Breastfeeding is one of the topics I have written about on and on again, sometimes painfully repeating what I have said before. Thankfully, it is stressed and encouraged by Doctors to breastfeed your baby exclusively for 6 months or at least for a minimum of 13 weeks. For whatever reasons, I partly started using formula when Lil General was 8 weeks and haven't been able to get over the guilt factor to this day. It had become so painful and the bleeding just got worse by the day but Formula is like drug addiction. Once you start using it, it is difficult to switch over to exclusive feeding. My Doc would repeatedly say that going to formula so early would lead to a number of problems like diarrhoea for the baby but at that point in time, we didn't have an option. Even expressing milk had gotten difficult.
Here are two things that will help you in breastfeeding successfully :
- The first and foremost is motivation from someone in the family. Above all, I consider this the most important thing. If you are not self-motivated and if there is someone who constantly encourages you in a positive way to breastfeed then it is job half done. It drains the new mom physically to be feeding every hour that makes you wonder sometimes if you should subscribe to the local milk supplier and get a tube fitted to the baby's mouth. With a colic baby it gets all the more difficult between 5 and 8 weeks.
- The second most important thing is mastering the latching technique. Whether or not your nipples are damaged by biting is largely dependent on the latching of the baby. If you master how to latch on your baby well, then it is highly unlikely you should ever have a problem.
Babies that are not breast fed suffer from gastroenteritis, I was told. And I am experiencing that quite often because their immune system is not well equipped to handle it.
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