7 Tips To Success: How I Breastfed for 25 months
Are you pregnant with your first baby thinking that breastfeeding will be easy and that nature will take it’s course and everything will work out? Yeah that was me too the first time around.
Not surprised that I only made it 3 months and was miserable every second of it.
When I was pregnant with my son Liam, I did absolutely no prep into breastfeeding. I genuinely thought that it would just be this natural thing we would do and if I had any issues then I would call on the lactation consultant in the hospital.
And when he was born, it was all natural the very first time and then we struggled every time after that. He was a lazy eater, we couldn’t get him to stay awake at the breast, and his blood sugars were all borderline low. So we had to stay an extra day and supplement with formula.
We were discharged from the hospital with a nipple shield and nothing more than a good luck.
My second time around I knew I wanted to try breastfeeding again but was totally ok with whatever happened. It also helped that I was working in labor and delivery as a CNA at the time and we were required to take a training on breastfeeding and had lactation consultants that I could ask anything and everything.
So here are the 7 things that I did to help me successfully breastfeed Ellie for 25 months.
Told myself that formula wasn’t an option: Now this wont work for everyone but when I told myself that it wasn’t an option, it helped me formulate ideas to make things work.
Watched MANY tutorials and videos on youtube about breastfeeding: In all my years of focusing on labor and delivery and postpartum, I have ALWAYS recommended Sarah Lavonne, Bridget Teyler, and the video Deep Latch Technique on youtube. Sarah and Bridget single handedly helped me with my labor and breastfeeding journey the second time around. I owe most of my success to them. Seriously though, I dove deep into alllll of their content and felt sooo confident in going forward with breastfeeding. Our lactation consultants at the hospital all recommended the Deep Latch Technique video to our patients and that came in handy at 2 am one night when Ellie’s latch would make my heart stop because it hurt so bad.
Sarah Lavonne: https://youtu.be/USN0ug-aA_c?si=fLxrxQQeoweacC4F
Bridget Teyler: https://youtu.be/eMmQ5fCIYJQ?si=bo5uM0BHitKW5aDB
Deep Latch Technique: https://youtu.be/7FJuBn2bgNk?si=OBVIhhN3akAE63Dn
Followed Ellie’s lead/fed on demand: This was a hard one to do but I seriously just let her lead the way. With Liam I was so regimented in how many minutes he spent on each side and burping and feeding him exactly every 3 hours. With Ellie, I will admit that after she was 2 weeks old and I didn’t have to worry about jaundice anymore, I didn’t pay attention to her feeds. I had read a blog during a 3 am feed one morning that had said paying attention to the time was a big factor in anxiety around breastfeeding. So I stopped looking at the time when she woke up and I stopped timing her feeds and just paid attention to her and her cues and I could feel my anxiety lessening during the night when she woke up for feeds. It was truly a great hack!
Stayed hydrated: We should have bought stock in Liquid I.V. during Ellie’s first year. I LOVED those electrolytes! I am generally horrible at drinking water everyday and it’s super important to stay hydrated while breastfeeding. While breastfeeding, you should be drinking at least 128 oz a day. There was noooo way I was going to hit that on my own so I did try to drink at least one packet of Liquid I.V. everyday. The immune support one is my favorite!
Liquid I.V.: https://youtu.be/7FJuBn2bgNk?si=OBVIhhN3akAE63Dn
Bought multiple products to help support me: There were a handful of things that definitely helped me be successful with breastfeeding. I loved the Lansinoh gel nipple covers. I know that lactation consultants will say that breastfeeding should never be painful and generally it shouldn’t, but that didn’t stop me from feeling like my nipples were being slit with a thousand little razor blades every time she latched or when they touched any sort of anything. This only lasted for maybe a week to 2 weeks and happened with both kids, but during this time I only used these nipple covers and will never recommend anything else. Lol.
The Elvie Catch was also a huge game changer during those tough times. It allowed my nipples to air dry and not rub anything but also allowed me to catch extra breast milk whenever I had a let down. This was hands down my most favorite baby product purchase, second being my Willow Breastpump.
A nursing pillow was also a huge huge game changer and one that I never thought would change my life. That $30 Boppy Pillow made all the difference in the world for me.
The last thing was the Medela Hand Pump. This wasn’t necessarily a direct relation to breastfeeding success but it definitely helped during those painful latching times. If we were having difficulties in those first few weeks, sometimes a quick couple pumps with the hand pump was all I needed to hep get her on and it not being so extremely painful.
Having access to breastfeeding training: If you work in L&D or postpartum in the hospital, then there’s a good chance that you will have to have some sort of lactation training. And this was one that was immensely helpful to my success. This kind of goes along with watching all the videos on youtube that I recommended above but I wanted to have a separate space to recommend taking a breastfeeding course of some sort. You can find a lot of free resources on breastfeeding but a lot of these courses will go more depth about the art of breastfeeding. I also highly recommend meeting with a lactation consultant while pregnant so that you have someone you can follow up with after baby is here. I was lucky enough to have the lactation consultants that I worked with be super supportive and answer all my questions while we were at work. I also may have followed them into our patient’s rooms to listen to them educate our new mamas so I could also learn more.
This is the most important one, I gave myself grace: Breastfeeding is freaking hard and I tried to just let myself feel every emotion about it. Taking care of a newborn whether it be your first or your 10th can be really hard. So I tried not to get too hard on myself when I felt like I wanted to quit. When I felt like if I had to feed her one more time I was going to lose my mind, I tried really hard to not feel guilty for those feelings after. It’s super easy to have mom guilt about every single decision we make and I tried to remind myself that the decisions I was making in the moment, were the best decisions for Ellie and I. EVEN IF THAT MEANT GIVING HER FORMULA. Because yes, there were a couple of times that she got formula mixed in with breastmilk because I literally could not be touched one more time by her. AND THATS OK. I was not a bad mom. So try to give yourself grace for alllllll of the feelings that you may feel during this journey!
I will say that I personally think I could have been just as successful with Liam as I had been with Ellie if I just had some education about breastfeeding. Just because it’s supposed to be this all natural thing and people have been doing it for centuries, doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy for you. It didn’t become easy for me until after 4 months or so with Ellie.
Once we both got the hang of it, it really just became second nature and I truly loved it.
Once she turned 1 years old, I had tried to wean but she was very adamant that that was not happening. She was very much in charge of her “boo boo”(her nickname for my boobs) and I was not to take them from her. She was just as spicy then as she is now at 3.5.
Once she became active and could crawl around there really wasn’t much for me to do anymore. She could find her own way to them. I continued for as long as she wanted and by the time she turned 2, we were down to one feed every 2-3 days and it was not even a minute long. So since she had been going days without it I just decided that we would be done.
All of the work that I had done up front and in those first few weeks had set us up for a beautiful journey.
So those are the 7 things that I did to have a successful breastfeeding journey with my second child. It’s a lot of work up front but in the end you’lll be so happy you did it!
Feeling inspired by my breastfeeding journey? Whether you’re just starting out or looking for ways to overcome challenges, remember that every feeding experience is unique. Share your own stories, tips, or questions in the comments below—I’d love to hear from you! For more insights, follow me on social media for ongoing support and encouragement. Here’s to celebrating every milestone and finding strength in our shared experiences. 🌟
