(CLOSED) My Breastfeeding Story & Giveaway

Congrats to Miss Jess.  She is the winner of the Breastfeeding Goodie Bag!

In honor of Breastfeeding week…I’m going to share my story like many of you have or have read this week.  I have two children and two TOTALLY different experiences.

With my first baby, Ella,  I took the classes, read all the books and magazines, watched videos and even met with lactation consultants twice.  But, none of that seemed to matter.  Ella was not a natural and neither was I.  Of course we all think, “hey…it’s a natural thing, I’m sure we’ll get the hang of it quickly”.  Nope.  Ella’s experience all started out totally wrong in the hospital and I swear to this day that has a lot to do with our difficulties nursing and with her horrible colic that lasted 6 months.  I’m not kidding, you read it right…six long, agonizing, what did I get myself into months!

I ended up with an emergency c-section with Ella and I didn’t do so well and didn’t get to hold or even see her until she was almost 3 hours old. (that’s a story for another post!)    When I finally did see her,  I couldn’t sit up or even see straight from all the drugs that had been pumped into me, but I KNEW I wanted to breastfeed her right away.  The mean nurse I had told me that she wouldn’t stop crying in the nursery so they fed her a bottle and she wasn’t hungry and wouldn’t LET ME nurse her!  I was so upset and too confused to do it myself.  Luckily, another nurse came in about an hour later and helped me latch her on.

Due to the surgery and what I had been through, my milk didn’t come in for about 6 days.  But, I was determined to nurse her exclusively.  So, a lactation consultant introduced me to supplemental nursing system or SNS.  I’m not sure if you’ve seen this thing, but it’s next to impossible to use.  Especially when you don’t know what you are doing, in pain from the c-section and suffering from Postpartum Depression.  It’s a little tube you tape to your nipple that runs to a bottle of formula that you hook on your other breast.  The idea is that the baby sucking still stimulates milk production but gets the formula to keep her full.  OH – I can’t tell you how happy I was to finally get my huge, engorged breasts that one morning!  Thank god the SNS days were over.

Ella always struggled with nursing.  She would latch on and cry and stiffen up.  She would never get comfortable.  It was always a struggle for her.  I nursed her exclusively for 10 months – even pumping while at work and sending breastmilk for bottles and going to her sitter’s house on my lunch each day to feed her.  I. Was. Determined.  At 10 months old, she and I both developed thrush and it was so painful for us both to nurse.  We tried for a week or so and we both cried in pain each time.  So, I gave in and gave her a bottle of formula and she slept better than she had in months.  That was it.  10 months.

Now, Andrew…he’s a TOTALLY different story.  Not much to tell.  He WAS A NATURAL.  He latched on immediately in the hospital right after birth even though I had another cesarean.   He would nurse without hesitation from the very beginning and never stopped.  My milk came in right away and we had no problems at all. We co-slept for a while.  We could sleep easier that way.  Something I NEVER did with Ella.  She wouldn’t have it.  Only recently will she get in bed and lay with me in the mornings or after a bad dream.  Not Andrew, I would just lay him beside me and he’d snuggle right up and off to sleep he went.  I’d wake up to him rooting around like a little cat.  He’d latch himself on and fall asleep right after his meal.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  It was exhausting!!  Especially in the beginning.  I was SO tired  and felt like that’s all I did.  It is hard work!  So, with a 2 year old around, I was much more lax about bottles in the beginning.  I would pump so that I could get a break.  I had to do it to keep my sanity.  It’s so true that you just feel like a big ol’ milk cow in the beginning.  Nurse, poop, sleep, nurse, poop, sleep.  24 hours a day.  Brian would just bring me Andrew and I’d feed him and he’d change him and put him back down. We had a good system going.

I really thought I’d be nursing him right into Kindergarten.  But, one day around 13months old…he discovered the joys of a bottle and decided he was finished.  It really surprised me because he was so addicted to nursing.  He would pant and paw at my shirt every time he was around me – at Target, at home, at the grocery store.  Didn’t matter.

At 14 months old, he still nurses in the middle of the night sometimes, but that’s mainly due to me  not wanting to fight it at night and wanting to get more sleep.

Nursing is hard.  It’s not for everyone and that’s OK.  But,  I totally believe it’s worth a shot if you think you can do it.  Even for a very short time.   There were many times I wanted to give up and I told myself…”OK…if in 1 week it’s still bad, it’s over.”   And it would get better.  I did this many times and  it always got better.  They say breastmilk is like liquid gold to your child and it’s that greatest gift you can give them.  I’m very proud I was able to give it to my children and would do it in a heartbeat  for any other children that may come along.

In honor of all those breastfeeding mommies out there, mommies to be or if you know someone who is nursing, I’m giving away a Breastfeeding Mommy Bag full of goodies such as:

Lansinoh HPA Lanoin Nipple Cream

Lansinoh Breastmilk Storage Bags

The book The Nursing Mother’s Companion

-PLUS a few extra goodies!

To gain entries:

Manditory Entry:
Head over to Lansinoh’s website and tell me 1 product you’ve tried or would like to try.  Come back here and comment on it.

Extra Entries:

*  Leave me a comment with your favorite piece of advice for a new nursing mother.

* Tweet this post by just hitting the RETWEET button above.

* Subscribe to All Things Mamma

*  Follow me on Twitter

*  Grab my button for your website and leave me a link on where to find it.

*  Blog about this post on your blog. – 5 extra entries

* Leave a comment on any other post on All Things Mamma – come back here and leave a comment telling me which post.  – 5 extra entries

Make sure to leave a comment on each of the entries you complete above.  The winner will be chosen by random.org on the last day of the month to round out World Breastfeeding Month.  The winner will be contacted by email and will have 48hours to respond.  At that time if no response has been given, a new winner will be chosen.

Good luck to everyone!!

Here are some links to some other wonderful women who choose to tell their story this week as well!

The Ohana Mama

3 Kids and Us

LipzUnzipped

Through Hazel Eyes

Sweet N Sassy Girls

Suzy Q Homemaker

Momdot

Tagged as: breastfeeding, contest, giveaway, lansinoh, nursing mother's companion, sns, story, world breastfeeding week