I breastfed Liam till he was around 22 months old. It was a rough start. My labor and delivery with Liam were a horror story. It took me 4 months to physically recover and about a year to mentally recover. I got very depressed and had severe anxiety. Nursing did not come naturally to either of us and motherhood didn't either. I did fall in love with Liam right away. My depression did not manifest itself in not being able to connect with him. I connected with him right away and was completely enamoured with him. But I suffered from anxiety. Every day when Scott was about to leave for work I would get frantic thinking there was no way I could make it until he got home in the evening. It didn't help that he traveled A LOT and I don't have family in the area, in fact, my family is overseas which was just fine until I had a baby... and Scott's family is 3.5 hours away.
But back to breastfeeding. After the rocky start things got gradually better and our bond grew stronger and stronger. Liam wasn't an easy baby and he is not an easy toddler. But he is so full of life and love. And I didn't want to deal with weaning him and felt that he should just wean himself when he was ready. He was finally ready at around 22 months of age when I was already very pregnant with Aiden.
With Aiden, it was and is a completely different experience. Labor was still very very long but the actual delivery was much easier and the recovery was nothing this time. I got to hold Aiden 5 minutes after he was born and I got to start nursing him about 10 minutes after he was born. He took to the breast like nothing. He was a champ from the very beginning. And it lasted too! He still is a champ. He just sees and smells the breast and opens his mouth and then it's there! He is nursing. He is also a very hungry little guy. He still nurses a lot at night which is really why I started this posting to begin with.
I really do love nursing. It's just that in magazines and books and forums about breastfeeding they tell you how easy and wonderful it is to bed-share with your baby because all you need to do is let your baby find the breast in the middle of the night and you both doze off while he is nursing. Well, maybe it's like that for some women but sure as heck ain't like that for me. For us (me & Aiden) it's more like he nurses and then starts crying because of reflux and needing to burp and so I have to get out of bed and walk him around until he burps and spits-up all over me. And then he usually poops so I also have to walk over to his room to the diaper changing table and change his diaper. So by then he is all awake and wants to play and I am exhausted, I need to pee and I'm dying to go back to sleep. When I finally do get him to fall back to sleep I am so awake and wired that it takes me forever to fall back asleep. And then he is also sleeping on our bed in such a way that I have to sleep in a very uncomfortable position such that in the morning my neck is stiff and my back and hips are aching. And so usually about an hour to two after I finally managed to get back to sleep he is again waking up to nurse yet again and the whole thing starts over again.
So yes, I love nursing. But the whole co-sleeping & bed-sharing thing isn't as peaceful and relaxing as it is portrayed. So if you have a more realistic experience like I do then don't feel bad! That's pretty much what I wanted to say.
