cjra wrote:
I am curious to hear other's perspectives. On another parenting board,
where most of the members are young and first time moms, I read so
often that they will 'try breastfeeding and if it doesn't go well,
stop."

Now, normally I'm all for trying and being realistic. But at least for
me, such an attitude would have doomed us to failure. Thanks to being a
lurker here for years, I was fully prepared for the difficulties. My
attitude was "it WILL work. We WILL work through the difficult parts."
Anything else seemed to be accepting defeat before even trying.

Is that just me? Did you find the 'I will try and see" attitude worked
for you? Especially when it was difficult at first?


Oh, I totally had the, "It WILL work" thing going for both my kids. Had
I wavered at all, neither would have been breastfed--it was too dang
painful the first week the first time, and just flat out HARD the
second time. But I was raised to know that babies have a right to be
nursed, even when it's not fun, and stuck with it because it was the
thing to do. It chaps my nipples to hear people going off on how
extended nursing is for the mom's benefit--it frankly drives me up the
wall almost as much as my toddler's teeth, but my toddler *needs* my
milk to an extreme degree, and so I put up with biting, pinching and
pulling happening at every damn feed because she needs it. Or rather, I
deal with it, I dont' really put up with it, but it keeps happening
anyway. If it were all about what makes me feel good, this child would
not be allowed within 10 feet of my breasts. But it's worth it, because
she's catching up on some of her milestones, her hearing is improving,
she's doing *so* much better than anyone could have predicted, and I
strongly suspect that breastfeeding has a lot to do with it. So we
persist, pinchy grabby bity baby and all.

I enjoyed nursing my older daughter for about 2 years of our 6 year
nursing relationship. I tolerated it gracefully for about 3 1/2 years
of it. And I spent about 6 months at various times feeling like playing
keepaway with the boobie.

With dd2, I enjoyed it for about 4 blissful weeks when she was not
biting and I was not weighing her and she had no teeth and I didn't
have to pump and she seemed to be nursing well most of the time without
choking and gagging. She's 17 months old. I spent 4 1/2 months teaching
her to nurse, 1 month enjoying it, 1 month panicking because she had
learned to latch about as well as I thought we could get and still
wasn't gaining, 2 months being vaguely depressed that she gained better
on supplemental coconut milk than on breastmilk, and then the biting
started. So doing the math, that's 1 month of "rather pleasant" and 16
months of, "Because she needs it"...and counting.

Nothing, NOTHING could have prepared me for this nursing
relationship--but it's *still* better than formula, especially for this
baby. I strongly suspect she'd have been hospitalized multiple times if
she'd been formula-fed, due to aspiration.