Let me preface this post by saying that I fully support parents who breastfeed and parents who don’t. Every family has their own circumstances that contribute to their decision/need to exclusively breastfeed (EBF), supplement or use formula.
My mother EBF two of us three girls. She didn’t say too much about it besides confirming what facts I had already come to know through pop culture and brief conversations. I wanted to know more. So, I did what most BrandNewMom’s do these days-I Googled it! Turns out there are so many reasons why it’s beneficial for the entire family to EBF and I mean how hard could it be? Structure –>function…God gave us breasts to… breastfeed! I found a lot of “how to’s” and references to attachment parenting which, I quite liked. We were planning to practice the whole natural, skin to skin, baby-wearing, sensitive parenting, co-sleeping (some call) hippie train.
Additionally, my prenatal yoga chats often included anecdotes from seasoned EBF second timers. They all gleamed about the loving bond and convenience. I was sold! My husband and I even attended a breastfeeding info clinic offered by our region.
All in all, I thought I had done enough research on the topic. EBF seemed to be painted as something absolutely lovely to look forward to. Or were all these mom’s keeping a brave face and concealing their EBF trials to maintain their “supermom” image?