First of all, making the decision to nurse is really a personal one, and you shouldn’t feel pressured (ever) by anybody else. Secondly, I like to write these kinds of articles not so much from a technical point of view, but from my own experience. I am confident that most women nowadays know the benefits of nursing, and I don’t really need to reiterate that to you. So instead, I would like to share my own experiences and maybe other moms will too.
With my first baby, I was bound and determined to nurse her. After she was born they brought her to me, and the nurse and the lactation consultant both went over proper holds and how to get the baby to latch on. After a while, I felt like everybody who walked in the room needed to grab onto my boob and stick it into this little stranger’s mouth. I seriously started feeling like a cow being milked and not a mother nursing her child. When I left the hospital and was allowed to figure it out on my own, it became a magical, wonderful experience. I committed to nursing her for six weeks, and after those came and went, I committed to two more. This continued for almost a year when she decided she had had enough. Making the small commitments to myself allowed me a “way out” if I felt like I couldn’t handle it anymore, but it also allowed me to take it basically “one day at a time”.
With my second baby, I had developed a pregnancy induced tachycardia, which they had to treat with medication when I was sent home. I tried very hard to nurse my son in the hospital, but honestly he wanted nothing to do with it. After I began taking a beta-blocker, I had no choice but to put him on the bottle. After I completed the beta-blocker and everything went back to normal, it was too late for me to try nursing him again. I cried for a week.
With my third baby, I was again determined to nurse her, which I did. Even when we had to be readmitted into the hospital to treat her jaundice, I pumped every two hours and also hand fed her formula through a syringe. When I was able to bring her home again, I continued nursing for about twelve weeks. It eventually became impractical to nurse her when I was taking care of my other two children and running back and forth to their school three times a day.
Nursing was a wonderful, yet difficult thing to master. However, after I finally did get it down, it was like second nature. I know ‘they’ say that medically it is so much better for the child, but I have to tell you that none of my children have suffered any more colds or ear infections than the other. My son, who was hardly nursed is as healthy as a horse and has actually suffered less from flu’s or other illnesses than my other two. While I believe in the value of nursing and its benefits, I think it also depends on the child.
Like I said, making the decision to nurse or not nurse is a personal one, and one that should be made by you and your husband. Don’t be forced into it, because if you’re stressed and unhappy about it, you’re not doing your baby any favors. If you’re comfortable with it, then go for it, but if you’re not that’s ok too.