words

This post is part of the Breastfeeding Blog Hop hosted by Life With Levi, The Slacker Mom and Diary of a Devil Dog Wife.


The topic of this week's Breastfeeding Blog Hop is words of encouragement- what encouragement have I received or what can I say for other breastfeeding mothers?


I think some of the best words that I heard when I was having issues breastfeeding Toddler B were "I had problems with breastfeeding too" and "breastfeeding's not always easy". I can't tell you how isolated I felt when at first all I was hearing was other moms telling me how easy it was for them, about how their milk let down so fast, blah blah blah. Their Niagra Falls-like supply, how their baby latched on before it was even out of the womb, how I just needed to put my baby to the breast (like I had never thought to try that... ). I felt like such an outcast, the worst mother in the world- not even fit to be a mother, obviously, since I couldn't do what came so naturally to every other woman under the sun.


Thank G-d that I did meet other women who had experienced difficulties and didn't feel ashamed to share them. Suddenly I was not the failure that I thought I was- just another mother experiencing difficulties. Some of these other mothers had success after all the issues, some did not. Regardless of the outcome, however, they all tried to breastfeed and had experienced stumbling blocks, just like me, and they weren't afraid to say so.


So here I am, saying it for someone else out there- I had problems with breastfeeding too and breastfeeding's not always easy. You are not alone, you are not a failure, and you are a beautiful mama!