[Breastfeeding Refusal] The Sorrow and the Road to Recovery
I never imagined that breastfeeding would be this difficult.
The timeline from postpartum to 3 months is as follows.
Like this, the refusal has now stopped, and although I couldn't exclusively breastfeed, I am continuing with mixed feeding.
Hoping to give hope to others struggling with the same refusal, I decided to record the journey to recovery.
Things I plan to write about
The trigger for the refusal and the pain
What I did until recovery
How to use AI
Various things about nipple shields
Baby bottle nipples
Breast pumps and tips for expressing milk
Oketani-style midwife visits
The trigger for the refusal
From the time I was in the hospital, there were many times when the baby would cry hysterically and couldn't latch on.
I really wanted to exclusively breastfeed, but even just before discharge, only about 10ml was coming out, so I ended up feeding the same amount as I would with formula.
My mother told me, 'I had plenty of milk, so you'll be fine,' and the midwives and friends also said, 'It will gradually increase,' so I was carefree, thinking, 'Well, I guess this is how it is.'
After discharge, I was using a nipple shield, but I followed the instructions perfectly, doing 5 minutes on each side twice, for a total of 20 minutes every time.
However, at the breastfeeding clinic two weeks later, the baby was only drinking about 5ml per side, and when I had it measured a little over a month later, the baby was only drinking about
8ml in 20 minutes.
It hasn't increased at all!!?!!!
The midwife who watched me breastfeed said, 'The baby thinks the bottle is fine, so they aren't sucking seriously.'
Oh no.
Even though I had been nursing for 20 minutes every time, every day? What was this past month for??
I finally started to panic, trying various positions and forcing the baby to breastfeed even when they cried.
Then, perhaps because my anxiety and desperation were transmitted to the child, a full-blown refusal began after that.
Sense of loss
When my baby desperately arches their back and refuses the breast while crying at the top of their lungs, it feels like my very existence is being denied. The feeling of misery when making formula after being rejected was indescribable. I have seen the cliché phrase "It's fine as long as the baby is growing up healthy" many times, whether it's breast milk or formula, and I also know that there isn't that big of a difference in terms of nutrition and immunity. I know in my head that I am not the one being rejected. There are countless ways to show love other than breastfeeding. There is no problem at all with switching to formula entirely. In fact, I would feel relieved if I could just be freed from this obsession. Even before giving birth, I felt like, "Either way is fine, I'll breastfeed if it comes out," but for some reason, the feeling of "
I wanted to raise them with breast milk after all
" grew stronger day by day. Direct breastfeeding is a mother's privilege, and seeing them drink was happier than I could have imagined. When that suddenly disappeared, I was very shocked and sad. I was surprised myself by the magnitude of that sense of loss.
Feelings of unfairness and regret
Why only me? Even when I measured my milk, it was always in the single digits. I often see stories about how breast milk didn't increase because they couldn't breastfeed due to the NICU or a C-section, but I had almost never seen a case like mine where both mother and child were healthy, yet the milk wouldn't come out. When I looked into it, I learned later that just letting them suck was what was important. Come to think of it, while hospitalized, I took a friend's advice to "leave the baby with the nursery and get some good rest" to heart, so I didn't room-in at night and only did the feedings every three hours. My delivery was a planned painless birth, and I slacked off on nighttime care, so I thought I was being punished for only thinking about making things easy for myself.
I thought many times that I wanted to go back to right after giving birth and do it over.
I didn't know that mixed feeding would be this hard. I didn't think my breast milk wouldn't come out this much.
Just seeing posts on X like "I got ○ml!" or "Such a happy time♡" would hurt me on its own, and even now that I can breastfeed directly, it still stings.
The 3-hour rule
I was told at the maternity clinic to "wait 3 hours because formula takes time to digest," so even if the baby was crying, or licking their hands and clearly looked hungry, it was tough having to somehow get through those 3 hours while holding a baby crying at the top of their lungs, covered in guilt, confusion, and sadness. Thinking back now, I don't think I needed to follow it strictly, but at the time, I thought it was something I had to follow.
With all that, on top of the postpartum hormonal imbalance and lack of sleep, the stress of the breastfeeding refusal was added, and tears would just fall at random moments, and breastfeeding time became nothing but painful. The loneliness after my husband left for work and the despair I felt when calculating the time until he came home were things I had never experienced before.
This turned into a bit of a gloomy story, didn't it? Next, I'll write about the road to recovery! ↓