Balancing Motherhood, Yoga and Writing

Today I got chatting to another mom randomly in a coffee shop - as you do. Amazing how something as intimate as birth stories come out so quickly to total strangers. She began sharing how she had had a forceps birth which left her with trauma for quite some time.

We discovered that what we both had in common was babies who had been born with jaundice and low blood sugar. Only, in her case, it was her third baby so she knew enough to refuse the medical professionals’ offer of formula. No matter how insistent they were, she said no.

I wasn’t so lucky. I didn’t know that breastmilk would be enough, and that feeding almost constantly for 24 hours would establish breastfeeding well, and give my baby what he needed to thrive. The fear associated with anything untoward happening to my newborn was stronger than my ability to assert.

But, mainly I just did not have the information that I do now, as a trainee breastfeeding peer supporter, and soon to be trainee breastfeeding counsellor. Information that I wish more mothers had, and that organisations such as not-for-profit La Leche League work hard to make available through mother-to-mother support.

It’s hard sometimes not to beat myself up about my past ignorance and the impact it might have had on the Pibler. Luckily I had good support from my partner and partner’s sister and was able to put the formula aside as soon as we were out of hospital. Otherwise, our breastfeeding relationship would have been in jeopardy: as it is, we recovered and my milk supply was well-established soon after getting rid of the formula.

It’s always encouraging to see others breastfeeding in public. Since the Pibler’s birth I’ve been the only mom I’ve ever seen breastfeeding on the bus. In fact, one day another mom commented ‘Oh, you’re brave, feeding him on the bus.’ To me, it really isn’t a big deal. What else am I going to do? And after all, remember, breasts were designed to feed babies and aren’t something we should be embarrassed about.

But today on the bus another woman responded to her baby’s cries by breastfeeding him. The bus was particularly crowded and she had to go out of her way to find space to feed him and get help to take all her shopping off the buggy so that it wouldn’t tip over - a familiar predicament. But she did it, and I couldn’t help feeling a sense of solidarity. Many moms would probably leave the baby to cry out of fear of what others would think of breastfeeding in public. This mom, although she was apologetic, was unashamed about it.

I’ve just filled out a ‘Pampers’ (a diaper company) survey about my baby’s sleep experiences. I enjoyed answering their rather ridiculous questions with information about how co-sleeping has been the answer for us, and how damaging controlled crying and ‘crying-it-out’ methods are to the well-being of babies. No doubt it won’t be what they expect - one of the questions was actually about whether I’d be interested in ‘Supernanny ‘ coming to my house to fix my baby’s sleep problems . Grrr. It sets my teeth on edge. Her technique of ‘Sleep Separation’ says it all. This survey of Pampers paid not even lip service to the existence of attachment parenting and in general, portrayed solving babies’ sleep problems as the be-all and end-all. They probably won’t use what I said, but at least I had my say - rather satisfying