My breastfeeding journey

All the way through my pregnancy with Pea I was adamant that I was going to breastfeed.  I just assumed that I would be able to and never once thought it would be difficult, after all, it's the most natural thing in the world, right?

How very wrong I was. My labour was quite traumatic and I wanted to get out of there as soon as I could. Big mistake. They checked that Pea was latching on and feeding OK and off  I went (at 1am!). By the middle of the next day I was in pain so I did a bit of googling, I also watched videos on YouTube and set about trying to improve our positioning. The next day our lovely midwife stayed round for an hour trying to help me as the pain was worsening and cracks were starting to develop on my nipples.

When Pea was 3 days old we went to Baby Café, I was welcomed with open arms and a midwife spent an hour with me checking my latch and positioning. Everyone told me that our latch looked textbook but that there was obviously something wrong as my nipple was shaped like a lipstick, white tipped and very painful after every feed. I was also getting random stabbing pains in my nipples for about 15minutes after each feed. I was becoming very disheartened and the pain was taking over everything.

Two days later I was told that they wanted to do a couple of extra visits with us as Pea wasn't gaining weight. I was beginning to feel like a failure.
Over the next 2 weeks I cried more tears than I ever thought possible, I was in unbearable pain and dreaded my beautiful baby waking up as I knew she'd want a feed, I would be in floods of tears whilst feeding her, my nipples were blistered, mangled and bloody, both of them had huge cracks and I couldn't take any more. During a feed I was in so much pain, I was exhausted, I felt like the worst mum in the world for not being able to feed my baby and I screamed, screamed for my partner to get her away from me, I could release her latch and I needed her off of me. Unfortunately he also couldn't release her latch, it took about 5 minutes. To an outsider it would have looked like carnage in our living room, I was sobbing on one sofa, Pea was screaming in the arms of her Dad, who was also crying as he didn't know what to do.

In the end he went out and bought a tub of formula. For 2 weeks she was solely formula fed, I was expressing at every feed but never got any more than 4oz per day, usually less, so she had that too but every day I felt crappy and useless.

During those 2 weeks of formula feeding my nipples healed (although the cracks are still visible) and I was able to finally spend quality time bonding with my baby, it was amazing. However I still felt that there was something missing. I read a bit about relactation and decided to give it a try.

I didn't tell anyone, not even my partner, I wanted to do it by myself, that way if I 'failed' again nobody needed to know. I planned a duvet day with lots of skin to skin and I gave it a go. She latched on immediately and seemed to be getting something. When she started fussing I took her off and offered her a bottle, she took 4ozs. We did this at every feed.

After 5 days I told my partner what I had been doing. He couldn't understand why I had kept it a secret but I felt that I needed to for my own sanity. We managed to carry on combi-feeding like that until we weaned at 24wks. The only reason I switched to formula only at that point was because she was refusing the breast, thrashing her head around while latched on and would cry until a bottle was offered. I wasn't upset by this though, I felt like she had made the decision herself and that Ineeded to respect that.

Since then I have found out I am expecting again so I wonder what impact, if any, that had on my feeding at that time as it was just before then that I would have fallen pregnant.

I have been asked by my local community health team if I would like to train as a breastfeeding peer support, I could have cried! I'd spent so long feeling like i wasn't doing a very good job and this felt like a real recognition of my achievement. I couldn't have done it without the community health team or Baby Cafe. I'm hoping the training I'll receive will set me up for breastfeeding the second time round. I'm certainly going to go into it with my eyes open this time and I won't be afraid to ask for help.

My poorly Pea

My little angel is ill, just an ear infection but it's having such an impact. She's waking up screaming in the night, sobbing all day and is generally out of sorts.

This is the first illness she's had so we're lucky really but it's breaking my heart, she just seems so sad. I've been trying everything I can think of to cheer her up it nothing's working so far. Finger's crossed we see some improvement tomorrow

Big enough for 2??

So I've got my new changing bag, a Pink Lining 'twice as nice' (full review + pics to follow). I went for this with the idea that I can use it now for my pea and her cloth nappies and weaning gear, then there'll be enough room to add in more nappies etc when No2 arrives.

However, after using it for a couple of days I'm not convinced it will be big enough for 2 in cloth. Not sure what I'm going to with regards to that really, I have so many ideas going round in my head of the features I want my changing bag to have and how I want it to look. I just don't know how to turn them into a usable product, or even how to draw them out! I'm not arty at all and I'm not really all that crafty.

Oh well, No2 won't be here til December so I have a little time to see if I can make my ideas a reality!

I'm not the kind of mum I thought I'd be

I don't mean this in a negative way, far from it in fact.

When I was pregnant with my little pea I had all kinds of images in my head, us at baby groups, in the park, drawing pictures, all kinds of 'normal' parent type stuff. I never once thought that I'd be doing up her cloth nappy before putting on her amber anklets and slipping her into the sling for a walk in to town, which is what we did today.

 Apparently this makes me 'crunchy' (as in slightly alternative) but I don't care, it works for us and I'm beyond happy.  I love that my daughter gets excited when she seems me unraveling one of my woven wraps, I love that she's never had so much as the faintest hint of nappy rash, I love that there are other teething remedies that have worked for us instead of having to dose my girl up with painkillers, but most of all I love that my partner has supported me fully and we have chosen this route together.

Sometimes I think my new life is all consuming and I won't possibly be able to reintegrate with the 9-5 office life I used to have. Sometimes I don't think I even want to go back to that life, that I would much rather train as a babywearing consultant and start a sling library whilst designing gorgeous, cloth friendly changing bags. Well, a girl can dream!!

For now I shall just enjoy my maternity leave while it lasts :-)

Changing bag for two in cloth?

Does such a thing exist??

I have spent many an hour trawling the internet looking for a big enough bag for when No2 arrives at the end of the year and I've come up with nothing.  Well, that's not strictly true, I found the Pink Lining twins bag but that's the only one.

I love Pink Lining bags, I currently have a navy bow yummy mummy, use it daily and it still looks gorgeous. It was my treat to myself from my last full wage packet before maternity leave. Can I justify spending £90 (which I don't have) on another changing bag? Is this bag going to be big enough?

I can't help but feel there is a real gap in the market for changing bags designed with cloth nappy users in mind. I have so many features I want the bag to have but cannot find anything with them all on.

Perhaps I need to start designing my own, hmmmm.........

Doing it again!

I've struggled to write in the way I had planned, I mistakenly thought I'd have all this time in the evening to sit and write about my daily journey down the motherhood roads. I was wrong, I'll call it the naivety of a first time mum.

Now that my tiny pea is 6months old and I'm more confident, I'm hoping I really will have time. Well, until December anyway, that's when number 2 is due. I cannot believe I'm pregnant again! We always knew we wanted a small-ish age gap but we hadn't planned on it being this small.

Now that it's sunk in a bit we're starting to make plans. My mind is full of lists; lists of what we need to buy, of what we need to sell in order to raise funds, of names, of jobs that need doing in the house before No2 arrives, it's mind boggling.

I'd like to know how everyone else copes in this situation, I'm sure that with some improvements to my organisational skills I'll be fine. For now, I shall just continue to quietly panic.

They're here!!

Apologies for the horrendous pic of nebular, I just wanted to try it quickly before giving it a wash!

The colour of the peacock one is lovely but I'm not sure I'll keep it, I haven't even taken it out of the box as I was so taken by nebula. Not too sure what to do with it as yet.

So far I'm only doing front cross carry as I figured a poppable carry was the best place to start. Can't wait to learn more carries though and eventually get little pea on to my back!!