Imperfect Parenting Guest Post #1: The Imperfect Mother’s Guide to Breastfeeding. Or Not. Whatever Works for You. Just Don’t Be Judgey.

Jesse is my awesome real-life friend (Seriously. Since, like, college!) who is new to the blogging scene. I’ve offered her up to the blogosphere asked her if she would be first guest poster, and wham! There was a guest post in my inbox, just like that! You can read her new blog here: A Mom, A Bear, and A Chubby Baby. She’s given up the box of televised viewing when it comes to her kids. Because she’s brave. Or crazy. And she’s blogging it.

So, let’s get started, shall we?

Parenting…parenting…parenting.  The very word makes me feel a twinge of anxiety.  There is so much pressure associated with this word and what it means to me personally.  It starts from the moment I see those double lines on a pregnancy test and continues, well, forever I guess.  My children are still under the age of 2 so I’m not sure when I won’t feel anxiety associated with parenting them. 

While I could likely go on for days about all of the aspects of being a parent that make me need a good friend to bitch to and a good glass of moscato, I think I will focus on one thing.  The one thing that so many people say is “natural” and “easy,” even.  Bullshit.  I’m talking about breastfeeding.  Here is how it nearly ruined me.

When my daughter, Claire, was born I immediately felt an animalistic urge to protect and provide for her.  I wanted, no needed, to breastfeed this child.  It’s best, right?  It will make her brilliant and healthy and not an asshole they tell you.  Okay, that last one I may have added in myself.   Regardless, I immediately took my child and attached her to my body, success!  The nurses all remarked at how well she latched on.  Wow, I am already getting compliments on this child’s brilliance and my excellent mothering and all I’m doing is sticking the kid on my boob.  I am a rock star.   I always knew these things were awesome.

Then reality hit and we spent the next several days trying to get Claire to eat properly while she screamed into my chest.  It’s actually not a microphone, though, so it got us nowhere. 

The nurses, seeing my struggle, offered me a wondrous little invention called a nipple shield.  It helps the child latch on properly and saves your nipples from cracking (ew, yep, there’s a mental image for you) and possible mastitis.  What is also does is make your child and you completely dependent on this tiny piece of plastic.  Plastic that I’m sure they will decide is full of toxins that cause cancer, ADHD and general badness. BTW, if I were the leader of an awesome army, my name would be General Badness. 

So we did the nipple shield thing for a while.  Then, I started pumping.  This was what killed breastfeeding for me.  Let me just say that the only reason I started pumping was so that my husband could feel “more connected” to Claire as the breast-guru advised us in boob class.  Side note:  in boob class there were several times when I looked around the room and thought, wow, all these grown women holding stuffed animals to their breasts, only to look down and realize I had a pink teddy bear nuzzling/violating me.  Poor bear.  

Okay, back to pumping.  I got my pump from a friend of the family.  She sang the praises of said pump.  It was going to all but feed, change and bathe the baby by itself.  Nope.  I would say that it sucked, but it was more the opposite.  Perhaps my boobs just didn’t want to give up the goods but I’m pretty sure when my child was doing this job they were producing just fine. 

I couldn’t keep up with the demand nor could I stand to listen to my child wail whilst I sat with these things attached to me.  “Hands-free” it claimed.  Only if you are sitting perfectly still.  So I started supplementing with formula.  I felt like a big, fat failure.  I cried, Claire cried, my husband sort of paced around asking if he needed to call someone.

No need to call anyone.  In fact, don’t even tell anyone, please.  I didn’t want other moms to know I had started giving my child formula.  How ridiculous!  That being said, I finally confided in one mom that I was somewhat close to and the result was, well, not so great.  After I poured out my guts about how I wished I had been more successful with breastfeeding, she told me how she had breastfed exclusively for 7 months and each time she did, her child would gaze up at her seemingly saying, “Thank you Mommy…Thank you for this gift you’re giving me.”  No shit.  She really said that.  This judgment/bullshit is why I don’t do playgroups, mom groups, any of it and why I am generally leery of other moms. 

So this time around with Zora, our 3 month old, I have taken a different approach.  No nipple shields, no pumps, just me, her and the boob.  She’s happy, well-fed and I should feel like a better mom now, right?  Again, nope.  This kid eats constantly.  I can hardly leave the house for a few minutes let alone a few hours. (When am I going to get my moscato?  Damn it!)  While I am devoted to my children, I need a break from time to time.  When I take her with me, I am stuck in limbo between wanting my child to be happy and full and not wanting to feed her in public.  Side tangent:  Okay, so I know breastfeeding is natural, etc.  That doesn’t mean I want to do it in the tricycle section of Toys R Us.  You know what else is natural?  Peeing.  I don’t do that in the middle of the mall either.  Now, I don’t care if you feed your baby, don’t get me wrong.  By all means, if you want to, pop the kiddo on wherever you feel necessary.  Nothing I haven’t seen before.  Please just don’t expect me to.  These sweater cows stay in the barn.

The long and short of it is, here I am doing my best to bring up happy, healthy, intelligent children and I feel like I have to fit into some mold of what it is to be a good parent and for me, that all starts with the boob.  I don’t have the solution to this problem.  I think, though, that if as mothers we stopped judging and asking, “How long did you breastfeed?” then measuring ourselves by the response the world would be a better place.  Okay, maybe it wouldn’t have that much of an impact but I’m convinced it might as least bring back All My Children or Arrested Development or something awesome like that.  Maybe unicorns?