Breastfeeding Stories : Kim & Isabelle

 

December 5^th 2014 marked an important date in my breastfeeding (BF) journey: I have reached my first milestone of BF my little girl for 3 months which I was unable to do that with my son six years ago. When I was pregnant with my little girl, I told myself that I will try for the second time to BF. And all my friends said that it will be easier to BF for the second time as we are more experienced. Yet, I was not confident enough. 

Hehehe….Ally, now you can understand the reason why I dilly-dally of sharing my breastfeeding journey in your “Ally’s Blog”. It is simply because I’m so afraid that I may not be able to breastfeed this far. If I cannot even hit the first milestone, there is nothing proud for me to share. 

Even though being a mother for the second time, BF doesn’t come naturally or is an easy task as it “should” be. Thanks to Ally and friends, I am able to make this far. I had my fair share of sore and cracked nipples and even some bleeding due to improper latching while BF my girl. But with Ally’s guidance and advice, the problems were solved. I’m so glad that Ally took the time to come all the way after work to guide me on how to BF my girl because it really made a difference if baby can latch properly. So please, all Mothers-to-Be, do read more and get help on BF.  

Then again, there are other issues like not enough milk, mental and physical tiredness of constantly BF during the second month as I’m at home alone with my girl without any helping hand. There was a MOMENT that made me think of giving up BF like six years ago. But, each time when I look at my girl after BF, the blissfulness and that smile…..I told myself to be patient and try to continue to BF as much as I’m able to at a more RELAXed pace.  

Thanks to my husband too for his support for BF. He is so supportive that he bought 1 carton of 12 cans Formula Milk (FM) for standby and told me not to worry about “No Milk” for my girl. He told me to relax and rest at night while he took over the night feeds with FM. He said that our girl was very lucky already as she had more mommy milk than her brother; so, it’s alright to have BF and FM.   

Now that I have resumed work, I started to pump milk out for the time I am away. I am very happy and grateful to have a nanny that supports BF. She even made a remark that, “you are good, still have milk to give” and that remark motivates me to continue diligently pump milk daily. 

I’m very lucky too that this time, I got to know some other BF mommies from the confinement center that I stayed in after the delivery. We even have a “Whatsapp chat group” and continued to communicate and support each other even after being discharged. The experienced BF mommies are very kind to share their knowledge in BF and constantly caring and motivating us to continue to BF no matter how low the supply was. They said that even 1 feed of breast milk a day is good enough. Here, we can also ask for help when we have BF problems or baby problems or we can just simply express our “TIREDNESS” or “GUILT” of missing a pumping session when we overslept. Then, all the mommies will start to voice their support and motivate each other.  

To all the mommies out there, RELAX and ENJOY your BF journey. It doesn’t matter if you are a fully BF mommy or how much milk you can produce. As long as you can BF even 1 or 2 feeds a day to your little one, it is good enough. Don’t compare! I’m very proud to say I am a 80BM-20FM mother and will continue “RELAX-LY” BF my little girl and hopefully I can reach my second milestone (6 month).