In the beginning, Whit and I both struggled a fair amount with breastfeeding before getting into the groove. We were told that if it hurt, we must be doing it wrong. Yeah yeah whatever. Now we believe that in the first few weeks, it hurts a fair amount even if you’re doing it right.
But if you’re a celebrity, you might time childbirth and breastfeeding just right to have huge knockers for the Golden Globe awards (Mary-Louise Parker), nurse on the cover of a major magazine (Angelina Jolie), tell Jay Leno you can shoot breast milk across a room and “hit the wall from quite a distance” (Kate Beckinsdale), or explain to David Letterman what it feels like to be a cow (Naomi Watts below).
I don’t know about you, but when my baby was two weeks old, I was just figuring it all out in the privacy of my glider strapped inside My Brest Friend
TV Guide has a round-up of eight celebrity breastfeeding stories. Enjoy!
[post inspired by Andi at MamaKnowsBreast and author of Mama Knows Breast: a Beginners Guide to Breastfeeding]
Mason was a month early and couldn’t get the hang of nursing at first, so I pumped consistently for about 3 months, only nursing when I “had” to… but once we just went for it and relied only on nursing and he figured it out, it was awesome. I mean I really enjoy nursing (probably more than I should, if you know what I’m sayin’). So it doesn’t have to always be painful! Don’t want to scare those soon-to-be Rookie Mom’s, you know. 😉
I also had a hard time nursing – little man didn’t latch until he was almost three months old, so we did a TON of pumping. But…looking back, it’s hard to remember the tough times, it was so brief. And I LOVE the video – I know exactly what she’s referring to, the “lactose lobotomy”. At times I forget words like “table”. OMG.
Your comment is a bit like saying wearing shoes hurts. If they don’t fit you get blisters, if they do they are perfectly comfortable. When people say if it hurts you are doing it wrong, what they mean is that when a baby isn’t attached 100% effectively, parts of the infants mouth make contact where they shouldn’t, create friction and pain. Rather like bad shoes…
Mother nature is hardly likely to make something essential to the survival of the human race (pre artificial milk) painful, anymore than sex!
I was lucky with my daughter (now six months) nursing great right away. The two week growth spurt was a HUGE wake up call. I would squeeze my husband’s hand and grit my teeth when she would cluster feed because it was just so chapped. Lanolin became my best friend and the next few growth spurts went much better.
TOTALLY agree with this!! We never had “issues” breastfeeding – good latch, good such, etc. But the first 6 weeks – ouch! Your body/skin needs a little time to get used to that. Now that mental/emotional challenge of BFing – was a whole different story for me!