My First Class/Pregnancy Nervous Breakdown

Fear mongering. ALLLLLL fear mongering.
Don't worry about it.
You'll do fine.

Just wait until baby is here and health nurses start telling you you're doing everything wrong.

Trust your instinct, trust your heart, trust your friends.

SummerFan wrote:Fear mongering. ALLLLLL fear mongering.
Don't worry about it.
You'll do fine.

Just wait until baby is here and health nurses start telling you you're doing everything wrong.

Trust your instinct, trust your heart, trust your friends.

EXACTLY what she said! People become very preachy when it comes to breast feeding and pain relief. It must be terrifying to hear all that as a FTM. You and Jude will be fine! No breastfeeding isn't a walk in the park but trust your body and your son and worse case scenario (I know i'd be shot by some people for saying this) formula is not poison lol. And there are millions of children that absolutely flourish on it

I whole heartedly agree with pp's! And just so you know I had an epi AND a c-section and DD was alert, latched like a pro and breastfed from the very beginning till 13 months...if you need a success story I'm it. She also had a soother right from the start AND drank pumped milk in bottles all interchanging without issue.

Can things go wrong? Of course...but to list it all off like it definitely will go wrong is ridiculous! Trust your instincts and trust your connection with Jude, you guys will do fine and you will find EXACTLY what works for you. Whether it be formula, BFing or whatever in between!

I'm sorry you were so terrified FTM's need more reassurance not fear mongering. Utterly ridiculous! I'm mad on your behalf! LOL

Dream77 wrote:I'm sorry you were so terrified FTM's need more reassurance not fear mongering. Utterly ridiculous! I'm mad on your behalf! LOL

Me too. Things like this make me livid!! I honestly think that talk like that is what causes people to fail and as people who are supposed to be helping they should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Sorry to comment twice but it made to so angry grrr!

I second the pp! I was drugged up with my first pregnancy (which I didn't like and I'm going to try to go natural this time) and it did take about 2 days for my milk to come in but I was able to breastfeed for 10 months and he also did well with a bottle. The only thing that was tough for me was the patching part... He wasn't doing it right and it really hurt until my exs aunt ( who is a lactaction specialist) showed me. The trick was to really cram your boob in there to make sure they get a mouthful LOL. You will be fine

Oh honey! I'm sorry they did that to you!! I had epis with all of my babies and they latched on perfectly, right there in the delivery room! My milk didn't come in very well, but that's not the epi, that's genetics. My SIL has breastfed all of her babies successfully and had epis. If you do have to supplement they shouldn't make you feel like a failure either! I agree they should support not scare FTM!

There is nothing wrong with having to supplement either! It can take almost a week for your milk to come in.

Here is this nifty thing from medela:

http://www.medelabreastfeedingus.com/products/51/supplemental-nursing-system-sns

You are going to be a great mommy!

Thank you all so much! You don't know how much I needed to hear all this today. I have been so emotional and after reading all of your comments I am feeling a little stronger again.

Thank God for BZ friends:-)

Ugh, that type of fear mongering is my biggest pregnancy pet peeve. I had an epidural with my first. The L&D was great but my daughter had a little trouble breathing so she had to stay in the NICU for a week (it was scary but they assured me that they were just keeping her there out of an abundance of caution, so that they could administer antibiotics). Anyway, I was in the NICU every day trying to breastfeed but my daughter definitely got a lot of bottles (of both pumped breast milk and formula) during that first week. I was so afraid that my chances of bf'ing were ruined, that my daughter was going to have permanent "nipple confusion," that she'd never learn to latch, etc. Turns out, I had an easier time breastfeeding than anyone I've ever known to have done it. To be honest, I think the pumping may have helped my milk to come in as fully as it did and my nipples were less sore because we were allowed to ease into it. Plus, my daughter went back and forth from bottle and breast easily from the get-go, meaning that family could help and I didnt have to train her before I went back to work.

Anyway, my point is that some of these people that are trying to encourage you to bf are going about it the wrong way. They pretend like there are all these things that are going to ruin your experience, e.g. using bottles, pumping, etc, just because they don't want you to decide not to bf. The other thing that drives me crazy is when they act like it's not hard work or that it ever hurts. I'm sorry but, like I said, I think I had an easy time with bf'ing compared to everyone else I know and it's tough and it does hurt, at least for a while, even if you're doing it correctly.

I loved bf'ing and I'll do it again AND I loved my epidural and, lord knows, I'll do that again! My advice if you want to bf too is to accept that it's going to be difficult but that you'll get the hang of it if you keep at it and look for help if you arent getting anywhere. I would also starting washing your nipples/breasts with a wash cloth in the third trimester and applying lanolin to keep them moist. Everything I've read says that there's no need for this but I really think it helped to make them a little less sensitive.

Sorry to go on and on, it just drives me crazy when people make first-timers feel like this because I had enough to be worried about during that first week without having that load of bs too