Breastfeeding: A Postscript

After I wrote my post on breastfeeding my toddler last night, I felt at odds. As though the late hour had propelled me towards pressing "publish" before I had covered all my bases. Call me paranoid, but I just feel as though I didn't explain myself as eloquently as I could have last night.

Let's be clear here:

I have been the mother who struggled to establish breastfeeding with her first child; who was bullied by midwives into giving "supplementary feeds" of formula to combat jaundice, while simultaneously being bullied by other midwives for using formula at all; who suffered terrible pain due to poor attachment and mastitis; who eventually found equilibrium with breastfeeding and milk from a cup; who found out she was pregnant with number two when number one weaned with no warning whatsoever.

I have been the mother who fed a newborn a mix of blood and pus from her nipples; who was pushed out of hospital three days after a caesarean with a baby rapidly losing weight; who was harrassed so badly by a visiting midwife about her daughter's falling weight that the nurse phoned DHS from her home, demanding intervention; who cried in agony while her copious milk dried up and her baby sucked hungrily on a rubber teat; who developed post-natal depression due to her "failure" to breastfeed; who put on 20 kilos due to PND; who continued to have to explain her "decision" to bottlefeed well into the next pregnancy; and who now has a happy, healthy, non-allergic, well-adjusted three year old daughter who knows her mother loves her as much as her breastfed brother and sister.

I have been the mother who was so concerned about her third newborn in the special care nursery, she walked down there with expressed milk only hours after the epidural wore off after a caesar; who was spoken to so harshly by some child in a doctor's coat about birth weight and "responsible parenting" that she stayed awake all night, force-feeding the baby who was perfectly fine and just wanted to sleep; who had her baby brought to her for five days while she lay, unable to move in a second hospital, and had gentle midwives expertly attach her baby in a way that avoided the canula that extended the entire length of her arm; who recognised that she had been given the gift of a third child, and had her life saved in the space of ten days, and decided that no more battles would be fought.

I have succeeded and failed at feeding newborns. I have succeeded and failed at feeding older babies. I have beaten myself up over most aspects of my parenting, most of the time. But in this particular instance, at this point in time, I am successfully breastfeeding my toddler daughter. And it is a source of immense joy for me. I am not writing this to snub bottle-feeding mothers - I was one myself. I am not writing this to upset mothers who weaned their babies early. I too, did that. I am not writing to inflame mothers who think you should breastfeed until your child is eight. That is your choice, not mine. I am not saying everyone should breastfeed, even if only for a day - as I'm sure you know by now, I am testament to every mother who had plenty of milk, yet had a baby who just didn't know what to do with it. Have I been a mother who didn't want to breastfeed? No. But that doesn't make me a better mother, just one following the example of what worked for my own mother. And it certainly doesn't make me judge the decisions of other mothers (unless you are feeding your  three month old baby chocolate milk from a bottle in the shopping centre...then I might judge, a little bit. Silently.)

I think we are all doing our best. I think that our children know how much we love them. I'm sure that none of our children sit down and analyse our parenting decisions, and score us accordingly (not until they are teenagers, anyway). I'm fairly certain that Jack, Phoebe and Maisie all know how I feel about them. And it's got nothing to do with the source of milk they received as babies. However they were fed, the intention was, and is, clear. They received nutrition and love. Can it get any simpler than that?