World Breastfeeding Week Story | Jade Rice | Early Childhood Sleep Consultant

World Breastfeeding Week Story | Jade Rice | Early Childhood Sleep Consultant

Posted by Jade Rice on 31st Jul 2017

I have two children and two completely different experiences. My first couldn’t feed from the breast at all. I tried for three days, but it was so painful, like feeding a shark, and he was not transferring milk. 
I sadly started formula feeding him when he was 4 days old, and he couldn’t really feed from a bottle properly either.
This was one factor that led to experiencing post-natal depression for over 5-years. I later found out (when he was 8-years old) that he has a very restricted tongue tie that caused all my breastfeeding problems for him. 

My second child was breastfed for 16-months, but not without challenges. She too has oral restrictions, however has now adapted to them well. She fed well from one breast from birth, but it was very painful to feed from the other breast. I needed to hand express and syringe feed her from the painful breast intermittently for 6-7 weeks so that it could heal and I wasn’t in so much pain. 

Once I got past this, breastfeeding was good, but because of her ties, she fed very frequently during the day – less than 2-hourly. Luckily, she slept well overnight, which was my reprieve.
The reason I decided to stop was because she began feeding every 45-minutes during the day around 14-months, mostly for comfort. Her behaviour was very difficult if I refused to feed her, with many tantrums in the day. She actually weaned very quickly to my surprise.
I feel it was an amazing effort to feed her for this long, with my anxiety from my first experience and her ties against me.

By JADE RICE

Jade is Managing Partner and Senior certified Infant and Child Sleep Consultant at Early Childhood Sleep Consultant.