The best for my babies means breast milk

The best for my babies means breast milk

I just want the best for my babies.

And that means feeding them the best food, my breast milk, for at least six months or more.

The World Health Organisation recommends exclusive breastfeeding up to six months of age.

I've set myself a target of at least a year for my second baby, only because I failed to do so with my first one.

I started supplementing my daughter then, who turns two tomorrow, with formula milk by four months.

Somehow, I managed to drag on partial breastfeeding till nine months with the help of green papaya fish soup, fenugreek and domperidone, a medicine for stomach ills with a side effect of increasing mother's milk.

I wanted to continue breastfeeding, but my body just couldn't produce milk anymore.

The culprit? Stress. My milk production dropped by half, a month before I was due back in the office.

I was worrying over settling back at work, expressing milk while at work and my baby, who was fighting with the bottle because she preferred mummy.

And when I was back in the office, I sometimes got so busy, I went 18 hours without expressing.

That spelt the end of breastfeeding for me. No demand, no supply.

I was devastated, angry, frustrated and depressed. I was crying for no good reason and was blaming myself for not sticking to the pumping schedule.

I could express for an hour and only get 30ml, not enough for her feed of about 150ml every three hours.

By nine months, milk stopped flowing. But not the guilt.

Now, with my second baby, a boy, I've vowed to breastfeed for at least a year.

I'm now into four months of full breastfeeding, and fingers crossed, I'll be able to hit the target - and then some.

I've been diligently expressing every three to six hours and letting him latch on at night, even if it means losing sleep.

Because I'm spending so much time away from my children, I feel that at the very least, I can provide them with the perfect nutrition.

Has breastfeeding become an obsession for me? No, I don't think so. I just want to be a good mother.

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