Hanna’s breastfeeding journey

Hanna tells the story of her 4 years, five months and 24 days of breastfeeding her eldest child:

‘I believe the unprecedented two week and counting gap since my eldest last breastfed is the sign that we have reached the end of our breastfeeding journey. I remember the last time - and I’ve written it up so I don’t forget: where we were sat, what happened and how long the feed lasted (about 4 seconds). Because I was worried I might forget. The last photo I have is from November last year. I’ll treasure that.

A breastfeeding journey riddled with pain in those early weeks when it barely worked, bleeding and bruised nipples from a poor latch, pumping to bottle feed while my boobs healed, only ever one feed ahead… the stress of those early days… were it not for the mighty Ali Monaghan IBCLC - and then the wonder of finally cracking it… euphoric! Then distractible baby phase where I thought it was all falling apart again, when I was reassured by Cordelia and other mums on this group that this is what babies do: trust your body, trust your baby. The principle I have since held on to. Trust your child will know when the breast is no longer for them too was what I aimed for.

Breastfeeding has always been something very important to me. Something I’ve been so proud of doing in a culture where long-term breastfeeding is so rare. But it’s important to me, not just as resistance to our individualistic culture, but because the extraordinary power to nurture a baby with nothing else other than the cells in my body has always been awe inspiring. The knowledge of the magic of this liquid has always amazed me. And the incredible power of love and comfort and calm it has afforded my kid is quite a phenomena and something I feel so grateful to have witnessed. It’s why I trained as a peer supporter. Hoping to give a tiny bit of this magic to people who also want that: especially when it might be being undone by poor information.

So much has this meant to me that I also continued to breastfeed during pregnancy with my second even as the razor soreness of that first trimester was quite something. But I persisted.

I didn’t experience aversion during pregnancy but as soon as the baby was born, some how it didn’t feel the same with my eldest. That was a very very hard realisation and process. Losing that special closeness was an adjustment. And it was hard. And I persisted. I tandem fed; though the sensation of two different latches meant that it was really reserved for resolving moments of extreme chaos - when all else failed.

I sought support from Emma Pickett with a walk in the woods to navigate this transition because I felt depleted with my eldest and his boob craze at 3 months postpartum with my second - but I didn’t want to end the journey just yet. This walk was invaluable. So boundaries - that I had never really needed before with breastfeeding - came in. This also had its challenges, but it ultimately was essential to preserving what I wasn’t ready to part ways with yet - and neither was he.

And over the last 20 months of being a mum of two, my eldest has gone through periods of intense focus on my boobs (talking about them, mainly, in the last couple of months) as well as them feeling less central to his life. Even with this small amount of hindsight of the last few months I can see that the intense talking about my boobs was a sort of verbal processing of a goodbye. The talking replaced the physical. And even while I found it quite irritating (though didn’t express it as I didn’t want to inflame anything or give it too much power), during this time I have tried to remember a key parenting truth: nothing lasts forever; almost everything is a short period in their little lives.

And so even when you and everyone around you worries that they’ll be breastfeeding at 19 years old 🤣 it really is the case that they don’t. Just last week, he told me quite happily how he would stop when he was 16 years old; not yet realising that he probably had already stopped. I just smiled and said: “Okay, whenever you’re ready”.

I can’t believe I salvaged a breastfeeding journey that I feared was broken before it started at a few days old and then ended up here.

I am grateful for all the wisdom in the NWL Breastfeeding Facebook groups and the stories of those who came before doing this extremely hard, emotionally challenging, exhausting but truly the most magical thing I know I’ll ever do for and with either of my children.’