My breastfeeding experience

My breastfeeding experience was, only partially successful, I was not able to breastfeed our son exclusively as I had planned. Nevertheless, I still continue giving our son the best (whatever I have) for as long as he desires up until today (remember every single drop of mother's milk counts).

I was 110% committed to breastfeed our son, by reading up on breastfeeding while I was still pregnant. But that wasn't enough to ensure my success at it. After delivering our son, I let well-meaning but ill-informed relatives lead me to believe that I had

insufficient breastmilk to nourish our son, and that fueled the start of my mistake. I was overwhelmed by all the challenge that the new role brought on - a constantly screaming and hungry baby, excited and concerned friends and relatives, exhaustion…Amidst the confusion, I gave in to poor advise to supplement our son with formula from day 1 in the hospital ward. The supplement made him fuller for a longer period, and made him come to the breast less often. That resulted in less stimulation of my breast, and led to the eventual decline of my milk supply. I never got out of that vicious formula supplementing cycle, because I was constantly surrounded by poor support from ill-informed relatives who were only too concerned for our son's "hunger", and getting him to drink enough formula. Till now, I am still breastfeeding, but I never managed to breastfeed exclusively as I had planned to (this is what I mean by not the most successful experience) because my supply had been jeopardized by supplementation of formula.

I had underestimated how just a simple statement like, "he's still crying, are you sure you've got milk? Why don't you supplement instead of letting him starve?" could undermine my self-confidence in breastfeeding. In hind sight, I've learned that the primary reason for my failure to exclusively breastfeed was the lack of good moral support for breastfeeding. Having a live-in confinement nanny or relative who is not supportive of breastfeeding can jeopardize your breastfeeding efforts (in my case, my mother would disrupt my efforts unknowingly, by supplementing our son with a full 4 oz bottle of formula before I could respond quick enough to his cries, like if I was in the bathroom for instance). Therefore, having good support from either your family, friends or a local support group is very important in ensuring breastfeeding success.

I hope my experience can shed some light on certain situations to best avoid. I've listed down some touchy situations I've encountered and how I've learned to tackle with them. I hope they will be of help.