‘It’s okay to stop breastfeeding’

Sobbing uncontrollably on the bathroom floor after another failed breastfeeding session, I texted my friend.

“I don’t think I’m okay,” I wrote. 

I wasn’t okay. No matter how hard I tried, for a number of reasons, breastfeeding wasn’t working. I couldn’t get my baby to latch properly so I had a low milk supply, and my son had a tiny tongue-tie. So I cried so much my face and heart ached. This usually happened alone in the bathroom with a breast pump attached to me. (To this day, the sound of a breast pump brings back all the wrong memories.)

When my friend called me a few minutes later, I told her (in between blubbering), that I felt like a failure. I was also suffering from some massive social anxiety. The first question visitors asked me was if I was “feeding my baby”. Of course I was feeding him, but they wanted to know if I was breastfeeding him. Each time felt like a kick in my fresh c-section wound. 

You have done enough!

Now that I’m on the other side, and my experience is slowly becoming a foggy, distant memory, it’s made me wonder if the ‘breast is best’ message has gone too far? 

I want to be clear that this is not an anti-breastfeeding post (don’t yell at me). This is an article for all the mums out there who know it’s time to stop breastfeeding – but they keep going anyway because they feel like they have to just keep trying. I want you to know that you’ve done enough! 

It’s okay to stop.

Looking back, I wish I could have taken my own advice. I knew in my head that I needed to stop, but something was forcing me to keep going. (Expectations? Guilt? I don’t know.) 

“Nothing is more important than your mental health”

At my two-week checkup with my GP, she said she was concerned. Not about my baby. My not-so-little butterball was thriving being mixed-fed. She was worried about me. 

“Nothing is more important than your mental health,” she said. “Not even breastfeeding.”

In fact, research has found mums who struggle with breastfeeding are more likely to experience depression. 

At the expense of my mental health, I kept trying.

As well as expressing around the clock (I did this for months), I saw a psychologist, three different lactation consultants (one who unhelpfully told me to just relax), tried every nipple shield on the market, went on Motilium, used a supplemental nursing system and ate ALL of the lactation cookies.

Then I saw a speech pathologist for my son’s tongue tie. After watching a feed (it didn’t go well) she told me that it was okay to stop breastfeeding. And that it’s still possible to bond with my baby while bottle feeding.  

I cried the whole way home while eating as many lactation cookies as I could stomach. And that night, I produced some milk! But it didn’t matter. 

I wish I had listened to my doctor

In the end, my son made the decision for me. He weaned himself and chose the bottle. Not only did he prefer a bottle, but he refused to even drink expressed breast milk. 

Even so, I kept expressing and freezing milk that he would never drink. Whyyyyy?!

A few weeks later, I really did pack up my breast pump and call it a day. 

Once I stopped trying to feed my baby breastmilk, things became a lot easier as our ‘journey’ moved further and further behind us. My mental health improved, and I could move on to stressing about other new-mum things, like naps.

Sure, I wanted things to be different, but I know that I made the best decision for me and my baby at the time. Or should I say, my baby made the best decision for us. 

But, in hindsight, I wish I’d listened to my doctor at that two-week appointment. 

So let me repeat that advice, for the mums who really need to hear it: “Nothing is more important than your mental health. Not even breastfeeding.”