A Breast Feeding Fan

"I was watching video of boob and mouth, boob and mouth, trying to figure this breast feeding stuff out."

With my first son Chase, I really had no idea what I was doing. I had a little bit of help from some nurses at the hospital, but once I got home, I had nobody to ask. I had no clue if I was doing it right. For instance, I now know that you're supposed to have your nipple deep inside their mouth, but I wasn't doing that. I didn't know about all the positions, like the football hold, where their legs are behind you, and the cradle, where you just hold the baby normal, and cross cradle, where you hold their head with the opposite hand. They also don't tell you the little things, like if you've got big breasts, you've got to hold the suckers up and you're supposed to hold your breast with a C-shape. Most women naturally kind of take two fingers like scissors and squeeze their nipple, which flattens out the nipple.

"You get chapped. You get cracked. You're bleeding. It's like, why am I doing this?"

A lot of women totally get into the breast feeding experience, and they're like, "I'm really gonna miss it." I didn't feel that way. I did it for my child's health. I did it because of finances. Even if we had all the money in the world, if I can save money anywhere, I'm going to. I'd go to the store, and no matter which brand of formula I looked at -- generic, name brand, whatever -- they were all $25 for three or four days. I figured there's a reason that my breasts produce milk, and it's to feed my kid. Also, to see that my child was healthier than his friends that were doing formula -- not to say that it was the formula causing those children to be sick -- but I think that my antibodies sure as heck weren't hurting my child.

"Of course, we had challenges."

If he was teething, he'd go through strikes, where he'd give up for a day or so. The teeth are not cool. They tell you, "Don't yell at them," but you get bit and you react. I remember my exact reaction the first time Chase bit me, not that it's right, but I flicked him in the cheek. We got over that after about a day. He also went through a stage where he wouldn't take a bottle, which basically took leaving him with my mom and letting him scream it out and get over it until he finally realized, "Mom's not gonna show up. I better just take this."

"I learned things with my second son that I never thought of with my first."

I was at a bigger hospital for the birth of my second son and the nurses were just awesome. We had two or three different lactation consultants who would come in and talk to me and teach me things that I never knew with the first one. Both my children would fall asleep as I was feeding them, which is natural. As they're falling asleep, there's a way to rub your fingers on their neck that makes them nurse. I would have never figured that out on my own. And then just knowing there's things that come out all the time, like these little soothing gel packages that go on your breasts when your nipples get sore. They also had tips that you would have never thought of, like instead of keeping them cold in the refrigerator, use them as a drink coaster and they'll stay cold.

"I actually want to be a lactation consultant now."

I know for me, going through all this, I got really frustrated not having any kind of help. I actually decided by being a nurse and doing all the breast feeding and trying to answer questions for friends that I would like to become a lactation consultant. The lactation consultants were very helpful for me, so I want to be able to do that for someone else who may be stuck in that first two-week period and thinking, "That's it. I'm done."

For me, even looking back on the days that I thought it was the worst decision I ever made, and not knowing what else to do, I can't imagine doing anything else. Breast feeding was definitely the best decision for me.