Breastfeeding Goals

 

You knew it was going to happen someday. (Well, I knew it, and you probably feared it.) After a long time blogging (six years!) and a long time breastfeeding (57 months-ish), it's time to combine the two. Yes, this post is all about boobs. You've been warned.


I'm not the only one out there writing crazy stuff like this. This post is part of the weekly breastfeeding blog hop, hosted by Sisters 'N Cloth, and co-hosted by Life as Wife, Mummy, and Nurse. This week’s topic is, “Breastfeeding Goals.”

I have four children, and I had different, evolving goals with each although I somehow always ended up in the same place. The first time around, I didn't really know much about breastfeeding, and what I did know were mostly horror stories. So my initial goal was to TRY breastfeeding. See how it went. The first couple of weeks were a little challenging since both my daughter Ree and I were breastfeeding rookies, and I'm not great at asking for help. (Thank goodness even in his sleep deprived state, my sports obsessed husband could still mumble "Try the football hold!" which always seemed to work.) And once we got the hang of it, it went pretty well. But I knew my return to work was looming, and so my goal became to get as much breast milk into her for as long as possible. Despite me returning to work at a new job when Ree was eight weeks old, we managed exclusive breast milk until 8 1/2 months and some breast milk until the week she turned 12 months.

Not bad, but I'm an overachiever, and by then I had read a LOT about breastfeeding. So, of course, I went into my second pregnancy with Breastfeeding Goals. We were going to exclusively breastfeed for at least a year! We would avoid supplementing with formula! We would establish a great nursing routine in the beginning! Only then I went in for my 20 week ultrasound and found out SURPRISE! TWINS! And they decided to arrive early. And five hours apart. So my first little man was down chilling in the NICU with a bottle of high calorie formula before his "little" brother even entered the world. Breastfeeding goals out the window.

So I went back to the plan of getting as much breast milk into them for as long as possible. It turns out that Leon, the "older" brother, earned himself the nickname "breastfeeding champion of the world." That boy liked him some booba. His "little" brother Michael never figured out how to get letdown. We had just moved and changed jobs again when I got pregnant with them, so this time I went back to work when my little men were only seven weeks old. And with preemie twins at the holidays, that time was a blur, and among other things, I pretty much had to give up on breastfeeding Michael. Thankfully, I had been pumping like a champ while on maternity leave and was able to pump at work again at my new job. So, breastfeeding ended up being Leon, super nurser dude, breastfeeding at night while I pumped in the daytime for Michael. This continued until they were 13 months with even little Mikey getting at least a few bottles of expressed milk a week. Meanwhile Leon nursed at bedtime until he was 21 months old and I was three months pregnant again.

So with baby number 4, I really had no goals other than to give her as much breast milk for as long as possible. As it turns out, Natalia, my youngest, likes nursing even more than Leon. At 23 months, she has never had formula and she still nurses at bedtime. At this point, I don't know what the future holds, but at least I know she got a lot of breastnilk in her for a long time!