I'm done breastfeeding.

The emotional relationship between breastfeeding, society, and yourself.

I think I’m a decent sounding board in offering advice and conversation about motherhood to other people. What I’m not so good at is taking my own advice.

Take breastfeeding. I am 10000% a fed is best mother. You feed your child however you need / want / see fit. The end. The feeding journey is one of the most emotionally and physically complex journeys and everyone on the internet and otherwise has an opinion on it. So many of us deal with immense pressure that we and or society put on ourselves. If breastfeeding doesn’t work out, our bodies are failing us. If it does work out but we choose not to, we’re guilty for not doing what many women can’t. If we choose formula we’re doing a disservice to our babies and their health. If we combo feed, why would we choose such a hard route? If we pump exclusively, that’s not actually breastfeeding. I’ve read and heard nearly all of it and it sucks.

Fed is best, do what you need, stop at any time because you as a mom need to take care of yourself, your mental health is the most important, you can’t pour from an empty cup etc. I have said these things so many times but I can’t take my own advice. With both my children I have in some way actively worked against myself in trying to make breastfeeding and pumping work. It wasn’t. My postpartum depression, anxiety, the “am I enough” conversation was so loud in my head. And guess what? No one cared if I breastfed. Not a single person. Not my doctor, not my husband, not my mom friends. No one was putting pressure on me and I am very lucky I didn’t have to juggle outside pressure from those closest to me. So, without the added pressure, it was only natural that I put that pressure on myself instead.

This time around my son had a harder time gaining weight for the first few months of his life. It didn’t help that he refused bottles, refused formula, and was spitting up constantly. Really my only choice was to breastfeed. I felt so needed. I was a source of comfort and was literally keeping him alive with my own body. It was such a battle of loving the feeling of being needed in this way, providing for him, but also wanting to peel myself out of my skin because breastfeeding was so physically and emotionally draining. Because of his weight gain issue, the “I’m not enough” voice in my head started to become more real. I actually wasn’t providing enough, or he wasn’t latching well enough. That felt like a very personal attack on my capabilities as a mother, as a provider. How was it that the thing I was “made to do” was something that just wasn’t working or enough for him? After four months of exclusively breastfeeding, he finally took to both formula and bottles. In my mind, this was another tally in the see-you-weren’t-enough box, because now he’s finally thriving.

I told friends to do what they need, start bottles, take a break for yourself, you’ll find other ways to connect with your baby. Here we are 6.5 months in and I am about to be done breastfeeding and I am clinging to our last session like my life depends on it, unable to take that same advice. I am so emotionally fragile about not being needed in this way because it means he’s growing, I’m evolving, our lives are moving forward. I am equally incredibly happy and relieved to get some of my body back to being just mine, to not have to lug pump parts around or to clean them (one of the worst parts IMO).

This rant of a post isn’t to say that you need to be ok with how your journey nets out, because god it’s near impossible to manage your expectations of what should be. It’s to celebrate wherever you’re at, whatever complicated or not complicated emotions you have about breastfeeding or not breastfeeding are. No one can go through this experience for you, no advice is going to be right for you because it’s your individual journey - with your body, your emotions, your mental health and your child.

Let me at least reassure you that you’re already enough because when you look down at those big beautiful eyes staring up at you during a feed (however you’re feeding), you’re exactly what they need. They don’t share your anxieties in judging how they are being fed.

They only see you.

Your friend (who is in some emotional turmoil for the next month while my hormones adjust)

Brit