Somewhere along my pregnancy, my Martian husband and I decided to go for exclusive breastfeeding. He got so confident that he even suggested giving away the three packets of formula milk samples we received. I objected, telling him we always need a plan B.
The moment came when Earthling made her debut. We opted for immediate skin-to-skin contact. Earthling opened one eye and squinted at me, while I returned her glare with pleasure. After she satisfied herself with how mum looks like, she started nursing with perfect latching. So it’s true what they say, babies are all born to breastfeed. Indeed, that’s the only thing they do not need to learn, even eating and sleeping are learnt skills as I later discovered.
After a few more dream-feeding throughout the night, day 2 was when the challenge started. Earthling seemed to be turning her head to either side whenever she was rested in her bassinet, and gaping ever so often, evidently a feeding cue as I was taught. Being the first day mum that I was, I instinctively left my meals in the tray (I had barely started), scooped her up and began nursing her. Martian started to panic that Earthling was using me as a human pacifier, and that I let her do it.
We were discharged in less than 24 hours, keen to return to the cosines of our home. The first two days went well, most of the time nursing was the magical solution to soothe our crying baby. And then came the third night. Earthling was crying inconsolably even after a nursing session. Frankly we didn’t know what it was about. But Martian and my mum deciphered it as hunger, and started to depict me as the cruel mum who starved my baby and deprived her of the nourishment she so deserved. I of course relented under that pressure. Earthling got her first taste of formula milk.
Refused to be defeated, I prayed and worked harder, and on day 6 I finally nursed Earthling until she was full and fast asleep.
The real challenge came in weeks 2 and 3. Earthling was done with her jaundice sleepiness and was ready for full-time nursing. Truly it felt like she was at my breast 24 hours a day! Although I had been warned, I never took it literally and couldn’t have imagined it. I felt aches and pains all over my body from my long hours of nursing, as though I existed for the sole purpose of breastfeeding.
I finally took to logging every nursing session. To my surprise, I obtained perfectly normal statistics. I logged 10-12 nursing sessions a day, each session lasting 45 minutes, which felt like two hours when I forgot to empty my full bladder beforehand. For those difficult two weeks, I dreaded every nursing session, and apologetically told Earthling, ‘Darling I don’t know how long I can last feeding you like this, this may be the last time we’re doing it’.
Earthling was innocent in her needs. But I had to vent my frustration somewhere. So during those nursing sessions, I was cursing first of all WHO, then MOH, then all the nurses and breastfeeding advocates for brainwashing me into this misery. While breast is best for babies, it’s totally inhumane for the mother who had used up so much energy and blood during labour and had barely recuperated from her energy drain. So I was the new mother who went from ‘I want to breastfeed exclusively’ to ‘I’m going to give up breastfeeding’ in two weeks’ time.
In the first few weeks, Earthling was mix-feeding at 90% breast milk and 10% formula milk. Whenever she wanted to nurse during my lunch or dinner, Martian or my mum would jump at the opportunity to make her formula milk, so that I could finish my meal, which I ate feeling guilty and relieved at the same time.
Then at week 6, Earthling took the liberty to fulfill my dream of exclusive breastfeeding. By then I had gradually regained my strength and milk supply was starting to soar. I started to notice her wrinkled eyebrows and narrowed eyes when given the bottle, as though she was questioning why she was given formula milk when that was not what she asked for. And the last straw came when she decided to spit out the formula milk we fed her. That was a ‘no’ she said to formula milk. Immediately I was gripped with panic. I now had to make sure I was fully responsible for her milk supply. The rumour is again true, the breasts make enough milk for the baby, and it’s our ignorance to believe otherwise. So Earthling fussed for all other reasons but hunger.
We didn’t finish the three packets of formula samples we received, having only used about 500g of them. And Earthling has been breastfeeding happily ever after.
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Ai Sin is an engineer and a trainer, who has an affinity for artistic and musical stuff. She is a mother to a toddler and dances to keep her balance. She is working for Go Training and sometimes brings her toddler to work as Marissa Mayer and Licia Ronzulli do.