My first baby is now 8 weeks old and feeds like a champion. Before her arrival I had no particularly strong feelings about how I would feed her, and assumed I would breastfeed her if I could but if for any reason that wasn’t possible that was fine too.
Her arrival was not entirely straightforward, and when she was placed on me for skin to skin I had been in labour for 24 and a half hours and awake for around 36. In addition I had a spinal block, so could not feel my body from my ribs down and had no upper body strength either. I was too exhausted to enjoy the moment, terrified that I would drop her, and in my haze thought it was something that my husband could do instead and kept asking for her to be taken off me!
I stayed overnight in hospital, but due to the spinal block I couldn’t get up to hold her or check on her. When a nurse came to tell me she was due another feed, she was placed on the bed next to me and then we were left to it – I had no idea what I was doing!
It felt like we had got off to quite a bad start with our bonding and feeding, but by the time we went home, 24 hours after her birth, we had it sussed. My daughter was determined to feed, and we’ve had no problems since. Trust your baby – they know what they need to do!
Thank you to this local mum for sharing her story anonymously.