Fabulous Friday

Happy Fabulous Friday. What's fabulous about today is reassurance.

At mother's group yesterday, I was talking to one of the mothers who mentioned she had been out with some friends from the first time. She said she just expressed some milk for her mother to give to the baby. I asked her how she went with expressing, telling her it toon me 2 days to express 50ml of milk. She told me she expressed 100ml in 5 minutes. She also told me she had so much milk, she could feed Africa!

For a moment I was jealous, but it made me realise women are all different. When it comes to breastfeeding, we just assume it will be easy and we will have enough milk to nourish our babies. Reality is very different. I don't have a lot of milk and I have very slow flowing milk. This means it takes a long time to feed and explains why I need to top Sticky up with formula.

I was enormously reassured by this conversation. It made me realise that I need to stop feeling frustrated by my body and just accept this is how it works. I'm not sure if there's any exact reason why she has a large amount of fast flowing milk and I don't. I guess it's just one of those things. 

The other thing that was enormously reassuring was when I told her my issues she was so understanding. Instead of judgement, or criticism, she simply said "That must be really difficult for you. Good on you for doing what works for you." I really appreciated the support. 

To be honest, I do struggle telling people I have to give her formula because I worry about people's negative reactions. I guess I still carry around the fear that people will judge me or it's my fault I can't breastfeed better. But, I realise that breast feeding is just like any other thing that you don't have control over - like my allergies, asthma or bad back. I know I've done everything I can to feed my baby and I'm slowly letting go of being worried about what others think. This is made so much more easier by having people around me who just say you're doing a good job!