Even before I had my first child I was very excited to breastfeed. My childhood best friend’s mother was a lactation consultant and I learned so much about breastfeeding and how many amazing benefits it has for both mothers and babies. I had my first and was worried about how our breastfeeding journey would start as his birth had not gone as planned he was a cesarean birth due to being breech. I had heard many things about cesarean making it harder to establish your breastfeeding relationship. I did some research and looked onto the best ways to ensure we had the best start we could despite the birth not being the one we had planned. I found Kelly Mom to offer some great information that helped me to plan and prepare for breastfeeding after a cesarean birth. I had immediate skin-to-skin with my son in the OR and once I was rolled into recovery he latched right away with a little help from my lovely doula. Doulas are amazing and I highly recommend them for anyone no matter the type of birth you are having as they site so very helpful. My first was very much a great nurser from the beginning and gained weight well. We have had a pretty smooth nursing relationship a few clogs, one hit of mastitis when he was a few weeks old and a persistent case of thrush around nine months old. Our biggest challenge came when he was 13 months old and I got pregnant with his sibling. We had planned to start trying after my husbands last deployment which would have put my son at 18 months which seemed perfect to me but we were successful during a quick trip back during the deployment for an emergency with our housing situation. Unlike with my first I did not know I was pregnant right away I was busy chasing my toddler and trying to help time pass so the deployment would be over. My son got sick and was teething and he began nursing non stop and I was not feeling well during his long nursing sessions which made me wonder, so I took a pregnancy test though I was thinking there was no way we had success during a 3 day window when my cycle had not even returned. Well I was wrong I was indeed pregnant. I had heard you could not nurse when you were pregnant but that seemed odd to me as I knew people tandem nursed. So I started doing some research on nursing during pregnancy and tandem nursing. My goal was to nurse my son until 2 or he wanted to wean so I was not looking to make him stop at 15 months old. I learned that it was completely safe to nurse during pregancy, though some women (around 70%) do notice a drop in their supply. There are times for some women it is not safe if you are in a high risk pregancy and on pelvic rest it is likely you may need to stop nursing but talk with your heath care provider and trust how you are feeling when nursing. Because my son was over one and eating we had zero issues and I nursed throughout my pregnancy and then began my tandem nursing adventures.
They now enjoy their time nursing together and sometimes even hold hands which is so sweet.
Beautiful Mess Mama 