I'm not sure why feeding my baby solid food feels like such a monumental step to me when so many firsts that people mark on their calendars slipped by me with little more than a fond notion of "hey that's new". I didn't feel weird about transitioning him from our bed to the crib, sizing up in clothes/seating/complexity of toys, or giving up the swaddle, I didn't even get teary eyed over his first smile (although to my credit I couldn't help but beam right back at him). But this to me seems so huge! The food thing in general has been the biggest, most all-consuming aspect of parenthood for me to date, and honestly it was the last thing I expected to be so wrapped up in. Maybe it's just that I'm in the health and wellness industry and have become increasingly aware of the dangers in our food, or that I'm scared of passing my terrible eating habits on to my son, but this has been my biggest struggle with the whole motherhood game.
Originally I wasn't planning on blogging about this subject, it was too personal, possibly too much information, and definitely a controversial issue in the parenting climate out there today. Nobody had a vote in the matter but my husband, myself and my son, so why put our situation on public display and chance receiving loads of unsolicited advice? Now that some time has passed, however, and there is no going back (what's done is done) I'm beginning to feel the need to share my story...
When I was pregnant with Bastian and people would ask me "Are you going to breastfeed?" I always answered "yes, baring any unforeseen problems". What I didn't realize at the time was that I
actually meant "unless I turn out to be one of those rare unfortunate mothers who don't produce a single drop of milk I will find
any way possible". When the time came my own dedication to the mission bordered on scary. Within the first 24 hours after giving birth we saw 3 different lactation consultants... this may have seemed like a huge deal at the time but I was soon going to be known by first name... by voice even, by every lactation consultant at that hospital (and they were all exceedingly nice and helpful). Even that was not the scary part... the scary part was the extreme pressure I put on myself to perform despite the odds staking up against us more each day.
The following is an abridged recollection of my first four months as a mother:
"bleeding is normal"
"bleeding is not normal"
"That's just due to an improper
latch"
"Pain is normal in the beginning until you both get the hang of it"
"Well, actually, pain is not normal, it must be an improper
latch."
"It sounds like you may have oversupply issues"
"Everything will work itself out once we get the
latch right... to heal yourself in the mean time here are shields, gel pads and a topical cream."
"Try this hold it'll help correct the
latch"
"He nurses for 90 minutes straight?"
"Turns out he's tongue bunching you'll need to do tongue training exercises with him"
"Here's a supplemental feeding system you can use to train him how to suck while giving yourself a break so those grand canyon sized cracks can heal but you'll have to pump before, during, after feedings..."
"He really needs to learn to
latch, have you tried..."
"Really, the pain is that bad? I didn't realize you were fighting off sobs with every feeding... do you have any of these other symptoms?... sounds to me like you have thrush."
"If you have thrush he has it too, so he'll need treatment."
"Your son is losing weight"
"Don't worry, this method of bottle feeding is proven to reinforce breastfeeding and should correct the tongue bunching"
"You have to supplement with formula to get his weight back up, since your supply has dwindled to almost nothing!"
"You need to see three different specialists to be approved for meds to clear up your infection"
"He won't nurse anymore? that's weird"
"I'm out of methods to suggest to get him nursing again I recommend taking him to a speech therapist"
"The meds aren't working? Are you scrubbing, use the creams, anti-fungals, eating 8 cups of yogurt a day and drinking 12 cups of tea??? How about boiling everything you and the baby come into contact with? Have you stopped consuming sugar altogether? Well the only other option at this point is Gentian Violet... nevermind that there's a correlation between it's use and an increased risk of mouth cancer in babies..."
"Lets try an aggressive regimen of probiotics and prebiotics before resorting to Gentian Violet... you'll have to keep doing all of the other treatments as well... and here are some supply increasing supplements"
"Since he won't nurse and you're hellbent on keeping him on breastmilk you'll have to pump every 2 to 4 hours around the clock to get, then keep your supply up"
"The pain is just as bad now with the pump as it was with nursing? Your getting new blisters and the old cracks
still aren't healed? You need to rent a hospital grade pump"
"I'm sorry to tell you this but if the treatments haven't worked after all this time then your only other option is Gentian Violet."
"Really? Your supply all but disappeared again? But you got it back up and steady for such a good amount of time?"
Please understand that I don't share this to gain pity or even sympathy... I share this on behalf of all the mothers out there who have had to make tough decisions they didn't want to make based on factors they never anticipated. I truly believe that my dedication to providing breastmilk to my child became more about proving a point than about what was in the best interest of my baby. I also feel that there was a bit of postpartum depression playing into my overwhelming obsession with this one particular aspect of mothering... I allowed my self-esteem as a parent to rest solely on my performance in this one piece of the whole picture and there came a time when I realized I was infringing on my own ability to care for my son in any other way than physical nourishment.
It is also important to note that while the above quotes were written with a healthy dose of sarcasm, I am truly grateful to all the wonderful people we encountered on this journey that did nothing but care. That being said, the amount of conflicting information out there on this topic is beyond frustrating and it gnaws at a mothers feeling of competency more and more the deeper she delves into it. The value of a mother's instincts cannot be overemphasized... in this information age world it's all too easy to undermine our own decision-making abilities by giving too much weight to the enormous flood of opinions, expert and otherwise, constantly coming at us from every direction.
Finally on the other side of this struggle I can say that the knowledge, and more importantly the confidence, I gained through the experience was well worth it. It has instilled in me an abundance of compassion for other mothers on every side of the equation, every shade of the spectrum. Above all, what really resonates deep within my heart and makes tears of joy well up in my eyes is seeing my son thriving, growing, eating, completely free from myself. In the end it was never about me, it was always about him. Seeing him happily gulp down a spoonful of "real" food... food that is completely separate from the formula vs. breastmilk debate, free from my ability to take claim of creation and control, it makes me realize just how quickly these days go by and how truly important it is to focus on what really matters. What matters to me is raising this baby boy into a good man, and I will continue to do the little things in my power that contribute to that end result, but the steps of a staircase are inconsequential if the staircase leads to a cliff. Where is your staircase leading?
