Debbie

I decided that I would breastfeed because I actually tried it first of all. I had read up on it, and looked at it a wee bit, but I decided to do it once I actually had tried it. I put Connor on and it felt natural to me, so that’s when I decided to do it. My mum does the Community Mums as well, so I did get the support there from her beforehand, telling me about it, but I didn’t actually say I was going to definitely do it but once I tried it I just thought “this is what I want to do”.

The benefits of breastfeeding for myself were obviously that it helped me lose my baby weight a wee bit quicker, and most of all that it helps the bond with your baby, it helps you get to know them, get to know all the wee signs that they’re hungry, it makes you really close to them.

It’s made him come on leaps and bounds I think, he just grew up so fast, he just came on. I think it relaxes the baby, because they’ve got the comfort of being next to their mum. Everybody comments on that, saying “ he’s so settled, he’s really relaxed” so I think it’s good for him in that way as well.

It’s nice to have that alone time with him, when if people were in at the start and you were a bit tired you could just say “I’m away up to feed Connor”, and have some time to yourself, because it is a bit busy when you bring your baby home.

I don’t really need to fit it in, because I don’t need to physically do anything to fit it in, Connor just needs to be with me so if we’re going out and about anywhere it’s just a case of taking his change-bag, and myself. If I was going to go anywhere and be away from him for a period of time I would just take a bag of frozen milk and his bottle up to my mum’s or his other gran’s and that’s it.

At the start I had a problem with the breastfeeding, because they thought Connor had a slight wee tongue-tie. What happened is I had misshapen nipples after feeding so one of the Community Mums came out and she said to get in touch with my health visitor Janice who then put me in touch with Yorkhill hospital. You go there and they decide there and then if they’re going to give the tongue tie a wee snip, but when I went they said it was so slight that they didn’t think there was any need to snip it and just to really work on my attachment. At Yorkhill hospital the girl actually went through the attachment with me, and showed me “big mouth” to get him on.

I attend a breastfeeding group every Wednesday. It was my health visitor that put me on to the breastfeeding group, she just said “there’s girls and we’re trying to build up the numbers, if you would go along it helps give you support”. You can just hear all the other girls and what kind of problems they’ve had or if they’ve had an easy time and they’ve just latched on and everything was fine. I go as well because he can interact with other babies. They’ve got the big play mats and he can just lie there. You can see how different babies come on differently as well. I think it helps people who maybe didn’t want to feed in public, when they go to the group, because it gives them a wee bit of confidence to see other women feeding.

The advice I’d give to mums that are thinking of breastfeeding is “try, if it’s not for you, fine, but try and if you do like it, it is worth persevering because it’s so simple.” Once you get it up and running it’s just a nice thing to do. You look at your baby and you think “that’s all me that’s given him that, I’ve made him healthy, a bouncing baby”. Also, how convenient it is, I don’t need to sterilise or get a bottle ready, as soon as he starts crying with hunger you can just put him straight on, you don’t need to wait on anything. Especially through the night it’s great, you just pick him up and put him on. The bigger he gets the less time you’re actually feeding for, so sometimes you’re only feeding for ten minutes and then you can just put your top back down and away you go.