The Best Breastfeeding Advice

Sometimes the best advice we ever get is not immediately recognisable as “advice.” Sometimes the best information we’re given does not come from books or TV or from people we immediately think of as “experts”. Sometimes the wisdom which keeps us solid during the moments of despair are those freely shared by those who love and know us best. I realise now when I think of a simple story once shared with me by an old friend and how the wisdom in it became the bedrock of my early breastfeeding experience.

Where the Advice Originally Came From

Melanie and I had been friends since high school and had weathered all manner of personal dramas across our years of friendship. Motherhood bought us back together after a few years out in the wilderness.

The one thing I could always rely on with Melanie was her honesty. While I was surrounded by wonderful milky mamas at my homebirth support group, I didn’t feel especially close to any of the women there during my pregnancy to really probe and ask questions.

Melanie had a head start on me with an active two year old daughter keeping her busy while I was pregnant with my son. In the second half of my pregnancy we caught up regularly on the telephone between Dr Phil, wiping sticky vegemite finger prints from every surface and afternoon nana naps.

It was during one of these conversations that she shared a story which ended up getting me through the first fortnight of breastfeeding. Melanie told she had cried for the first two weeks every time she breastfed her daughter.  She didn’t sugar coat breastfeeding and I was so grateful. But at the same time she told me how she loved the late night feeds when the house was quiet and her daughter would reach up a small hand to play with the buttons on her the open PJ top.

Three Piece of Wisdom You Will Never Forget

From Melanie I learned the three most important lessons about breastfeeding in the early weeks.

Breastfeeding hurts like hell at the beginning.
Breastfeeding is hard when you’re starting out.
Breastfeeding is worth every moment of the struggles.

In the first two weeks of breastfeeding I returned to my friend’s experience and the wisdom she had shared and propel myself through the pain and through the frustration.  In the second part of this article I share my own experiences of pain, of difficulties and of small joys, like a light at the end of the tunnel.

Jodi Cleghorn is a Brisbane mother, writer, lactivist and natural birth advocate. When she’s not writing breastfeeding articles she is working on her fiction stories including a new novella and a fledgling publishing project Chinese Whisperings. Her new blog Writing in Black and White chronicles her journey as a writer, editor and publisher. This week she has the joy of looking at laminated breastfeeding photos an old school friend has on her son’s drawing table.

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4. Discomfort in Breastfeeding
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