Nurse Your Baby

6.5 years ago you could find me tucked in the shadows fooling with a nursing cover trying to navigate the first few months of nursing my newborn. These first few weeks of nursing are taxing on both mom and baby. Learning to latch, learning what holds the baby prefers and adjusting to this new life together.

I knew early on in my pregnancy I wanted to breastfeed, there was not a doubt in my mind my daughter would become a nursing champion. What no one prepped me for was the struggle and stigma of breastfeeding in public in our western society. The hardships that I would soon struggle with all in an effort to feed my daughter the most natural source of food for her little body, liquid gold.

I had numerous nursing covers, nursing tank tops and bras and I really thought I could just cover up and nurse her. I didn’t even think about the difficulty of trying to get my sweet girl to latch on while trying to keep the cover in place and hold her so she didn’t fall. No one warned me to take into consideration the struggle of having a child who didn’t want the cover touching her head while she ate her meal.

A cover was a no go for us, so I was found tucked into the shadows nursing my sweet baby out of sight line. Which also meant away from human interaction. I cannot begin to describe the loneliness that accompanies this mindset.

I remember the first time I struggled with our public nursing relationship. We were at the zoo. She was 4 weeks old. I sat down at one of the benches in the large courtyard at the entrance…