It was national breastfeeding week a few weeks ago and although I’ve stopped breastfeeding, i wanted to write a bit about our experience.

There’s a lot of information out there and loads of support groups but I still felt that the advice you can receive from ‘official’ sources were a bit lacking in some areas.

I believe breastfeeding is a completely personal thing. I have absolutely nothing against feeding babies formula and am 100% for ‘a fed baby is best’! Do what works for you and baby!

This is also a very personal post – if you know me personally, it may contain some information that you’d classify as ‘TMI’ (too much information!) but I’m keen to share my experiences in the hope it may help others in the same situation.

I was really keen to breastfeed for multiple reasons

• For my baby- babies get all the nutrients they need from breastfeeding and antibodies and your milk adapts to the baby’s requirements
• For me- You burn calories by feeding, it cuts down on cleaning, sterilising and prepping bottles. Its literally on tap, ready to go whenever baby wants!
• For the environment- there’s some interesting stats about how much CO2 can be saved if you breastfeed for 6 months
• And also, I wanted to do it to help with bonding and reduce chances of post-natal depression. Breastfeeding triggers a whole bunch of happy hormones which can help regulate some of that emotional rollercoaster that is post-partum.

I’d started to look into breastfeeding while I was expecting. I have pretty flat nipples and wanted to find out whether I would be able to breastfeed and what might help if this was going to give us some extra challenges.

There was limited information online about breastfeeding with flat or inverted nipples, but I tried to read up as much as I could.

General feel was that it could be an issue because babies could struggle to latch, especially earlier on. However, sources suggested that babies latch on to the areola and breast tissue and not the nipple itself so as long as the latch was deep enough, babies should be able to feed ok.

There were a few mentions of using nipple shields during feeding but also some nipple extractors that would help to extract the nipple before feeds to help the baby latch. There was a suggestion that these could be used prior to birth to ‘train’ the nipples into a more prominent shape but information also suggested that these not be used too early on in pregnancy as nipple stimulation can bring on contractions!

So I read what I could and bought a bunch of shields, shells and nipple correctors/formers!

Fast forward to our little one arriving and I fed him 3 or 4 times while we were in hospital although I don’t think any of the midwives actually witnessed them. It’s difficult to gauge if they’re getting anything at the start as they need millimetres during the first few days!

We got on ok the first few days although I think he was struggling to latch on as he spent a lot of time just rubbing his face around my boobs and not really latching. I could be more responsive to him during the day though and we would take our time getting comfy. Although the first 2 weeks were very busy with visitors and as much as I was desperate to share our lovely boy with everyone, looking back, I should have given us some time to get us both used to feeding. I was expressing milk before visits so that we could offer a bottle if he needed fed. So many sources suggest not offering a bottle too early but I just didn’t want the struggle we’d been having with feeds while people were there.

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The nights were tough as he would wake up hungry and would work himself into a frenzy because he couldn’t get it quick enough. We spent a few nights trying to get to grips with it- me naked from the waist up, crying because I was exhausted and not sure what else to do and him screaming because he couldn’t latch. I mentioned to the midwives and they said that using a pump before can help bring the nipple out before a feed. Which again was fine during the day but not so much when the wee one has just woken up crying and ready for a feed!

I’d been writing down his feeds and, apart from a few days of cluster feeding which is quite normal, he was doing very short feeds so i was worried he wasn’t getting enough. I mentioned to the midwives and they said they weren’t concerned about him getting enough as he only lost about 3% of his birth weight. I told them that I had been expressing and giving him some bottles though as he seemed to be struggling to latch. One midwife thought he had a slight tongue-tie, so they referred me to a feeding clinic.

The clinic was some use- it gave me the confidence that he could feed ok, it just took a bit of time to get the right position. But because he was gaining weight fine one of the midwives made a comment “oh you don’t need to be here! We’ve got some women in who are really struggling “. I think she was just trying to boost my confidence a bit but really, I was there for a reason. We hadn’t found our grove and he was getting expressed milk a few times a day. We were 2 weeks in and I hadn’t attempted to feed outside the house.

But I left thinking ‘no more bottles of expressed milk’ and we’ll keep at it until we get the hang of it!

My mum mentioned that she had used nipple shields with me a few times and it reminded me that i had some in the cupboard. I tried one for a feed and it was like night and day. He latched straight away and had a long feed. I used them for every feed after that and was feeling a lot more confident and happier.

During the next midwife visit I mentioned that I’d been using them but she was pretty supportive and said as long as he was gaining weight ok, they didn’t think it would be an issue.

There’s still a bit if a stigma around shields- a lot of the old school midwives believe it makes it harder for the baby to get milk and can affect their weight gain. It is also believed that babies get more air so may be gassier after feeds. And there’s the theory behind ‘nipple confusion’!! If you introduce a bottle/shield before feeding is established, it can affect breastfeeding.

Interestingly, I’ve seen a fair bit online from other mums I follow saying that nipple shields weren’t really mentioned during NCT classes or by midwives & health visitors. Despite this, several of them have used them throughout the journey.

In fact breastfeeding was only mentioned during my midwife appointments as a bit of a side. It seemed like it was only asked to work out what leaflets I should be given and if I needed the vitamins for after the birth.

So we used shields but I wanted to wean off them. I was still cautious using them long term and, in all honesty, they can be a bit of added faff. They should be sterilised before use, I would have to carry them around with me and putting them on in public before feeding wasn’t as subtle!

I went to a local breastfeeding support group and the lady there was fab. She gave me some information from a La leche book, gave me some online resources and youtube videos to watch and gave me a few tips on how to wean baby off them.

I tried a few times over the next few weeks but figured he wasn’t ready- he fed so much better with them that I thought I wouldn’t put pressure on myself to come off them. We would just see how we got on.

We tried feeding in public after about 3 weeks and despite the added faff of getting the shield in place, it went fine. I remember being so conscious at the start of trying to feed subtly but after a while, I realised that a lot of people didn’t even notice you were feeding or just weren’t interested. I thankfully never received any negativity (although mentally I would’ve been ready for a fight if anyone did say anything!). I actually experienced the opposite- older ladies coming up to me in the M&S cafe saying it was lovely to see and small gestures from a  lovely waitress who brought me a glass of water before I had ordered saying that she always remembered being so thirsty when she was breastfeeding.

As the weeks went on our confidence grew and we continued with the shields. A Facebook group ‘Can I Breastfeed in this UK’ helped a lot.

Members share photos, techniques and clothing that they find useful and overall, I found was a really positive space. I quickly learned a few key acronyms – FOO (flop one out), OUOD – (one up, one down) !

I had bought a bunch of breastfeeding friendly clothes at the beginning but in the end and especially when it started becoming colder would do one up one down all the time – vest top underneath another top, shirt or jumper, lift jumper up and pull top down. Your stomach is covered and hardly any boob or chest is showing and is then covered by baby’s head. I essentially lived in nursing vest tops from H&M that I wore under everything!

We continued using the nipple shields until we stopped breastfeeding (around 10.5 months). He got to the stage where he could feed without but at that stage, we were both so used to them that I just stuck with them. The only time where they were a hassle was towards the end and Evander wanted to play with them. We had a good few feeds towards the end where he would just try and take then off and laugh!

This post has ended up way longer than I expected so I may do another that covers pumping & expressing, bottle feeds and weaning.

One thing I would say though (and something I’ve told a close friend recently) is just do what you are comfortable with and what works for you and the baby. Our journey was far from text book but it worked and we found a way that we were both happy with. Despite being advised against long term nipple shields use and using bottles and dummies before the recommended 6 weeks of exclusive breastfeeding, we got on fine. I can honestly say that, without shields, I would not have breastfed past the 6 weeks mark, let alone getting to almost a year.