When I was pregnant, I heard the joke about babies not coming with instruction manuals at least three hundred times. Okay, I get it guys, kids are hard and being a mom takes up lots of time and energy. However, the one area that I definitely, probably, should have paid a bit more attention to when I was pregnant, was breastfeeding. I ran into so many challenging moments that made me feel like giving up breastfeeding, it probably would have behooved me to, you know, look into breastfeeding and the potential complications before I actually tried to achieve breastfeeding success.
To be fair, not sure it would have made that much difference, since it’s not like my newborn baby could read them with me and learn how to properly latch and help make sure infections and bleeding nipples were a thing and make me tea so I could keep my supply up, but still; just knowinghow much of a struggle breastfeeding can be, and how normal it is to have complications and and to feel like giving up, would have definitely helped.
The good news? Well, I’m not sure if this is "good" so much as worthy of a fist bump of breastfeeding solidarity, but I’ve learned many moms go through the same breastfeeding struggles. I've learned that many mothers think about quitting breastfeeding and even hate breastfeeding, and neither of those thoughts or feelings make you a bad mom. Basically, I've learned about the following moments because I lived them, and realized that even if you feel like giving up, you don't have to (if it's safe and if you don't want to, of course).