
You got this Momma!
An appreciation for all my fellow Mommas out there making it work.
As I wrote recently (here), I am an exclusively breastfeeding momma to an adorable three-month-old. I just returned to work last week.
As I prepared to come back to work my little cherub decided that she would stop drinking from a bottle.
It wasn’t that she’d never taken a bottle of expressed breastmilk… it was that she had (reliably) eaten from a bottle for several weeks in a row and then… she didn’t.
Full stop.
Two weeks before I had to return to work. I had a little meltdown and we worked through it… but it was traumatic. I wanted to share the experience so others wouldn’t feel they were so alone.
So, through Medium and social media, I did.
I’m not sure what I expected, but after I did I was amazed (and uplifted) by the “you got this momma!” attitude I received from my fellow Mommas — which made me wonder why I hadn’t reached out before. I think some of the other Moms said it best —
“The stress and challenge is so real…We tried everything. If it was on Google, we tried it. Six or seven bottle brands, we tried it. He ended up reverse cycling, making up all his calories at night…so yes, I never slept. I was that mom. In the case of my little man, if it hadn’t been for [another Momma] suggesting OT — we never would’ve ended up in feeding therapy and realizing it wasn’t that he “wouldn’t take the bottle” he really “couldn’t take it” successfully. I remember thinking about formula…despite all my BF goals, and I was just laughing because it wouldn’t have mattered what I put in that bottle…he didn’t have the suck strength and proper tongue organization to take it!”
“I think there are so many moms that have issues that we never hear about whether it’s due to peer/society pressure, embarrassment, or whatnot.
It took us a couple months to figure out that our daughter was born without a proper suck reflex- she could (very painfully) latch like a champ but couldn’t transfer milk from the breast or a bottle. We then spent a couple more months going to weekly therapy sessions and doing daily exercises with her. I was already back to work at that point and my amazing husband was the one who did the vast majority of exercises with her in addition to the insanely slow bottle feedings so she wasn’t drowning in milk. She can now drink out of a bottle but she never got the breastfeeding thing down.
We get occasional comments from strangers (apparently my breasts are their business too), and even family, about how breastfeeding is better when we’re out feeding her with a bottle. Those comments sting after literally trying for months. It’s even more ridiculous because she’s only had expressed breast milk but we still get attitude about it because it’s in a bottle.
The point being, a fed and happy child where mom keeps her sanity is best regardless of whether that’s with breast milk or formula.”
I mentioned this to one of my friends this weekend and she related that her daughter (who has a two month old) is going through the same thing and coming home every day at lunch to breastfeed until it gets figured out.
She also told me how it wasn’t a new phenomenon. As a Navy wife over a decade ago, she related how during a ship deployment when she and another one of the wives were home with new infants, she received a phone call at 1 am —
“It worked! The cabbage worked!”
Apparently this Mom, struggling with three kids under four, including an infant who was having difficulty latching was also miserably engorged. By chance she heard that boiled cabbage leaves could help.
She was calling to share her victory — which needed to be shared and rejoiced over — even when she’d been too afraid to call for help.
As we talked, we were just amazed at how unwilling we were as Moms to admit our struggles.
Whereas in earlier times Momma villages were there in person to help you realize that your struggles were normal and offer support, these days our *pristine* online lives (and our friend’s pristine online lives), increase the already huge pressures to be *perfect* — in the home and at work. In short —
We just need to get over ourselves and our fear that others will see our imperfections — because only then can we get the help and support that we really need to #winparenting
Just remember — We all struggle — reach out when you struggle and we can all make each other better.
“You got this Momma!”
