It's been interesting to breastfeed this time around. With Z I really beat myself up when we weren't able to breastfeed, and for a long time every time I made a bottle of formula for him in public I just felt ashamed and upset. I hoped and hoped my entire second pregnancy that I would be able to breastfeed this baby. Happily, I have been able to without too much difficulty, or I guess I should say with the normal amount of difficulty. Bear latched straight away right after birth and has been a good eater ever since. He's gained weight steadily and is very enthusiastic. I guess you could say it all worked out, and it has, but oftentimes times I wish that the two situations could have been reversed and I could have breast fed my first baby when I didn't have a toddler that I need to care for, but, oh well, so it goes.
What is very interesting to me now is that I can personally compare the two and there are really pros and cons for both ways. This is what I have so far after four months of breastfeeding.
It was nice to share night feedings when doing formula. It was nice to not feel tethered to the baby. I could run out to the store without having to look at the clock and say, "when will he want to eat again..." It was nice to not have to worry about pumping when I'm at work. Joe liked giving bottles and used to always take the early morning feeding and then snooze with Z on the couch. He misses that.
But, it's also nice to not have to carry formula and bottles around. It's nice to know that when Bear is hungry, I can feed him and I don't have to panic if I forgot a bottle (it happened once). It's nice to be saving the money.
Pumping is the worst though. I hate pumping. So much. Also, breastfeeding seems to take MUCH longer and I feel like Bear still eats more often than Z did.
I'm going to mention saving money twice, because that is a large motivating factor for me.
Honestly, I'm not finding breastfeeding all that it was advertised to be. I don't feel a magical bond with Bear when I feed him. Actually, I should say I don't feel a different or more special bond than I felt when I gave Z a bottle. I am more often frustrated by the limitations it puts on me than anything else. People told me to just hang in there through the first two weeks, four weeks and six weeks, because after that it go "so much better." So I kept setting those goals, waiting for things to get better. They didn't. Yes, the pain that I experienced at the beginning got better, but Bear was still a slow eater, he was still eating every 2 hours on the dot, he started sleeping more poorly at night.
At six weeks nothing was "better" and it felt much worse. At 8 weeks I was starting to get really frustrated. At 10 weeks I wanted to stop. I bought four varieties of formula for Joe to try to give Bear in hopes that I could feel less chained to him. Bear spit them out, no matter what we did (mixed with breast milk, warm, cool, ready to drink, powdered). I started getting so frustrated with Bear's lengthy nursing sessions that my skin would crawl while feeding him. I tried to force pacifiers in hopes that any non-nutritive nursing would stop. I found myself muttering, "I hate this. I hate this." Pretty ironic considering how devastated I was over not nursing Z. Only guilt kept me going: guilt over how much money it would cost if I quit breastfeeding, guilt over quitting for selfish reasons when I know so many women shed so many tears over not being able to breastfeed.
I set one last goal for myself: to make it until Bear started solids. I decided I needed to feel like I could get away from him so I committed to pumping every day even though I hated putting on the pump after having just nursed for 45 minutes. I started to slowly build up a stash of breast milk and once I got a little reserve set aside for daycare, I started building a reserve for myself to be able to go out and not feel panicked if Bear got hungry while I was gone. I started to feel better.
We are nearly to 16 weeks now and suddenly, without preamble at 14 weeks, Bear started nursing a lot faster, 15-30 minutes for 7 of his 9 feedings. Yep, he's still eating 9 times a day on average, but it's much more bearable now that it's taking much less time. Even though now I think I can make it to one year, I'm still setting small goals. I'm sticking with my current goal of getting to Bear eating solids, so six months, and then I'll reevaluate. And probably write another post.
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