Still breastfeeding 18 months later...

Here’s some thoughts 18 months into breastfeeding my first child, here’s some of the things I think about breastfeeding that is so rarely talked about.

When I first started breastfeeding, everyone told me to “feed on demand” and to give my baby “as much as he wanted.” Sometimes I wondered, but what about me?

I’m a midwife and a lactation specialist, I give lots of breastfeeding support myself. I've offered the same advice countless times. I recognise how overwhelming hearing “feed on demand” can feel. Breastfeeding is a full time job.

People say “oh the benefit of breastfeeding is it’s free!” And I want to turn around and say “really! Is my time free?” Because we often minimise what an extraordinarily large task it is, to ask a woman to be consistently responsive to her baby’s feeding demands, 24/7.

To begin with, I worked really hard to be able to breastfeed my baby. It didn’t matter that this is my job, supporting people to breastfeed. For me, I was a new mum and I needed some support. So I saw a lactation consultant, and I put in a lot of hours and a lot of practice to be able to get my baby on the breast. Then he lost a lot of weight, nearly a week in, and I was devastated. So I worked even harder. I pumped and breastfed, breastfed and pumped. And joyfully, it worked out. The work I put in paid off and my baby started putting on weight. Breastfeeding was working. I was overjoyed.

What I didn’t know then was that this feeling of being so needed, of my breasts (!) and my breastmilk being so in demand, could last for such a long time. I didn’t know it would become the answer to so many of my baby’s needs, 1.5 years later. I didn’t know how hard this could feel.

I didn’t know that my baby would rely on it as much as he does, and I didn’t know that this could bring up so many different feelings in me. Because I worked so hard to breastfeed my son the first few weeks of his life, I hold our breastfeeding journey so close to my heart. All the triple feeding paid off and I felt pride in being able to give him only breastmilk. This mattered so much to me, and because my birth was not the birth I wanted, how I fed him felt even more important. So I am incredibly proud of our breastfeeding journey so far.

But I guess I didn’t think about how this impacts the share of the parental load as our children grow, or how this can impact sleep. I didn’t think about how my baby’s attachment to breastfeeding would become about more than the milk, nutrients and calories he needed: it would often become, or at least feel like, one of the only guaranteed things that could soothe him wherever we were, whatever time of the day or night. That because of this, sometimes all my son wants is me. And that even though this is such a privilege and joy to be his everything, it doesn’t mean that it’s not hard.

I couldn’t wish for a better co-parent than my wife. She is excellent. Honestly – I've lucked out. She shares the load, she’s magical. But the reality still is that our baby often needs the boob to get to sleep. Particularly throughout the night. And so as willing and wonderful as she is, it’s my sleep that remains the most impacted and the most disturbed.

I didn’t know that exclusively breastfeeding could also mean that I do exclusively all the bedtimes and the resettling. It is exhausting. I didn’t know that exclusively breastfeeding means my social life and freedom is also hugely impacted. I don’t feel it’s possible for me to go out past a certain time and to leave my son for a night is unthinkable at the moment. I didn’t know it would still be like this, 18 months on.

And yes, I'm sure there’s a way to change this, but right now I feel I have to take the path of least resistance, to maximise all of our rest and wellbeing.

I’m not even saying that I want to stop breastfeeding, because I don’t. And I'm proud and privileged that my son wants to feed from me to feel safe and secure and loved. Most of the time, I adore feeding him. But I am just acknowledging that breastfeeding is so much more than what we might see, or what we might be told when we first start.

On the days that I’m working or just desperate for some space or sleep; or in the moments where I feel sad to miss another social occasion or return to other things that give my joy, I can resent the feeling of being so wanted. It annoys me. It leaves me feeling touched out and wanting my body to myself.

How we choose to feed our babies is deeply personal, emotional and primal. We can feel judgement and grief, pride and sadness. It's okay to feel all of these emotions, and we need to talk about the more.

How did you feel? Wherever you’re at I’m sending you solidarity and strength. I'd love to know how you’ve found your feeding journeys too.