While trying to get started with my blog, I found myself getting really stuck with my first post. While struggling with my writing, I started to think about what my goals are with my blog. In short, my main goal is to try to provide parents with the information that I wish I had been given before having my own children.
During my journey so far as a mother, I’ve had plenty of moments where I’ve found myself thinking “I wish I had known this when my children were babies”. The more I learn about breastfeeding, mothering and attachment parenting, the more I realize how little I knew when I first brought a new life into this world. When I was pregnant with our first child, I was working as an RN on the obstetrics unit of the local hospital, and I thought I was well prepared to birth, and care for a baby. I’m well educated, I had read the typical books, and taken a prenatal class with my husband. I figured I was ready! Time has taught me however just how wrong I was.
Breastfeeding seemed to go well with our son, although feedings usually took about an hour and he was feeding every hour and a half. Around 5 months, he started biting me badly at every feed. It got to the point that I dreaded feeding him, and eventually, we weaned him to bottles of formula (I know now that his biting was due to an undiagnosed tongue tie) .
Looking back, I find myself thinking “If only I had known then what I know now”. None of the resources I read before the birth of our son explained about the risks of artificial feeding. Everything I read or was told, suggested that breastfeeding was best, but formula was OK if it didn’t work out. At the time, no one told me that there are numerous risks to artificial feeding (the increased risk of asthma for example, which our son has) . No one taught me baby-led bottle feeding to avoid overfeeding, or that rice cereal isn’t a necessary first food and that it’s not necessary to puree everything. I didn’t know about the advantages of co-bedding or babywearing. I didn’t know about a lot of things.
We muddled through of course, and thanks to the fact that my husband and I at least trusted our instincts and ignored the constant warnings that we were holding him too much, our son is securely attached, and a very happy and outgoing child.
Looking back at the choices we made, I don’t feel guilty about the fact that I weaned him to formula, I feel angry. Angry that with all the evidence based information about breastfeeding and parenting that is out there, for some reason, it is not getting to the people who need it the most – the parents!
All of my information came from mainstream books and magazines that contained questionable information, booklets from formula companies that are designed to undermine breastfeeding, and doctors and nurses who had little to no training about infant feeding. It’s no wonder I didn’t make it past 5 months of breastfeeding with my son.
With our daughter, who was born 27 months later, I knew more, but we still struggled for the first four months of breastfeeding (undiagnosed posterior tongue tie). The only reason we made it to just over 3 years of breastfeeding was because of my extreme stubbornness the second time around. I was determined it was going to work, and it did, but the first few months were horrible, and would have been so much easier if only I had known….
So my goal at the moment is to try to make sure that the next generation of parents have fewer “If only I had known!” moments than my husband and I have had (and will continue to have, I’m sure) with our children.