The Things They Don't Tell You About Breastfeeding

If you're expecting your first baby and are planning to breastfeed, consider this a public service announcement: breastfeeding sucks. I apologize for the pun.

When I was pregnant, I couldn't wait to breastfeed my daughter. I so looked forward to the bonding time we would have together, to giving my daughter something no one else could, to finally having a cup size worth mentioning. Oh, was I in for an unpleasant shock.

Some things they don't tell you about breastfeeding:

1. Newborns are extremely floppy. This means that, in order to keep the child's face connected with the food source, you need to use both hands to steady both boob and baby. Take one hand off to grab a pillow or a drink of water, and she falls right off. Or, worse yet, she slips just a little bit and starts chewing away at you.

2. Be prepared for constant, intense, merciless hunger and thirst. In the first few days, I often found myself settling in for a nursing session--pillows propped perfectly in place, baby latched on correctly, and me actually comfortable for once. Then the thirst would start clawing its way up my throat, and I'd realize my cup was just inches out of reach (or, worse yet, empty). I'd stretch one hand out as gingerly as possible and just barely snag the cup; that's when the baby would inevitably lose her latch and start mangling away. It would then be impossible to get back into the perfectly comfortable position I'd finally managed to find.

3. Babies can nurse for hours at a time. It's called "cluster feeding", which is a really cute term for "hell on earth". My daughter did this to me our third day in the hospital. She nursed from midnight until eight in the morning. I was still on really good drugs from the c-section, and it was still agonizing. She's done it several times since. Without the drugs, it's even worse.

4. Breastfeeding, until you and your baby get the hang of it, can be extremely painful. In fact, you will probably be afraid of your baby for a week straight after birth.

5. Hope and pray that you do not get a distractible baby. The Distractible Baby wants! to see! what's going! on! The Distractible Baby does not understand that if she whips her head around to stare at the wall behind her, your flesh (which she holds tightly in her maw) does not easily follow. But she will try to make it follow. And you will scream.

6. If you don't have a distractible baby, you might get a sleepy baby. The Sleepy Baby does not understand that she cannot eat and sleep at the same time. This will not prevent her from trying.

7. If you're really lucky, you will have Distractible Baby and Sleepy Baby all in one package. Different personalities emerge depending on time of day, lunar cycles, avian flocking patterns, and the alignment of the planets.

8. Babies don't usually come with teeth, but biting really hurts nevertheless.

8a. But they sure do come with fingernails.

8b. Baby fingernails, no matter how short, are still capable of ripping your delicate chest skin into confetti. Do yourself a favor and put socks over her fists (baby mitts never stay on).

9. For a creature with such lousy limb control, the baby has a remarkable talent for kicking or punching you in your most tender spots: nose, breast, incision.

10. A good nursing pillow is not a necessity, but it is extremely helpful. I started out with the doughnut-shaped kind; it was okay for the first two weeks. Then my enormous baby hit a growth spurt, and she started sinking down into the pillow. It would also creep away from my body, and my daughter would end up crammed in the crevice between me and the pillow. Now we only use it for its originally intended purpose: tummy time. I ordered another pillow designed specifically for breastfeeding, and it is now one of my most valued possessions.

11. Breastfeeding is boring. Stock up on things you can enjoy with no hands or one hand (depends on how flaily your baby is)--TV shows, books, things like that.

12. Be prepared to have a million nurses come in during your stay and handle your boobs for you. You may cringe at the thought now, but learn to soak up the knowledge despite your discomfort (after all the things that go on during labor, though, you may not care anymore). For weeks after, you will be dreaming about your favorite nurses coming to live with you so you can enjoy your baby again.

Now, I'm not giving out the dire warnings with the intent to dissuade anyone from breastfeeding. While these observations are only based on my experience with my first baby, other mothers have told me that all this is normal. I wondered for weeks why no one warned me, beyond a vague, "Breastfeeding is hard."

It is the best start on life for your baby. It can be sweet, and the bonding moments are beautiful. But reality is a nasty surprise if you're unprepared. For every minute you spend staring at your infant in love and wonder, you spend ten wondering how long this nursing session could possibly last and if there are enough TV shows in the world to last you the next six months (or two, or twelve, or whenever you decide to stop). So, be prepared. It might not be all fuzzy bunnies and unicorn fur, but it is a good thing.