Trust your mum gut

The truth is, when I’m breast feeding Evander, I don’t look down at him & bask in the glory of his existence.

Instead, I spend that time exercising my extremely poor mathematical skills to calculate how much milk he might be getting, how much I might be able to pump, and how much I’ll need to top up with formula to meet his quota. I’m logging (mentally because I have zero hands left to write it down) the time he started feeding, how long on each breast, how long I’ve been pumping, when he falls asleep & what time I need to wake him up for his next feed. Amongst all of that, especially in the dark hours, I forget to just stare at him, to be in awe of him, to just love him.

The act of breast feeding has often (ok, always) hindered my ability to bond with my babies, it is not something that has ever come naturally. I don’t appear to have the gift of sticking baby on my boob & have milk flow to quench his every thirst.

I swore I would not mix feed this time around. I decided when I was pregnant, due to my past experiences with my other two children, that I would give breast feeding one last red hot go, but if it didn’t work out I would switch to formula & stick to one form of feeding. Yet here we are. Every three hours I breastfeed, then bottle feed, then express. I spend up to an hour doing three types of feeding/food prep.

But, it’s after the feeding & the pumping, when Evander lays drunkenly across my chest, when the numbers that I’ve probably miscalculated have stopped swirling around my fatigued brain, that I can look at him. I can look at him unencumbered by my breastfeeding woes.

I can find him.

I can look at him.

I can love him.

I know, if I’d tried to stick strictly to breastfeeding, I would have started to resent our quiet moments together. Instead of falling into mum guilt (because mum guilt is not for me) I’ve reverted back to mix feeding which while exhausting, has been the best option for bonding with my boy.

Over the last eleven days of being a new mum to my third baby, I’ve received beautiful & gentle reminders to be kind to myself and to go with my gut, my mum gut.

So I did.

I do.

Now, I can look down at my baby boy & bask in the glory of his existence.

So this is me reminding all the Mums out there to be kind to yourself & to trust your intuition, your mum gut, so that you can find joy in your most tiring moments.

T x