How I survived my 12 week nursing strike
Let me preface this with saying my daughter is sassy and impatient (no idea where she gets that from haha) and was used to my boob bombing her in the early weeks. She was never that cuddly, sweet little nurser that wanted to snuggle on me for hours. She would claw at my chest like a rabid kitten and when she was done she’d pop off and move on.
As I began preparing myself to head back to work, I always tried to give her 1 bottle a day to get her used to them for daycare. I started my first 2 weeks back as half days and then started full time. Aria was 13 weeks when we went full time in daycare.
Literally the weekend after her first full week in daycare she went on a nursing strike. When she figured out bottles were faster, it was game over.
Nursing Strike Commences
So here I am trying to feed my baby just as I have been for weeks and she would throw her legs straight out and her head back and scream at the top of her lungs…. every time. She wouldn’t even close her mouth to know if anything was there!! It sounds silly, but it hurt my feelings. I took it personally and it made me cry, often. I felt like I gave her my everything and sacrificed for her and she screamed in my face. We continued these shenanigans of trying to latch, eventually giving her a bottle, and pumping for 3 weeks. I finally sent my “HELP!” email to Katie at 2 am (we’ve all been there) and went in to see her. She watched me attempt to feed Aria and was cringing telling me “that’s not normal”. I felt relieved and justified in my frustration. She presented 4 options on how to move forward.
- Set a designated amount of time to give directly latching a chance
- Continue my shenanigans of feeding/bottle/pump
- Nurse her then top off with formula instead of breast milk -> I should add during the last 3 weeks I BLEW through my freezer stash
- Stop entirely.
At this time I was in the process of changing jobs. I knew in 3 weeks I would be working from home and having Aria with me, so this influenced my decision a lot. I also set out with an arbitrary goal of 6 months breastfeeding so I figured I only had 2 to go and could sacrifice the inconvenience a bit longer. After a lot of debate, I indirectly chose option 2 until I was ready to make a decision. Then I planned that my first week home with her would be “Booby Boot Camp”
Booby Boot Camp
As Booby Boot Camp commenced I prepared for loss of sleep (she was sleeping 11 hours a night), tears, frustration, and “failure”; but I felt committed to giving it my all for these 5 days. I’m good with deadlines, it felt like a competition. I had to show her who was boss. If it didn’t work, I planned to stop entirely. I read articles about other people’s experience and put together my “plan.”
My plan:
- Feed often: We operate on feed, wake, sleep cycles. My plan was to feed as soon as she woke from every nap- hungry or not. This way I wasn’t waiting on her to be “hangry” and pissed, and could beat her to the punch.
- Skin to skin: Nurse completely topless and have her in a diaper. I read a lot that skin to skin can help bring your milk back and quicker etc. I figured it may be more soothing for her regardless of her clawing at my chest.
- Standing: I chose to try and stand because in the rocker her feet reached the other arm rest so she had leverage to rip off my nipple when she was throwing her tantrum. I stood and rocked or squatted while trying to nurse 🡪 this seemed to have the biggest impact in calming her down.
- Manual expressing: I would try and work some of my milk down manually so she didn’t have to. As I mentioned she is impatient. I have an aggressive let down so I tried to let that be the first thing she got in order to show her something was there.
- Breathing: This was the hardest. She was screaming in my face and I tried to remain super calm. I would close my eyes, take a deep breath, and relax my shoulders. Trying to mentally relax to induce my let down.
Day 1 was rough. But I managed to get her to latch every time. It took every ounce of energy I had but I stood and rocked and expressed and tried to relax as much as possible. As the week went on ,every time got a little easier. I feel like feeding when she wasn’t already crazy hungry was important to avoid the dramatics. My babywise brain suffered through this but I had a new objective.
By the weekend I had her nursing again. Still not easy or relaxed, but I felt the win!
Where are we now
{When I wrote this Jul 28, 2019}
It has been 8 weeks since Booby Boot Camp started and we are going strong. Since switching back to nursing from bottles, she has begun waking up in the middle of the night again. I no longer have milk in the MOTN because of months of her sleeping 11 hours; so in the last few weeks we have decided that is a formula bottle and we alternate nights. This has relieved the pressure of blowing through my freezer stash and relinquished some duty to my husband. This is also a win!
I think the best advice I was given when dealing with the nursing strike is IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE ALL OR NOTHING. 🡨 Read that again.
During the strike, Aria would let me nurse her first thing in the morning and that was it. So I took what I could get. Nursing/breastfeeding does not have to be all or nothing. Let it be ok, it makes the times you do get to nurse even more special. Then let yourself off the hook for the rest.
The biggest lesson I have learned breastfeeding is there isn’t 1 way or 1 answer. It is a constantly evolving process. Katie left this note on the bottom of my visit from that day and this sheet is still on my nightstand. I don’t know who needs to hear this but
“If you fall short of your goals, does it mean that you are a failure? Or does it mean that you did what was best for your child, yourself, and your family? Does it mean that you are a badass mama who knows how to give it all you’ve got when the time is right and let go when the time is right?”
Xo, Emily
