The side of parenting no one talks about

I've been questioning whether to post this or not. A few reasons for that, people don't like talking about the 'dark' side of parenting, it bursts that lovely new baby, new journey bubble. It's also still very raw for me personally. So this one is a hard one. I'm hoping it will be cathartic. On the run up to the birth of your first child, you are excited, nervous, anxious, exhilarated, happy & in the throws of last days of pregnancy. More importantly, you can still, pretty much drop everything to spend time with your mates. You can still go down the pub without needing a baby sitter. The magical day arrives when you go from pregnancy to first time mum. The reality of what is happening hits home like a clanging gong. You have got this little life to look after, feed, keep warm, protect, keep clean etc. You are now suddenly filled with bewilderment. Happy, incredibly in love but totally scared cause this little human relies on you 100%. Now, everything you do, has to factor in your new baby. No more being able to drop everything to spend time with your mates, that involves careful planning & practice. No more spending the evening down the pub at the drop of a hat, you need to find childcare, someone you feel comfortable leaving your new baby with. There is the added emotion of "what if I don't want to leave my baby for that long?" & here it is, the real kicker to becoming a new mum. If you are one of the parents who believe attachment is the best choice for your little family dyad, you find out very quickly who your friends are.....or arent! This has to have been the hardest task for my personal parental journey. I lost friends faster than I made them & still, 7 years on, I see very few people. I find this so so hard & sometimes, it makes me resent being a parent. I question myself as to why I've had children? Very early on, I decided I would put my children first (I know right, what a bitch!) I didn't feel at peace leaving them for prolonged periods. I could cope with a maximum of 3 hours pre 6 months. This made people think I was weird. In a world as selfish as ours, I was seen as crazy. I co-slept, I breastfed on demand, I was an 'attachment' parent. I believed strongly, & still do, that being close to my children in their formative years was important. As a result, friendships I held dear ended, or grew thin. I stopped being invited out, I stopped seeing people as regular as I'd like, through no fault of my own actually, even when I made the effort, my attempts went ignored. My choice, to be the type of parent I felt I needed to be meant it was a very lonely one. It still is. I feel frustrated by it often but I'd never change it. I would still make the same choices I made back then because I still believe my choices were the right ones. It is just unfortunate those choices are deemed weird/outlandish/crazy. It would be nice to have friends who want to spend time with me & my kids, of course, who wouldn't? I personally find parenthood a thankless, lonely task. It's the only job that fills you with happiness & dispair at the same time. As a mother, I feel undervalued, under appreciated & the household skivvy. Some days it is totally shit & I truly hate it. I'm not even sure how to end this blog. It's very much a negative blog. I'm sorry for that. Parenthood is not all sunshine & flowers, it is hard & painful work. It takes huge amounts of emotional strength, physical strength & stamina just to get through the days. Having a new baby is wonderful & terrifying all at once. Finding out what you are capable of is amazing & realising you are stronger than you are is reassuring. It doesn't however mean it's easy or always happy & exciting. I think we have to address that for some parents, life is very hard & very lonely. It's OK to acknowledge that. If you too are a mum that feels like this, just know you are not alone. It wouldn't surprise me if many mums felt this way.

Why formula top ups are a dumbass suggestion!

It is quite common here in the UK & I believe the same goes for the USA, that when a HPC see's a breastfed baby that has not gained sufficient weight or even lost weight, to suggest formula top ups. Now, I can already hear the jeers but please, bear with me. I am coming at this, not only from a very good understanding of the mechanics of lactation & breastfeeding, but also having first hand experience of the dreaded 'failure to thrive' aka FTT. BOTH my children were FTT. Both were breastfed. My first lost 10% of her birth weight but by day 3 of being earth side, we had cracked feeding. However, we were virtually frog marched up to hospital & we were told, in no uncertain terms that our baby must have formula top ups to "get her weight up". Now, I was a first time mum & I didn't know any better. I had no understanding of the Virgin gut, nor of the negative impact of introducing a bottle or artificial milk. Therefore, my baby had about 50mls, over 12 hours of artificial milk. It wasn't a lot & the reason it wasn't was because we had established breastfeeding. Thank God! She continued to gain weight well. So my first experience wasn't drastic. My mind however felt that something was amiss. Why would nature get it wrong? Why would a baby not gain enough nutrition from their species specific milk? Why would they need an artificial substitute that will only give a temporary, artificial gain? What if there was no alternative? All these questions I had led me to the internet. I started reading, and reading and reading. I read about the Virgin gut, I read about the mechanics of Lactation & breastfeeding and I researched the ins an outs of human milk, its production & it's positive impact on human life & about how there is no nutritional difference between the different brands of formulas, by law. By the time my next child arrived, I was armed & ready.... The HCP's however weren't & weren't willing to listen. After failing to repeatedly listen to me, requesting for some help, we ended up being admitted to hospital. So much misinformation, lies, threats. It was a truly awful time. The use of artificial milk to top up breastfed babies is so wrongly ingrained into the psyche, no one can reason with those who religiously & nonsensically stand by it. Look at it this way; you have a pet who can only eat 1 specific type of food, it is the only food the pet tolerates & contains all the right ingredients for them to survive. The pet is losing weight & the vet knows that the only food the pet can tolerate is what it's already on. So, what does the owner do? They can't supplement the pet as there is nothing else it can tolerate.... There isn't much choice. All you can do is increase frequency & volume of feeds. The same goes for a breastfed infant, more importantly, the mother has to want to breastfeed above all else. If the drive isn't there, the motivation won't be there. To increase the volume of feeds, you need to feed. Only frequently emptied breasts produce milk to the level your baby needs. It's not so much the duration of a feed, more the frequency at which feeds occur. Instead of forcing your baby to go every 3-4 hours between feeds, let them feed when they NEED to! You can get up & get a drink/snack/chocolate when you want it, why do we not allow babies the same luxury? You wouldn't let your toddler or your dog go hungry/thirsty would you? Why force a baby into an unrealistic feeding pattern. If you allow them to set their place, you will see they naturally start to space out their feeds. If you feel you must top up, seek a IBCLC. These people are specifically trained in human Lactation, unlike midwives, doctors & health visitors, & are a wealth of knowledge. In many cases, topping up, especially with formula is not necessary & is counter productive. You end up inadvertently overstretching your babies tummy which means they require more milk. Your supply doesn't catch up, because of the lack of feeding from you & so you end up with an evil cycle of lack of supply, top up & hungry baby. I find it a bit infuriating that HCP's are still advising this ridiculous outdated advice. The logic of an artificial milk top up is stupid & frankly foolish. Why are HCP's not suggesting increasing feeds? Pumping between feeds? Doing things that will increase the supply? I still do not get it. Expressing is not & never will be a true indication of production. There are women who can pump very little yet feed their babies just fine. The stimulation of expressing though, is helpful, if you think your supply is down. The worst thing you can do if you have a baby with FTT is to limit feeds. Allow your baby unlimited access to the breast, feeding when they feel they need to, not when you believe a clock/book/HV/midwife/doctor tells you when you feed your baby. They are a human, not a robot. If you want to express & use your milk to top up, use breast stimulation before each lumping session, express one side while baby feeds, double pump, express frequently, every 2-3 hours. Expressing/feeding at night is good as the prolactin (milk making hormone) levels are at their highest. There are ways to avoid formula top ups if you so wish. The most important thing is to find an IBCLC, someone who knows what they are talking about. www.kellymom.com is a fantastic site, known as the breastfeeding bible. Dr Jack Newman has been working in this field for years. The anytical armadillo is another blogger & is an IBCLC. Check them out.

Why We Need To See Breastfeeding

I know this is hold hat to many but here goes.


This morning (25/06/2015) I was putting my mascara on. Whilst doing so I started thinking about the mascara brush & about how we put a pointy, bristly object covered in pigment, so close to our eyes, a rather delicate part of the human body. I started to think back to when I started using mascara & about how I knew how to do it. (can you see where I'm going here?)
I remember watching my mum putting mascara on when I was a child, I'd sit and watch her stroke her lashes with an odd looking brush. It fascinated me how her eyes were magically transformed. I thought about how she had learnt & wondered if she too sat watching her mum? Maybe an aunt? A cousin? Who knows? (well my mum probably does)

So, from sitting & watching my mum put mascara on, I guess I learnt that way. Fair enough my first attempts left me with that, punched in they eye, look but with practice I got better. Now I am a mascara applying master.

This, my fellow mammary enabled friends, is why it is so important to see, in the flesh, breastfeeding! I get not everyone wishes to Breastfeed but for those that do, seeing it is an important factor in being able to do it yourself. Yes, you may struggle to start but we struggle at many things before they become second nature. We didn't wake up one morning being able to walk, then run. We had to work at it, to practice, to gain confidence.

Increasing Breastfeeding rates in the UK will save the NHS Millions a year, women claim to want to Breastfeed but feel unable to do so because of lack of support. We live in such a formula & bottle saturated country that we are losing the art of breastfeeding. Women are shunned into a corner, told to cover up & in many cases asked to leave establishments when they are breastfeeding. I myself was subject to verbal abuse when I fed my then 2 week old daughter in public & I'm not the only one to experience that. Many mothers experience this type of behaviour from their own family as well. Is it no wonder women don't meet their own milestones?

This week is National Breastfeeding Week, it's crazy that breastfeeding, the biological normal way to feed human offspring, needs a special week??? What on earth is that about?? Never the less, those of you who Breastfeed, do it loud & do it proud. You are helping other women who want to Breastfeed their babies because you are allowing them to see it.

If we can pick up the art of applying make-up & doing our hair from watching family members, friends & now outlets like YouTube, we can sure as hell pick up the art of breastfeeding in the same way.

For the sake of our species, our health & our environment, we need to see breastfeeding. Our daughters, our friends daughters and many more can and will benefit from seeing breastfeeding!
It's not indecent, it's not sexual, it's not disgusting, it IS a means of nourishing our children, of comforting them, of giving them the optimal start in life which impacts right through to adulthood.

To the rest of society, if breastfeeding offends you, look away! Better still, go & do some research! Give mothers a break and allow their child to eat without discrimination! Our health & our planet depend on it.