Dear Mama,
It’s World Breastfeeding Week and my feed has been bombarded with pretty breastfeeding pics. Pics of women in flower fields or somewhere serene with their little one latched to their breast ever so peacefully. I’m sure if you are on IG you’ve at least seen a few if not more. And while I think those pictures are beautiful it’s not reality at least not 99.99% of the time.
Those IG highlight reel pictures can be misleading and cause mamas to feel discourage and defeated when comparing it to their journey – which isn’t cool. So, as much as I was tempted to jump on the band wagon of embellished breastfeeding. I decided to take a different approach. Let me start by saying that my journey was far from what I expected. My milk dried up with Livi at 3 months because I was having to take dye test. I felt so disappointed and with Grayson I made it 5 months but it was a hard 5 months. At first he was tongue tied and even after his tongue was snipped he still had a difficult time latching. He latched eventually but that first suck was always painful that I turned to exclusively pumping and dried up shortly afterwards. With Teigan I made it to 8 months and had to supplement with formula towards the end.
My biggest Breastfeeding Takeaway
I traveled the breastfeeding journey three times and each one was a little different. The first one ended in total defeat. The second was hard but I made it a little further and the third I made it the furthest. The biggest takeaway from my breastfeeding journey is resilience and acceptance. Acceptance that I may not make it past 5 months let alone a year and to be open to whatever happens. Truth is mama, breastfeeding is beautiful, painful and at times it is annoying but so worth it in the end.
Remember Mama
Every mamas journey is different and that’s what makes it beautiful. Not every perfectly angled or staged IG pic is what it seems. Behind majority of those pics is a not so perfect one. Don’t let those pictures be your benchmark. Your journey can only be benchmarked by you alone.
If you are not able to, or choose not to do it, feeding your baby will also be a bonding experience. So, whatever happens in your journey know that the bond that everyone speaks about is there regardless of whether you give your child milk from your breast, a bottle with breast milk or even bottled formula.
And regardless how you feed your little one it will be beautiful, annoying at times and absolutely worth it.
The REAL truth is that we are all mamas just trying to do the very best for our babies.
With Love From Catt
~XO
p.s. I hope I normalized breastfeeding and challenge you to do the same. In doing this we are truly supporting other mamas.
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