HoboMama via Flickr
Breastfeeding is tough. Even if you’re lucky and don’t buy into the many, many Booby Traps in your way, from formula advertising to misleading doctor advice, you still face another challenge, possibly the toughest one: Your fellow breastfeeding mothers.
If you’re familiar with us here at Daily Momtra at all, you know breastfeeding is a big passion of ours. We talk about it a lot. A LOT a lot. Despite my knowledge of breastfeeding and confidence that my body works despite my underdeveloped breast tissue, there have been days when I’m worried I stopped making milk, so in the shower or when my daughter is done nursing I hand express a little and feel relieved at seeing a drop or two. And I’ve breastfed for over five years now — 61 months. I’m so damn proud of myself for never having given my second child a drop of formula, and the two bottles of pumped milk I tried she thought was torture — and that was okay with me.
What wasn’t okay, though, was when I, or other moms, would try to talk about struggles, difficulties, pain, irritation, feeling tied down, and being shut down quickly. Joni Rae of Tales of a Kitchen Witch recently wrote a post about feeling “Touched Out.” You know, when you’ve had kids on you ALL DAY, needing things from you, being in your personal space, and you just want to say, “Do. Not. TOUCH ME.” And nurslings? Yeah, you can really want them to stay the hell off you too. Yet, Joni had some comments from people who felt like this was an inappropriate post, or that a ‘good mom’ just shouldn’t feel that way.
What the heck, ladies? My first nursed until 28 months and at that point was only nursing to sleep and I am fairly certain I wasn’t even really lactating anymore, so I took one day and held him while he screamed when we laid down for a nap and I wouldn’t nurse him, then again that night, and from then on, cuddling was all he needed. But the next time he got sick, I felt so helpless. With my second child, I promised myself I’d make it to at least three, and let her self-wean. Here she is a few months from three and I’m night-weaning, but she’s still going strong. But lord help me if there aren’t days I just tell her NO because the thought of it just bothers me. And if it’s not her on my lap, it’s my son talking in my ear, or my cat sitting on me. Like right now. My hand is being headbutted because it’s being used to type instead of petting my sweet kitty cat. It’s not that I don’t like nursing, or want to, because obviously I do. It’s that sometimes, I just want people to stay the hell out of my personal bubble, kids included!
But this brings me to my real point here… by treating peoples’ struggles, their feelings, like something bad or wrong, we’re just making it harder for women to feel normal. For example, saying “If it hurts means you’re doing it wrong” just flat out isn’t true. Sometimes breastfeeding can hurt when you do everything PERFECT. When I’d fly from Georgia to dry Colorado with my son, my nipples would always crack and bleed because the combo of his nursing and the lack of humidity totally did me in. Or sometimes they have a new tooth coming in and their latch gets weird for a couple days because they’re having to figure it out again with the lump in their mouth. We can’t tell moms it shouldn’t hurt, or that it’s her fault if it does, because that’s not always true!
As Kate from Modern Alternative Mama said in her post “I’m Tired of Lactivists“:
How will they know what is normal pain and what isn’t? And can you imagine a mother being told “No, of course it doesn’t hurt!” then starting to breastfeed and finding out it does? What will she say? Will she quit because she wasn’t prepared for that? Will she seek help, only to be told, “Then you’re doing it wrong?” How does that help her?
If we’ve got a new mom who is experiencing a lot of pain and we tell her it’s just that she’s screwing something up, that’s hideously discouraging. Of course she should have a lactation consultant help her make sure there ISN’T a real problem like tongue tie or a poor latch, but we also should make sure she knows that sometimes it does just hurt but it WILL get better and it WILL go away. That’s so much better for HER, isn’t it? Knowing that it’s temporary versus thinking she’s doing something wrong?
And this goes for many aspects of parenting, not just breastfeeding. Gina of The Feminist Breeder once, probably a year or two ago, referred to her kids as assholes. Said they were being assholes that day. Cue outage!
“How could you say that about your kids?!”
“What kind of mother talks about her children that way?”
Well, uh, plenty do, actually. Let’s face it… especially when your kids are older than their toddler years, there are days where you love them, but really can’t stand them. And yeah, some days they act like complete assholes and it’s all you can do to just get them to bed without losing it.
By being afraid to talk HONESTLY about the downsides of breastfeeding, and the downsides and struggles of parenting as a whole, is damaging to other women. It’s damaging to fellow moms. It means when a mom feels like her kid is being an asshole, she feels ALONE. She feels like she can’t say anything about it or she’ll get called names or her love for her children will be questioned. She’ll wonder if something is wrong with her, if she’s doing things wrong, if her kids are “bad kids” and it makes her feel unsupported.
Instead, we need to admit that sometimes parenting — and breastfeeding — can SUCK. Because only when we’re totally honest about the good times AND the bad can we really, truly support other women, by letting them know that some days your children are so angelic they take your breath away and you feel like the most blessed woman in the world, and other days, the idea of them sitting on your lap to nurse just makes your skin crawl and you want to jump in your car and drive far, far away.
Only then can we really, really help support other moms, truly, by letting them know they’re not alone, everyone struggles, and that THAT is what normal parenting is.
Tags: breastfeeding, parenting, parenting choices, support
This is the #1 reason I failed as a teen mom. Not just breastfeeding, but as a parent in general. I actually became suicidal because of the guilt and anxiety of feeling like I wasn’t maternal enough, or perfect enough, or patient enough. Fact is, looking at my son (now 10 years old) I can see where I did a lot of things right. However, because of the lies other parents tell each other, I felt like EVERYTHING I did was wrong.
When I hear other mothers talk about how easy breastfeeding is/was, I STILL get a pang of guilt and anxiety. It makes me feel like less of a woman. I feel ashamed of my breasts, like it should have been extra easy since they’re DD’s. It’s not just emotional though. The lies rob other parents of valuable resources. The smallest insight from another parent can help me work through an issue with my 3 year old daughter, in 1/10 of the time it had taken before.
“For example, saying ‘If it hurts means you’re doing it wrong’ just flat out isn’t true. Sometimes breastfeeding can hurt when you do everything PERFECT.”
Thank you for this. Before my daughter was born, I read every possible resource I could get my hands on regarding the topic of breastfeeding. EVERYTHING I read made it sound like this wonderful, exhilarating, near orgasmic, telepathic bond-like experience. I looked at all the diagrams and charts. I watched videos on Youtube galore. The single-most stressed piece of “advice” I remember is “If it hurts, you’re doing it wrong.”
There was no specification on HOW, or WHEN the hurting took place. So when I started suffering super sore agonizing nipple pain in the first few weeks of breastfeeding, I thought there was something wrong. But at the same time, I KNEW I was doing everything RIGHT. There was no problem with latch. My daughter was getting plenty of milk, I know. She wasn’t fussy twenty seconds after a feeding session, for instance. It didn’t hurt WHILE she was nursing. In fact, that was the only time my nipples did NOT hurt.
Fortunately, I had the Internet. I found a community of breast-feeders (The Leaky B@@b), and found out that what I was experiencing was, in fact, perfectly normal. Even my mid-wife didn’t have any answers for me. She suggested nipple shields, but that didn’t make sense to me, because as I told her it didn’t hurt WHILE my daughter was nursing. Only afterward. The ladies at The Leaky B@@b, however, encouraged me to stick with it and suggested I stock up on Lanolin. A lot of it. So I did. THEIR advice was the best, and I’m so glad I found them.
Breastfeeding CAN hurt, I learned. But by sticking with it, I realized that, “Hey. This is just like exercising a new muscle you’ve never worked out before. Of course it’s going to hurt for a while, but then you’re going to toughen up and won’t feel a thing.” And you know what? That’s EXACTLY what happened, and that’s EXACTLY what I tell any woman I meet who seems apprehensive about breast-feeding.
\"For example, saying \’If it hurts means you’re doing it wrong\’ just flat out isn’t true. Sometimes breastfeeding can hurt when you do everything PERFECT.\"
Thank you for this. Before my daughter was born, I read every possible resource I could get my hands on regarding the topic of breastfeeding. EVERYTHING I read made it sound like this wonderful, exhilarating, near orgasmic, telepathic bond-like experience. I looked at all the diagrams and charts. I watched videos on Youtube galore. The single-most stressed piece of \"advice\" I remember is \"If it hurts, you\’re doing it wrong.\"
There was no specification on HOW, or WHEN the hurting took place. So when I started suffering super sore agonizing nipple pain in the first few weeks of breastfeeding, I thought there was something wrong. But at the same time, I KNEW I was doing everything RIGHT. There was no problem with latch. My daughter was getting plenty of milk, I know. She wasn\’t fussy twenty seconds after a feeding session, for instance. It didn\’t hurt WHILE she was nursing. In fact, that was the only time my nipples did NOT hurt.
Fortunately, I had the Internet. I found a community of breast-feeders (The Leaky B@@b), and found out that what I was experiencing was, in fact, perfectly normal. Even my mid-wife didn\’t have any answers for me. She suggested nipple shields, but that didn\’t make sense to me, because as I told her it didn\’t hurt WHILE my daughter was nursing. Only afterward. The ladies at The Leaky B@@b, however, encouraged me to stick with it and suggested I stock up on Lanolin. A lot of it. So I did. THEIR advice was the best, and I\’m so glad I found them.
Breastfeeding CAN hurt, I learned. But by sticking with it, I realized that, \"Hey. This is just like exercising a new muscle you\’ve never worked out before. Of course it\’s going to hurt for a while, but then you\’re going to toughen up and won\’t feel a thing.\" And you know what? That\’s EXACTLY what happened, and that\’s EXACTLY what I tell any woman I meet who seems apprehensive about breast-feeding.
Twitter: Wolf_mommy
says:
YES! Let’s all remember we are still human and we have flaws. And that is OK! The best ways to help are always to listen, acknowledge & support, not dismiss, deny & berate.
I love that paragraph about how it’s ok if it hurts to breastfeed. I have never heard anyone say that before, I always thought I was doing something wrong. Breastfeeding hurt with both my children. It took 17 weeks for my nipples to stop hurting during feeding with my first. I talked to my mid-wife and saw a lactation consultant. Both said I was doing it right and that it shouldn’t hurt. I only persevered because I’m stubborn and I wanted to have the choice of whether to breastfeed or not, and having that much pain meant the choice was taken away from me.
I can’t remember how long it took for the pain to go with my second child but it still took a lot longer than what I was told was a normal period of adjustment. In the end, however, it did get better
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I could not agree more that we need to be honest about the difficulties of breastfeeding, and even parenting for that matter. I love the example of feeling pain while nursing and think it is spot-on. But I can see why some people were outraged at a mother calling her children “assholes”, not because children are perfect, but as a matter of respect. As someone who identifies (mostly at least) with attachment parenting and gentle discipline, I find it disappointing when parents call their children names, even if it is behind their backs. Even if what the author meant was that although she loves her children, she disliked their behavior and she was being pushed to her limit. You may say it us just semantics and that may be true. But words have power and we should be responsible in the words we choose.