Breastfeeding

I've really enjoyed breastfeeding the past few months. Only now am I starting to feel tired due to the night-time feeds and sometimes feel as though I have the baby permanently attached to me as he's still feeding every 3 hours. The WHO recommends exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months before introducing solids, but our parents' generation introduced them at 4 months... I'll see when he's ready but for now I've started to give him little 'tastes' of other foods as suggested by the Mexican ladies. Up until now he's mainly tried a few drops to the tongue of mexican beans.

French feminist Elisabeth Badinter suggests that breastfeeding is a form of oppression and prevents women from going out and doing what they want to as they need to be constantly with their babe - but has she not heard of expressing? I know what she means though... and I think that the NHS ram it down out throats a bit too much equating Breastfeeding=Good Mother=Good Woman that women go to extreme lengths to do what is deemed best. A local mother is expressing her milk every 2 hours to feed her son as he didn't take to the breast. While I admire her persistence, I believe that she needs to take care of herself as well and not feel bad for not BF. Those that it comes easy to are lucky and I am happy to be one of them. It's just very convenient not to have to wash up bottles and be able to 'whip em out' whenever you need to.

Then there's the bonding :)

For the past few days, Little Leon has started to pause halfway through a feed on one breast then moves his head up and smiles at me! I saw that my mum has written the same thing in my baby album "as if to say Thank You mummy!" and I totally see it now. I thought she may have confused it for a gas smile, but it's a proper huge smile. He's doing it during most feeds now and it's so sweet. I was considering moving on to formula soon as I'm getting a bit tired of BF, but now I've swung right back onto the BF branch. It's lovely!

The only thing I'm not sure about is that I didn't realise how my breast would change to these soft boobs that seem to belong now to my baby... Will they ever become perky again!