I really enjoyed breastfeeding, that bond between a mother and a baby during breastfeeding is just so special. Even the bond when bottle feeding is also a special time! I remember one of the first times i fed him he would just stare at me straight in the eyes. It was that moment he knew I would always protect him!
At around the age of 4 months Brandon became alot more interested in the world around him than actually breastfeeding. Every light, every colour, every sound became his priority and feeding became uninteresting. At about the same time I unfortunately got mastitis and let me tell you that hurt worse than actually having a baby itself!!!! (ok maybe Im being a bit dramatic)!
For those who don't know what mastitis is in a nutshell its an infection in the milk duct. I remember waking up around midnight with cold sweats, I wasn't sure if i was hot or cold but I knew i was sweating profusely! So I went and had a shower to try and get rid of the pain in my breast. My breast was very red and swollen and I knew exactly what was going on after a quick google search! Don't get me wrong google also told me I was dying of cancer. I'm always telling my husband not to google diagnose but there i was doing exactly what I tell him not to do. There was nothing I could really do until the morning so i pumped a little bit and got some sleep while I could. I went to the doctors the next morning and yep as I googled I had a bad case of mastitis! A dose of antibiotics and I would be alright.
Moving forward another month Brandon became more and more difficult to feed, especially on the breast that had mastitis previously. He would constantly be on and off my breast during feeds which is probably one of the reasons I developed mastitis in the first place. Also there was no chance I could feed in public because there was just too much going on for him to stay focused. I did try my hardest to keep feeding him but every week it just got harder and harder.
By the time he was 6 months he finally broke through a tooth and I was getting grazed nipples so between the not being interested in breastfeeding and the whole teeth thing I decided for me it was best to transition to formula. It wasn't an easy choice to make but it was the right choice for me! I'm not going to sit here and say breast fed is best bla bla bla because that's not what this blog is about!
So over the next few weeks we transitioned to bottles. It was a slow progress because all of a sudden the kid decided that he would rather the boob! It also took many different types of bottles for me to find one he actually likes drinking from! When transitioning you just think he will take any bottle there wont be an issue but apparently there was.
I tried Avent nope didn't like that, then I tried pigeon nope didn't like that either, then tried closer to nature which he didn't like at the time but now will drink from if he really has to! Yes you heard it this kid is fussy with his bottles apparently! Finally we found the bottle he likes which isn't the cheapest but he will drink from it which is the main thing! So we are using the comotomo which after doing a lot of research on transitioning they are really good for breastfed babies. What I found with the comotomo bottle is its daddy friendly (ie easy to clean and use), its BPA free and the body is made of a clear medical grade silicon which you can squeeze, very useful for those bad teething days when Bman found it painful to suck, I could just squeeze away and all he would have to do is swallow.
When I first came to the decision to transition to formula I thought it would be easy, boob off, bottle on... oh how nice in hindsight that sounds.
It wasn't easy, it wasn't even quick, like everything to do with babies it was a slow time consuming process. First things first, all the nurses love to tell you about how to breast feed, what they dont prepare you for is transitioning from breast feeding. I knew nothing of how my breasts would react to weening my little man off them, turns out they are probably the slowest thing to react to this process. Even three months down the track from transitioning to bottle feeding and Im still producing a little bit of milk.
The process started for me by changing one daily feed at a time from breast to bottle over 2 days for a total of 2 weeks, this gave Brandon time to adjust not only to the routine, but gave his digestive system time to adjust also. One thing they dont tell you is you shouldnt pump excess breast milk otherwise your body keeps milk supply up. So all I could do is hop in a warm shower and try to hand express only the top bit to release a bit of the pain. My gosh did my breasts get huge... my husband was definitely happy, but like everything its all temporary.
I was very lucky to be able to breastfeed for 6 months as some mothers don't even get that opportunity. Something they don't tell you when you're Pregnant is breastfeeding is very hard and time consuming! It doesn't come naturally at all to start with. It takes lots and lots of practice for both you and your baby! And not everyone can breastfeed, I was just one of those lucky mothers who was able to breastfeed even if it was just for a short period!
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