I don’t know because he was quite a, because I got quite a lot of help actually in my antenatal class from, and not just from the, the lady that run it but from the mothers who was breastfeeding at, you know, for their other children that they’d breastfed, so I was quite fortunate in that respect, the fact that I’d got quite lot of advice beforehand and also I’ve read a lot of the breastfeeding leaflets that you get given. In fact to a point where before he was born I was dreaming I was breastfeeding, and only on the last sort of few dreams of me breastfeeding I would actually leak in, in the bed, and I would, my breasts would leak whilst I was dreaming [laughs] so I found that really quite odd, but it was like my brain was, obviously taking in all the leaflets that I’d read and all the information I’d been given and was processing into like a training programme in my mind, it was really quite special [laughs]. So I was quite fortunate in that respect, because I would literally wake up thinking ‘have I had my baby? No, no it’s still inside me and my pillow, my bed would be all wet where my boobs were been [laughs], so they would just leak just to reinforce the fact that it could happen [laughs] I think [laughs], quite strange.

Footnote For discussion about leaking see ‘Talking about’ Getting started with breastfeeding Early experiences’ Sensation of breastfeeding.

Well he feeds when he wakes up, then we sort of play and talk for a little bit and then he gets a bath, and then he feeds about half an hour after that, then hell probably feed about two, two and a half hours after that again. And then hell probably sort of go on like a three, three and a half, three hour cycle until the evening and then hell feed like every hour to an hour and a half. So he really sort of like bulks up in the evening before bedtime.

How do you know when he wants to be fed?

He sort, he sort, weve sort of got it down to like a, a communication, like a talk, he goes [makes baby noise] sort of thing [laughs]. Well check his nappy and if it’s not that then I know that it’s, it’s a feed that hes after, and he sort of latches straight on so. If I get, if I offer it to him and hes not hungry then just looks away and doesn’t sort of make contact with my breast at all so, I know if hes hungry or not.

And can you describe a feed in close detail, what you’re doing, how long, is he having both sides, that sort of thing?

It depends, how, how it depends on how he feeds, ’cause sometimes he does, and hes hungrier than others obviously. And if I latch, I latch him on to one side and if he takes, if he takes a while to sort of eat, excuse me, then hes probably just wanting a drink and it’s probably not like a full, full feed that hes having, whereas if you’ve suckled on he go, he just goes for it when hes really hungry and it, you can feel yourself if you’ve got like a full breast you can feel it literally emptying. And then at the end hell sort of latch on, latch on, latch on and hell sort of come off and on, and coming off and on, and coming off and on and if he does that then I offer the other one because, he, hes obviously not getting enough out of the one I’ve got left. So if I do that then he latches straight onto the other until hes finished but hes, he does tend to latch off, if I offer him both he does tend to latch off quite soon onto the second. He doesn’t sort stay there long.

So he comes off on his own?

Oh yeah he always.

When hes finished?

Yeah he always comes off on his own I never take him off. So, just literally however long he wants [laughs] to be there for, but he doesn’t take that long now, to start with it was, it was taking sort twenty, twenty-five, sometimes thirty minutes but I think his suckle must have got better because it’s probably ten, fifteen now but he seems to still empty me as well, so I think hes just, his sucks probably just got quicker [laughs]. Initially it was quite tiring obviously, but weve managed to get him into a little routine now where he goes to bed about eleven and he doesn’t wake up till seven so [laughs] I can’t complain at all. But on the evening he does feed every hour to an hour and a half, it’s like hes bulking up before he goes to bed, and then the second he wakes up he gets his, he gets a feed and then after his bath he gets another feed. So he does tend to sort of build up, empty himself while he sleeps all night and then feeds again to fill up.

Initially, to start with obviously it, your nipples are a little raw was probably the way I’d describe it, it wasn’t so much painful, and I was fortunate in the fact that they didn’t crack but then I used that Lansinoh Cream right from the beginning to prevent that from happening, and then a couple of weeks after that I think we both just got used to it really and my nipples had hardened up enough not to be an issue, you know not be a problem.

Can you describe that soreness when you first got the baby home?

The, the first, the first sort of week when you, the milk just starts coming out it’s like a, a sharp pain, but it only lasts a couple of suckles and then it’s gone. So I mean it’s literally, you know, you get him on, you go and then it’s over and then it’s just like straight through to normal feeding. But now I don’t get that at all now, not even the initial thing it’s completely gone, it went after about a week and a half that.

We came home on the fourth day and I think I’d been breastfeeding, I’d breastfed that night and then I breastfed that morning and they let me come home. But I think because obviously I’d been trying for so long they knew I knew what to do it was just a case of getting to grips with it [laughs].

Okay and what was it like coming home?

It was actually overwhelming. It didn’t think it would be, I thought, ‘Oh yeah I’ve managed to get it down pat and now it will be fine when I get home, and my parents were still here, they left as I got home, so I managed to spend some time with them for a few hours and then they had to go for work commitments. But once it was just me, him and [husband] and I tried to latch him on and he wouldn’t latch on, and I knew he was hungry and I thought, ‘Well you’ve been latching for’, you know, ‘the last couple of feeds what’s your problem now?’ and I did get upset I thought ‘oh God I’m not going to be able to do this’, ’cause he just wouldn’t latch on. Oh [baby chokes] choke, choke [laughs]. ‘Cause he wouldn’t latch on and I was just really kind of upset with it, so [husband] took him off me so that I could calm down ’cause I don’t think that was helping him then once I’d started to get upset I think he could sense it, and then he was just getting more, then he started to get upset so [husband] just took him away from me, allowed me to calm down and the second he came back he went straight on. So I was like all that upset for nothing it was obviously just because he was in a new place, he was too nosy about his surroundings that he didn’t latch on. And hes like that now if I’m breastfeeding him out and about at playgroups, he feeds for just long enough for him to get rid of the starvation thing that hes got going and then hes off and hes looking around and hes too nosy I think [laughs].

Can you think back to when you were pregnant, what made you decide to breastfeed?

I went, well the antenatal class I went to, because to be honest before, before I fell pregnant I wasn’t overly high on the idea of breastfeeding, I wasn’t quite sure, I know it’s a natural thing but there was something about it that just made me think that [laughs], that just made me think that it was a bit weird, it’s hard to describe really because it wasn’t like I thought it was perverse or anything in that respect, but I just, it just didn’t seem normal although I know it was natures way of obviously feeding your baby, but when I was explaining this to the antenatal group, but then I was never very maternal even when I was pregnant, so I don’t know if that was it maybe I just hadn’t clicked into the mother baby side of it. But when I was talking to them and they were saying how nice it is to breastfeed and how good it is for the, for them, obviously I want the best for him so I thought well I’ll try and see how I go [laughs].

So what was your experience prior to getting pregnant of breastfeeding?

I hadn’t, I didn’t know anybody that’s ever done it, my mum breastfed me and that was all I knew [laughs] I hadn’t seen anybody else do it, all my friends that had babies had always bottled, so I think that’s why I wasn’t quite sure about it, because I’d never seen anybody do it, I’d never known anybody do it other than my mum obviously [laughs] that was twenty-nine years ago, so it was a, a long time.

Did you talk to her about it?

No not until I went to antenatal and it was brought up by them. Yeah so until I’d been to antenatal and it, it had been brought up, because I’d never really, even whilst pregnant until I went to antenatal I’d never thought, contemplated, thought about it. Is that okay? [laughs].

So you decided that you might give it a go?

Yeah [laughs].

And?

And then obviously when I was in, I don’t know it just seemed more natural than I ever thought it would do. And then when it was a case of the fact that he wouldn’t take, latch on, and I just thought, ‘Well it’s natural for you to latch on, why aren’t you latching on?’ [laughs], you know, it’s, I’d completely, my idea of it had completely done a like a flip turn on itself and it was just, it just felt so right that, that was the way nature had intended you to feed so why aren’t you feeding that way [laughs]? So I just persevered and, and now I’m really glad I did.

So you’re really glad you did?

Yeah, really glad I did.

Why?

Why? It’s, it’s nice contact with, between us, it’s obviously doing him good because obviously it’s got all the best things, breastmilk’s supposed to be the best. Hes putting on weight so I know that it’s working, it’s got enough fat and all the nutrients that he needs in it so, and while, while it’s supposed to be the best brain food or something [laughs] so I might as well give him the best start I can [laughs].