Dafne is four months old and is breastfed exclusively. Before she was born I didn’t have any major expectations for feeding. I hoped to breastfeed but felt that I didn’t want to put too much pressure on myself. Let’s be honest, growing a baby and giving birth can be daunting enough!
One of the benefits that really interested me in breastfeedng was the link to reduced symptoms of asthma, as an asthmatic I was motivated by doing what I could to reduce Dafne’s risk. She may still develop asthma but hopefully the feeding will help.
I had a few breastfeeding essentials before Dafne was born, here is a list of a few items that I found useful:
- A breast pump (I have a medela swing, they do a great starter kit)
- Multi Mam compresses (these were amazing at the start of breastfeeding)
- Lanolin cream (again this was an amazing help to me at the beginning)
- Cabbage leaves in the freezer! (When I got sore in the first few days of feeding I tucked these into my bra and they gave me major relief! Strange but true)
- Heat pack (When I wasn’t tucking cabbage in my bra I was using a heat pack for relief!)
The reason I’ve given my essentials list is because I found the first two weeks the hardest to feed Dafne and some of these items really helped. I just focused on each feed and felt that every feed was a bonus. I honestly never imagined in those first two weeks that I’d be at 4 months and still going strong with the breastfeeding. I would encourage anyone who is thinking about it and struggling like I did to just take it each feed at a time and ask for help (I found the lactation consultants in the hospital amazing and also the local breastfeeding support group)
My breastfeeding dilemmas are much different now to when Dafne was a newborn. Now I have a freezer full of frozen milk in little bags for the feeds when I’m not there, recently there was a threatened power cut and all I could think of was all that milk going to waste, thankfully the power stayed on!
As Dafne gets a little older I’ve been leaving her more and more which means I travel with my pump and a little ice bag for the milk I pump. So far it’s worked well even if finding places to pump is somewhat challenging at times!!
Thanks for reading,
Derval
