Exclusive breast feeding

Hello! I hope you're all doing well. Today I am sharing my experiences about breast feeding as a new mom, which is one of my favorite things to do. I hope this will inspire or help someone. My baby is 10 months now and still breast feeding. Although we are introducing solids to him slowly in-between breast feedings, I chose to exclusively breastfeed him for 7 and 1/2 months and that means no bottles, no water or any other supplements. He got all the nutrients he needs from just breastfeeding and no it wasn't always easy! I remember not knowing if he was getting enough at first and it seemed as though I was doing it out of faith when we were at the hospital with only colostrum coming out. I didn't give up, I continued putting my baby on my breast every chance I got. I knew I wanted to breastfeed and wanted to do all that I can to be able to. Latter the milk came in on my 4th day after we got home and I started timing him and made sure he fed for 10 to 12 minutes every two hours. As he grew he started taking more gulp and feeding more in shorter minutes. The only ways to make sure that he had enough to eat was by counting his out put/ wet diapers and fallowing up with his weight. I was always eager to find out his weight at his appointments and once I knew that he was in 97 percentiles, I was less nervous.  Nursing my baby has definitely help with the bond we have and I would have to say that it has played a big part in our travel experience. we went on our travel journey a day after our baby turned 3 months. We had international travels to Ethiopia, Dubai and London! we touched down in 7 countries/ 4 continents over the 6 weeks period which the details are for another blog post:) during all the travels, breastfeeding made everything easy because all I needed to do was keep my baby close and nurse him as needed. Although I've done a research on breastfeeding when I was in nursing school, reading about it and actually experiencing it are two different ball games. Looking back at the beginning of the journey, I remember not sleeping for the first few days and I don't know what came over me but I was fine without sleep. perhaps its the surge of hormones, excitement and the fact that baby was feeding every two hours and sometimes cluster feeding. I learnt it’s not something you figure out with a set of rules. You just go with what the baby needs at the moment and take it one at a time. Breastfeeding is one of those things that both mom and baby learn together and it's nurturing to my precious baby, helps with bonding and with postpartum weight loss for mommy! I personally have experienced the benefits specially when my baby doesn't feel good or during the discomforts after vaccines. Even though there are little remedies we can use, nothing comes close to breastfeeding. when you breastfeed, you provide comfort with immunity to your baby and the fact that I am able to provide nutrition for my baby as needed at any time and place has been so awesome! I mean, isn't amazing the way God has arranged everything for a baby to be nurtured? A mother is meant to produce milk after having a baby and the way its designed is for baby to feed and for mom to keep providing but it's easier said than done. It takes a lot of dedication, commitment and consistency to keep milk supply. What worked for me is that I understood from nursing school research that it's a demand and supply thing. So the more I nursed, the more I produced! Every chance I got, baby was nursing. I started doing that at the hospital and I remember a nurse commenting that every time she walks in my room, the baby is nursing. I believe that helped me with my supply. It seemed all I did was eat, drink fluids and nurse my baby! another important thing was to increase my fluid intake, I drank lots of water, smoothies, and ate lots of oatmeal. It worked and have not stopped to this day as I am nursing my baby still. He loves breastfeeding and my goal is to continue as long as he wants to and I am able to produce milk. Please let me know if there are any areas of breastfeeding you would like for me to cover or if you have questions. I would like to hear your experience and thoughts on what worked for you as well so please leave a comment below! Until next time, wishing you all the best!

Peace, love and joy 

Maereg