Kama’s Story

My daughter was born on the 6th of September. I was so absolutely determined to breastfeed her as I had failed with my first many years before. We started of going fabulous, or so I thought. By 48hours my girl had dropped almost 10% of her birth weight and was no longer having wet nappies. I freaked and saw history repeating. The midwives at our aftercare were amazing and we got my girl hydrated with alternative methods. After a slow two weeks of BF with formula top ups she was having minimal weight gains I decided to start giving my girl formula and pumping (no latching) in between to provide her two feeds of breast milks a day. Come the 7th of October and releasing my entire day was being consumed with feeding and pumping and that my eldest daughter was starting to feel the effects of me not being around as much I waved my white flag and called it quits. Times to 100% formula feed and get my family life back. My midwife was amazing and supportive, suggesting that I latched my baby in the mornings to take some of the milk off to reduce the risk of mastitis while drying my milk out. I stopped pumping and did just this. After three days of trying to dry my milk out I had a sudden boost of determination to give it one last go, over the following three weeks I pushed to increase how often I was latching my daughter and reducing how many bottles she had. My goal was to try get back to 90% breast with a single bottle in the evenings. Finally, as of the 13th November my girl is 100% breast fed. It’s amazing what you can achieve with the right support. It wasn’t easy, many hissy fits and emotions came with this journey, I needed additional medical (both natural & pharmaceutical) support to increase my supply but I’m so damn proud to have got their in the end.