me about what it was like when I was a first-time mum – wet behind the ears, sleep deprived and totally confused by all the well-intentioned yet conflicting advice given to me by more or less everyone who came to visit us in those early weeks.

One of the things I found really tough was the fact that everybody seemed to have an opinion about breastfeeding, and most of those opinions were completely unhelpful considering that I was already tired, sore and desperately worried that I wasn’t doing it ‘right’ or that my baby wasn’t getting enough to eat.  Without even realising it, some of the people who were trying to ‘help’ were actually undermining my confidence, and it took me quite a while to work out that the only way to deal with their advice, however well-meant, was to smile, say ‘thanks, I’ll try that’ – and then completely ignore it!

Here are some things I wish I’d ignored right from the word go…

1.  He’s hungry/not getting enough

I got this all the time from older women (mainly my mum’s generation) for whom bottle feeding was very much the norm.  My mother-in-law couldn’t get her head around the fact that when you’re breastfeeding, you can’t measure how much milk the baby is getting.  I found this really difficult to withstand when we hit one of the dreaded ‘growth spurts’ and it took all my strength to tell the doubters that it was NORMAL for a breastfed baby to feed frequently, and that this in itself would stimulate my breasts to produce more milk, thus satisfying his demand.  Perhaps not as convenient as mixing up an extra ounce of formula, but nonetheless exactly as nature intended.

2.  He should be sleeping through by now

By the time my son was six months old I’d got so sick of telling people that he still woke in the night for feeds, I just started to lie and tell them he was sleeping through for a quiet life.  My own mother was so horrified by his frequent night wakings you’d have thought she was the one having to get up and feed him!  I firmly believe that for the first six months of life, it’s not normal for a baby to sleep for long stretches at night.  Research shows that the risk of cot death is lower in breastfed infants and I think that the frequent waking to feed probably has a lot to do with this.  Levels of Prolactin, the hormone that causes your body to produce milk, are also at their highest during the night and for this reason night feeds are important to ensure adequate milk supply for your growing infant.  Instead of feeling like a failure because Bubs didn’t sleep through, I should have given myself a pat on the back.  Night feeds don’t last forever and personally I often enjoyed that silence at 3am, broken only by the sound of him feeding contentedly.

3.  Six months is long enough

Once Bubs hit the magic six month mark, those people who’d seemed bemused by my decision to breastfeed in the first place really started to get uncomfortable.  I wasn’t just feeding a tiny baby any more; my son was wriggly and alert and easily distracted during feeds, often popping off for a good look around while my milk went spraying all over the sofa!  He was also enjoying his first tastes of fruit and veg, and for many this meant it was time for me to put my boobs away and start feeding him something a ‘bit more substantial’.  Some were convinced I was making a rod for my own back, that Bubs would never sleep through the night without a top-up of formula, that he would get ‘too attached’ to me and I would never have any freedom etc. etc. According to World Health Organisation guidelines, I knew that six months was the minimum amount of time I should breastfeed for – and quite frankly after the physical pain and emotional turmoil of those early days, I wasn’t about to quit just when things were going smoothly!  Breastfeeding beyond six months means your baby continues to enjoy all the benefits that made you breastfeed in the first place.  After six months you can work on potential problems such as comfort sucking and feeding to sleep so you needn’t be ‘tied’ to him or her all the time unless you want to be.  And past a certain point, your baby will only need feeding two or three times a day, probably in the privacy of your own home – so it’s nobody else’s business but your own!

4.  You can’t breastfeed a baby with teeth

Bubs cut his first tooth at five months and many people’s first reaction to the news was ‘you’ll have to stop breastfeeding now then!’.  Er, no.  If you put your finger in your mouth and suck it, you’ll see why.  Teeth are not involved in sucking and a baby that is latched on and actively sucking cannot physically bite you.  Yes, I did get bitten a few times when Bubs was teething but I quickly became adept at recognising the signs he was about to nip and preventing it before it happened.  And, no, it wasn’t pleasant but saying you don’t want to breastfeed in case you get bitten is a bit like saying you don’t want children because giving birth hurts – the rewards are more than worth the pain.