Letting Go - one mother’s experience of responsive breastfeeding

This beautiful piece was written for me by an NCT client many years ago.

‘Before I had my baby I would have always said that I would listen to what she wanted and provide for her needs rather than thinking of what suited me, that, after all, is what is mostly required from a mum isn't it? But when I found myself, not for the first time, getting stressed, exhausted and frustrated when she was wanting feeding more frequently than I thought she should through the day and night, I nearly gave up on breastfeeding, thinking I couldn't cope and that maybe I wasn't able to satisfy her hunger, would she be better with formula in the evening, for example.

However, Cordelia Uys, my NCT Breastfeeding Counsellor, assured me Layla was just being a typical 5 month-old baby: some days she's hungry, some days she's less so, there isn't really a rule which she is trying to abide by for feeding times and amounts and I shouldn't push her into one to suit me, as for the nights - the more frequent feedings would actually be better for my milk supply and so would then help to increase my milk production to keep her satisfied anyway.

Oh how disappointing - you mean there isn't a trick or rule that I can persuade her into that will encourage her to sleep perfectly, feed every 4 hours and no more frequently and still keep her happy? In fact, as I know now, what would keep her the most happy is being fed when she needed feeding, being allowed to sleep when she was tired, and to pay attention to her needs rather than what I thought she should want or what my friends babies had done or were doing. But rather than making me more upset or stressed I realised that being told to just go with the flow rather than fight against my daughters' changing desires was a huge relief.

So the next night, when Layla woke up at 1am I just got up, gave her a cuddle and fed her for a 20 minute full feed, put her back down and patted her tummy until she fell asleep and I went back to sleep happily with no clouds of frustration or questions in my head about what I was doing wrong, and then when she woke again at 5am I did the same thing. The feeling the next day was so different to every previous night when I had fought with her to prevent her waking up for a feed when I didn't think she needed one, that I really felt confident that Cordelia was absolutely right. It's not Layla doing anything wrong, it was me trying to enforce a routine when she didn't want to have one, and strangely a baby's willpower is stronger than ours!

Now she is 7 months old, Layla has started baby-led weaning and is happily having a feed whenever she wants it, still waking for 2 feeds in the night (sometimes more, particularly if she's teething or ill) and we are getting some sort of general routine going but really nothing compared to those I have read in books or heard other mothers are doing with their babies. It's not that they are wrong and I am right but that my daughter doesn't fit the rulebook that they are selling. This has helped to remind me of the mother I wanted to be, that I wanted to be intuitive and listen and feel what my daughter wanted and not to be influenced by media or cultural pressures, something that is so hard when you are tired and a new mum getting confused with all these messages bombarding you.

We do know what our babies want, we just need to stop and listen and have the confidence that we'll hear it.’