Collin County Moms is thrilled to present “Honest Moms,” a series on authentic, vulnerable looks at motherhood and life in general: the good, the bad, and the ugly—what we love, what we struggle with, and what we are working through—all as a way to connect with YOU. We want to know what you’re going through, what encourages you, what helps in the times of confusion, chaos, and solitude. We are all in this together, and our community is a strong one that seeks to lift others up.
We walked into the breastfeeding and lactation center and sat down, clipboard and forms in hand. Our son was five days old and the air outside was crisp, the ground covered with fresh snow. He stirred in his infant seat by my feet, snug in his sleeper with a blanket tucked around his feet as I filled out the forms.
They started easy enough; name (mine and his), date of birth (his and mine), place of birth, and so forth. Then I made it to the question that made me pause: How long do you want to breastfeed? The black check mark went into the one-year box, but really, I wasn’t sure. That’s why we were here: breastfeeding wasn’t working. Sure, he was gaining weight. I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror how full of milk I was. But he was also nursing much like a piranha ate, or so I thought. I cringed and my toes curled every time he latched on.
I knew if the lactation consultant couldn’t fix the breathtaking pain I was in each time he nursed, we wouldn’t make it to a week, much less a year. Before I finished the forms, my son squawked loudly and hungrily. Our lactation consultant led us into a warm room and told me her job was to watch us together, to help us figure out what was causing me so much pain, even as his belly filled with milk.
Before he began to eat, she handed me a firm nursing pillow and moved my hands to hold him. She demonstrated how to latch him on after noting that my pain was likely due to a shallow latch, if not a tongue tie. After he started eating, I gasped in relief. For the first time since our discharge three days prior, nursing didn’t hurt.
One weighted feed later, she had two explanations for the pain. The first was a latch issue. The second was tongue and lip tie. Once both were resolved, she explained, nursing shouldn’t hurt. We left with a referral to a tongue-tie specialist and renewed hope in our breastfeeding relationship. Ten days later, we had the tie revised. I was also an expert at getting a deep latch. The revision and the help with our latch worked, and breastfeeding went from painful to pain-free, almost overnight.
We settled into a routine and stuck to it, even after I went back to work three months later. He took pumped bottles of milk at daycare and nursed at home. It was a nice rhythm, and I was grateful he had no nipple confusion. Nursing was our snuggle time, and we kept up this routine for a year. Sometime after he turned one I was asked if I was ready to wean. I surprised even myself when my answer was no. Not yet. I didn’t know when we would be ready.
I didn’t expect to make it one year breastfeeding, and surpassing that goal surprised me. My son showed no signs of being ready to wean. I savored snuggling with him in the evenings after school, and knew eventually he would stop on his own. Besides, the lactation consultant that spoke at my childbirth class told us more than once that it was fine to nurse as long as it worked for mom and for baby. Extended breastfeeding was still working for us, and I didn’t see any need to change the status quo.
Six months later, and we still weren’t done. He asked for milk if he wanted to nurse, and asked for “cup milk” if he didn’t. Our nursing sessions were starting to drop, and I decided that I would try to wean around his second birthday. Extended breastfeeding was still working for us, and there was plenty of research to show that it held benefits for both of us past one year. He still gained antibodies, and even his pediatrician told us at his 18-month appointment that she saw no problem with us continuing to nurse as long as he was getting enough to eat in addition to breastmilk.
It took another year from that day for us to be done. The last time we nursed, I knew we were done. We’d been cutting back for months, and it had been almost a month since our last nursing session. When we sat down on the couch to nurse before bed, I knew, somehow, that this was it. The last time. We sat together for the longest we had nursed since his newborn days. My piranha was now an expert at nursing. He curled up in my lap, lanky and lean, and I held him close until he was done. He hasn’t asked to nurse since.
That day was two-and-a-half years into nursing. Had you asked when he was born if we would nurse for that long, I’d have told you no. In the grand scheme of things, the extended breastfeeding was and will be such a short period of my life. It gave us snuggle time and brought my son comfort when he was sick, or when he was tired and needed a reset. Looking back, without that lactation consultant meeting five days into his life, we never would have made it as long as we did. I never planned to nurse for more than a year, but now that I’m on the other side, I’m so glad we did extended breastfeeding, and I will forever be thankful for that morning in the lactation center.
