12
Jun
2011
Breastfeed and return to work? Don’t count on it.
photo credit: c r z
Well most wouldn’t even attempt it, but there are a lucky few that perhaps have flexible hours, an understanding boss and colleagues, a quiet place in the office where they can express milk and the ability to get away from their desk for about 20 minutes at pretty much exactly the same time each day to do so, and these people could perhaps give it a try.
I am one of the lucky people whose work pretty much meets all those criteria – except for occasionally, but not often, not being able to get away to express for 20 minutes at exactly the right time. The baby is five months old and I wanted to continue breastfeeding until she was at least six months. But the breastfeeding-after-returning-to-work isn’t working out.
I started a new job last week. Just four hours in the morning. Perfect, one would think (except for the pay that barely makes it worth working after paying for childcare, but that’s for another post). I thought I could easily continue breastfeeding with this kind of easing-back-into-it schedule, ‘The baby will only skip one feed and I can express one feed at work’.
22
Jan
2010
Giving up breastfeeding, filling void with guilt and a fruitless search for answers
I gave up breastfeeding this week and, unexpectantly, I have been feeling kind of awful and weird about it. It seemed so counter-intuitive and wrong. Also, I’m not sure whether this is medically correct but I’m pretty sure there were some hormone changes as a result of the end to milk production, and hormone changes generally don’t go well. According to the fabulous Robin Barker (if you haven’t noticed, I’m a fan), feelings of sadness and depression when giving up breastfeeding are normal. She says go ahead and have a good cry. Well thanks Robin. I DID. More than once. Yay for me. And you. High Five.
Breastfeeding, natural and earthy. Does it look the same when the child can walk?
Where was I? Oh yes, GUILT. In my defence, stopping as I have at six and a half months, in Spain I seem to be very much in the minority having breastfed beyond three months. The nurse at my paediatricians office actually scoffed at me (one might even have called it a snort) when I inquired as to the benefits of continuing beyond six months, impatiently advising that the infant would receive all its dietary needs with formula and food once solids were introduced. My paediatrician diplomatically neither recommended nor advised against stopping at six months, instead asking whether I’d like to give up breastfeeding at six months, and when I gave a doubtful yes, then let me know that was absolutely fine and she would do the same. I took this as a recommendation but now that I look back I’m not so sure it was.
