The Queen was finally born and it was a supernatural childbirth as I prayed for…

If I knew better I would have prayed for my breastfeeding experience too….

For me, latching was not so difficult but the long hours of not getting rest because I was her only option for food was tasking. Sometimes I would want to just hide somewhere…

My husband had to force me to express after 2-3 weeks, he must have noticed how tired I was.. Ignorantly, I had thought it was best to feed directly for at least one month… this is not necessarily true (though medical staff advise to feed from the breastfeed to avoid baby’s confusion). It’s the same milk whether from the bottle or from the breast. We just needed to be sure the bottles were clean, sanitised and the milk was kept properly. After I started expressing I could get sufficient hours of sleep, thanks to my sister in law and beautiful mum in law. Though I still had to wake up at about 4am to express otherwise my breast could be soo full but the 5-6 hours of sleep were sufficient 😁😁😁

I remember one morning Queen Fola was on my breast for almost 4 hours, she would sleep off and feed again. She cried if I dropped her, I remember feeling sooo tired that day. Truly breastfeeding could be tough….but it got easier as the days went by… expressing helped and she slept more…

For some reason, I had to visit the hospital thrice in a week after the birth of the Queen… it was tiring but I was satisfied to go out 😁 How did I cope with breastfeeding on the move? My @belleandgraceafrica breastfeeding covers were so useful!!! I used it in traffic and sometimes in the hospital 😀😀😀

At about 2 months we knew it was time to start saving milk before work resumption… we started and it was beautiful to see the storage increase as the days went by… I was quite diligent and committed to having a lot in store before resumption but I didn’t realise the Queen would consume so much more.

I finally resumed work with some stored milk but I knew it was a matter of days… so I would try to express twice in the office. The truth be told, my flow could not meet with my baby’s demand… so  by the second week of my resumption, my fridge was empty and we had to give her formula. I thought my heart would break, a part of me felt insufficient, why couldn’t I feed my baby till the 6 months I had targeted? My hubby encouraged me and made me realise there was nothing wrong with giving her formula, this cheered me up. Interestingly she accepted it and we had more than enough to meet her needs.

Dear new mum/ mum to be, you are more than enough whether you exclusively breastfeed or you give baby formula, Welldone 😘😘😘

Would you like to share your

#mybreastfeedingstory to encourage a new mum/ mum to be? Pls do and you would win a cape top from @belleandgraceafrica 😁😁😁