If breast is best, why does it feel like the worst?

My mother bottle-fed me. For all the rest of you breast-fed kids, how did you survive?

Nursing is HARD.

Actually, nursing itself isn’t, but learning to is.

Just because mothers since Eve have performed this act does not make it natural. I was schooled for five days in a hospital where he was monitored 24 hours a day. If my son starved, nurses would know. Had I been home alone, I know I'd have switched to formula for fear my child wasn't eating enough.

The first day we tried nursing, my child screamed so loud South Dakota could hear. And that was with the help of my husband and two professionals. Baby never latched. Not once. After 15 minutes, the nurses took off his little clothes and had us cuddle skin to skin. We don’t want him to associate the breast with frustration, they said. So this happens a lot? I asked. This first attempt was actually a pretty good one, they said. Yikes.

Every time I failed, nurses brought me new tricks and products to try.

Some of them included:

* glucose water: the sweetness is baby’s first bribery
* soft shells for inverted nipples (TMI?),
* a syringe for inverted nipples (Yes, like a shot without the needle. The suction from the syringe pulls your nipple out ** hi dad **) In case you aren’t feeling unattractive enough, stick a plastic tube on your boob.
* lanolin for sore nipples

What finally worked was a nipple shield. It basically turns your bosom into a bottle. PLUS no soreness or cracking! Woot.

And even though the shield is supposed to be a last resort... natural boob-to-mouth is best... I use it each time. The nurses and lactation consultants warned me to ween my child, but I didn't. Maybe I should have tried harder. But the shield worked. Finally, something worked! And I’d rather have my child eating through a plastic nipple tube than starving. It's no better or worse than an actual bottle, me thinks.

Note: By his two-week check up, my little porker had gained 8 ounces. Doctors only expect two-week-olds to return to their original birth weight. He went from 7 lbs, 2 ounces to 7 lbs 10 ounces in 15 days. Also, a nurse weighed him before and after a feeding to see how much he ate. He'd eaten 3.3 ounces on one side alone. Most babies his age eat 2-3 ounces total. Added bonus: I’m 1 lbs lighter than my first trimester... and that’s not from Jenny Craig either. Nurturing a breast-feeding relationship is worth it, yeah yeah sure sure, for the nutritional benefits to the child. But even if it didn't, think how good I'll look by swimsuit season!

Not sure how many details people want to read about how I nurse my child, but I write about it because breast feeding is SO difficult. If it took me, my husband, several professionals and multiple breast-feeding products to succeed, it must be almost impossible for a new mom to figure it out on her own. I know very little about parenting, but if my little bit of experience helps someone else, I'll write about even my sutures down under too.

I hope this helps calm a new mother's frustration and convince her she can do it too.