How I struggled with breastfeeding and what helped
When I gave birth to my daughter, Evelina, I knew I wanted to breastfeed.
Not because anyone told me I had to. It just felt right. I started producing milk super early. By the third trimester I was wearing breast pads like it was my full time job. I honestly thought, well, my body clearly knows what it is doing. Breastfeeding will probably be the most natural thing ever.
Spoiler. I was very wrong.
Evelina was born, and I started breastfeeding the same day. The milk was there, but the latch felt like a tiny crocodile had mistaken my nipple for lunch. The midwives showed me a few positions and I was told to aim for a good latch. I nodded and accepted that this is something that is normal.
When we got home, it was still painful. But you know that postpartum confidence where you feel like you can handle anything because you are running on hormones and adrenaline? That was me. I kept telling myself, this is normal. Everyone says it hurts at the beginning. So with that in mind, I bit my tongue and soldiered on.
My desperation knew no limits.
I tried so many things to alleviate the pain: Lanolin nipple creme, Silverette "Silberhütchen", cabbage, Bepanthen, Weleda Mercurialis perennis cream, laser treatment at the hospital, and so many more things that I read online. But if I'm honest, nothing of that helped - not even cortisone creme! And now looking back, I think most of these helpers are better to treat dryness and soreness but my situation was far from that.
One evening, about 4 weeks in, I broke down and my husband wanted to buy baby formula.
I was just so over stimulated and exhausted that I started crying. I was tired of dreading every latch. Tired of bracing myself. Tired of not enjoying this bond.
My husband stood there, helpless in the way partners often feel in those moments. He offered the only solution he could think of: “I can go to the fuel station and buy formula.”
I was emotional, in pain, and honestly tempted.
But then he remembered something. A friend (Otillie, actually) had made me a postpartum basket with useful things. One of the items was nipple shields.
Enter: the little silicone lifesavers.
Hallelujah what a savior that was. Although still a little painful, I at least had a silicone shield to avoid the tears and bruising to continue and get worse.
For the first time in weeks, breastfeeding didn’t feel terrifying.
I felt relieved for being able to have a bit of a breather when it came to breastfeeding. And then I started hearing "You're baby will get used to them and won't take your breast" or "We didn't have them back in my days"
Along that, the downside was that nipple shields are a bit of a lifestyle.
- You have to wash them constantly (even at night after your breastfeed).
- You have to remember them when you leave the house.
- You have to keep track of two tiny pieces of silicone at all times, which is not easy when you are already carrying a baby, snacks, wipes, and your last remaining brain cell.
Then I turned to something more natural.
My mum brought over an aloe vera plant from Italy. Fresh, planted in a pot. I thought: here we go again...
As a last resort, I started using the aloe gel and I am not exaggerating when I say it felt like a miracle. A journey that was going on for over 2 months finally came to an end! In just a few days, I was seeing results. The redness calmed down. The tears started closing. The pain eased. And slowly, I was able to breastfeed without the nipple shields. This felt like such an achievement!
I finally enjoyed breastfeeding. It felt so natural. So easy.
If you are in the thick of it right now, I just want to say this: you are not weak, and you are not doing it wrong. Sometimes it really is harder than people admit. And sometimes the thing that helps is not the thing that everyone on the internet is shouting about.
For me, it was a tiny piece of silicone… and my mum’s aloe vera plant.