Mothering Corner

None of hubby’s family members breastfeed, and my mom only breastfed me for 6 months, but not exclusively. When I was pregnant and told my friends and relatives that I would like to breastfeed Justin exclusively, I got lots of negative comments from them, including my mum! Here goes:

1. Chinese don’t have milk, only Malays have. (Sorry for being bias)
2. Sure no milk one because they failed already
3. Very tiring, confinement is for mothers to rest and sleep
4. Breastmilk not filling enough, need to supplement with formula, if not baby will go hungry
5. My breasts will be out of shape, smaller, slagging, in short, UGLY!
6. Nipples will crack
7. Only people with no money breastfeed (sorry, bias again)
8. Did I leave out anything?…
   

There’re too many negative comments, but I mentally filtered them out, so I can’t remember much. But knowing that I’ll be learning this all by myself, I got to get myself equiped.

This is how I prepared:

• Buy books and magazine on breastfeeding. Don’t just read from ang mo’s point of view, get some input from Asians too.
• Join local breastfeeding forum, MMB is a very good one to meet up with breastfeeding moms.
• Search the net, there’re lots of breastfeeding website to read on. And after reading up, I know better on the problems I’m going to face, so I was better prepared.
• Listen only to mothers who breastfeed more than a year because they’ve gone through a few stages of breastfeeding and the advice given is more reliable.
• Stay away from those who gives me negative comments, which meant I didn’t talk about breastfeeding anymore with them, but only other topics to keep my spirit up.
• Educate hubby, I’ll ask him to read up some info, and if he didn’t have time for it, I’ll tell him about it.
• Get back up. My back up team consisted of … one member…HUBBY!!! I told him to keep reminding me that I want to breastfeed, and never, never, never give up, buy formula, give bottle, give pacifier… during confinement. If I almost gave up, he couldn’t!
• Educate the people you’re staying with during confinement. I purposely get chinese materials on breastfeeding and asked MIL to read, when she had the time. I also talked to her about the goodness of breastfeeding, and what’s true and what’s not.
• If you can do it, don’t get a confinement lady. Not all confinement ladies support breastfeeding. In fact, most of them hate it as breastfed newborns pee and poo a lot, so more work for them.
• But if you need confinement lady, be firm with your determination to breastfeed.
• Watch out for baby blues or post natal depression. It’s really hard at first, not only with breastfeeding, but with taking care of a newborn. So, if you really feel that you couldn’t take it anymore, GET HELP. Talk to someone, hubby, friends, relatives…Remember, a happy mum is more capable of taking care of baby and yourself. I got the blues too, and really felt like crying when I was having breastfeeding problems with Justin, so I understand how it feels like.
• I’ve always reminded myself, my baby is mine, so I have the right to decide what I want for him or her. That’s how I filtered out the negative comments and can’t remember much now!