Confession of the Milking Cow

Allow me to introduce the new me. I am a mother - a very cranky mother since I hardly remember what a goodnight sleep feels like, my life has changed completely since baby Oli was born. I live on three hour slots basically, starting from the time he screams his lungs out (he's got very healthy lungs by the sound of it), which means it is his feeding time, to the next feeding time. I never feel so much being used by a person - literally - as a milking cow.

Baby Oli is a sucker - or maybe he just loves mummy's lovely milk. But breastfeeding does not come natural to me. Now if it is a natural thing, how come both mother and the baby need to learn to do it in perfect harmony? If it is so natural how come I have been in constant pain from the first day?

From the first day, everyone has different opinion. They said it shouldn't feel uncomfortable but then they said it was normal to feel uncomfortable since I might still be tender and need some adjusting period. What the???

Other girls that I spoke to at the new mother club didn't have any problem with breastfeeding and that made me feel something is wrong with me.

After some soul searching (starting from being a showcase in front of midwives in the hospital to make sure he latched alright, to calling the breastfeeding association lady and talking to the nurse at the mother & child centre), I finally decided to get a lactation consultant. The day I rang the breast lady (Scott has a different term for her, too rude to put it down here), Mum (who happened to be staying with us) objected straight away. See, again we have different opinions. Mum said it has only been a month, while in my opinion it has already been a month.

The breast lady and I went through the technique of latching and some other issues. The day when she came and visit, Oli slept through for 7 hours at night (with mummy not able to sleep waiting for him to wake up). I am still waiting to see if I can actually put all the theories into practice.

Fingers crossed...

PS. New pictures of 4 weeks old Oli are in the baby album on http://home.exetel.com.au/bradley