What made you "aware" of BF'ing?

[crunchy_mommy]

I ask this because BF'ing was never something discussed much when I was growing up. I knew my mom BF but I didn't know much more than that (and my siblings were close in age to me so I was too young to remember seeing her BF them). I never saw a women BF in public. I saw tons of bottles side-by-side with anything baby-related (from people to books to shower gifts etc.), and never really thought of BF'ing vs. FF being a choice. I never gave it much thought at all actually, and did not know there were risks vs. benefits.

What turned me on to breastfeeding is the gigantic Natural Family Planning book I started reading when DH & I were preparing to get married (seriously, the book is bigger than a phone book!) That's where I learned about ecological breastfeeding, benefits, etc.

Now I know most people don't practice NFP & probably even fewer understand how BF'ing plays any role... I imagine that if I hadn't read that book, I would've ended up FF just due to lack of awareness & support. I doubt I would've really understood the benefits enough to push through the many obstacles we faced early on. I consider myself pretty educated (although I don't pay much attention to the news), but maybe I just missed all the BF'ing memos! Do you think most moms-to-be really know a lot about BF'ing? Aside from the doc casually mentioning they should BF? Or do you think it's just something they fall into if they're lucky enough? Besides NIP, what else increases awareness if you're just an average American? How did you become aware of BF'ing (and I mean aware in a deeper sense, where you really considered it to be the best option)?

[PatioGardener]

I have an amazing friend who enlightened me. She was breastfeeding her 12 month old when I first met her, and went on to CLW. Without her I am not sure that I would ever have 'discovered' breastfeeding, and I am sure I wouldn't currently be planning a home birth.

Interestingly, she was the first person I ever met who framed breastfeeding not as 'best' but as normal. She gently challenged my thinking, and pushed me to read the evidence (I'm a scientist) - all is a very warm, friendly accepting way. She is a true lactivist.

[blessedwithboys]

i got pg w/ds1 the week i turned 17. i had never seen bf in person and it probably wasnt on my radar any other way. like i dont recall ever seeing it on TV or reading about anywhere.

i have always been very prideful and a bit obsessive about what i perceive to be "perfection" so i channeled that into trying to be the best mother possible, esp bc i was so young. i felt like i had to be able to say "up yours" to all the naysayers. LOL

i read TONS of books while pg and somewhere in the my 2nd tri i decided providing bm woudl be "achieving perfection" for my child, so i determined that i would pump my milk for 6 mos. very arbitrary, and the idea of actually suckling the child was weird to me, as i had only had sex a handful of times up to that point. later i realized it would be very difficult to pump, so i made the decision that i would nurse for 6 mos then switch to bottles.

i hesitantly told a few ppl of my decision, and all of a sudden i discovered that lots of women around mem had nursed, some for a few weeks, some longer. one friend of mine who was old enough to be my mother and who had a 4 or 5 yo at the time told me she nursed her dd for 20 mos. i was astounded!

i ended up nursing my ds until he totally lost interest at 24 mos. when he was about 6 or so mos i trained as a WIC peer counselor. at 8 mos, ds had his fenulum clipped (twice!) and thats when i finally bf w/out pain for the 1st time. when he was 9 mos old we were featured in a local paper for WBW. i went with the WIC LC, who became my good friend, to a lcoal HS to talk to pg teens about how it was def possible to be successful at bf even as a teen, even as someone who maybe had never had exposure to bf b4 getting pg. my ds2 CLW at 60 mos.

i did all this lactivism bc i couldnt believe none of my mom friends had ever opened up and talked to me about it. if i hadnt been of the personality type to be an obsessive perfectionist, i may have felt ABM was "good enough" for my ds. it probably would never have even been a decision bc i would never have even considered bf for a moment. i was 17, scared, alone, and not at all comfortable with my body. after realizing what i would have missed out on, i became determined not to let that happen to any other mama that i had the chance to reach.

i have two younger sisters who both have dc. one CLW at 45 mos and the other MLW at 12 mos. the 1st told me she nursed bc of my example. the 2nd knew she would nurse b4 i ever knew she was pg, it was something she would have done even if i hadnt. both have told me they prbly would never had stuck it as long as they did if they didnt have me to look up to. they chose different bf paths, but i count them both as success stories.

[jocelynr]

I was one of the lucky ones to grow up in LLL and that culture that makes breastfeeding normal. It was never even a choice or an option for me. I knew I would nurse my children before I even started dating.

[CrunchyGina]

I was crunchy before I even knew what crunchy was. My examples had been moms who BF'd but also supplemented w/ formula and I didn't get why they wanted to waste money on formula. Once I got pregnant at age 18, I decided I was going to go full force on BFing. Not only b/c it's the best way to feed babies, but also b/c DH & I were broke college students and needed to cut down on costs. We couldn't afford spending hundreds on formula or having a baby who was sick all the time due to a lack of immunity. It just didn't make sense to me to feed my baby any other way. Still doesn't! I'm happy that my kids will be raised in a home where BFing is the norm!

[LilMomma83]

I breastfed until I was almost 3..I still remember nursing

I grew up with a crunchy mommy in a crunchy HS group and going to LLL and it never occurred to me that I wouldn't BF..I thought BF WAS the norm. Actually...the thing that has kept me going through each challenge (6mos of painful nursing with DS1 and nursing through a whole pregnancy and now tandem nursing; and low supply with DS2..pumping and working etc etc) has been fear of what my mom and the other moms and friends I grew up with would say if I stopped! I still go to LLL where my mom leads the group and the wife of a friend from my HS group attends as well!!

[tinybutterfly]

One of my best friends in gradeschool came from a family of five kid and her mom breastfed them all for several months. I remember B telling me her mom bf the babies because it was best for them. I was just a kid then and that was my first exposure to bf.

When I was a teen one of my cousins bf her babies. She said it was better for the babies. She also said the LLL people were zealots and rolled her eyes.

When I got pg I knew I wanted to bf and made sure to look up the LLL people and absolutely LOVED them. I thought they were very kind and helpful.

OH, and an old Beatles song, Lady Madonna. There's a line in there "Lady Madonna, baby at your breast, wonders how you manage to feed the rest." That was a popular song when I was a kid.

[mambera]

My mom bf all of us so I always viewed it as the norm.

However I didn't realize how long babies need milk for. My mom really hated bf plus she WOH, and so didn't last past 6 mo for any of us. (Not as much was known back then about how inadequate formula is either.) So I didn't really understand that it's normal to bf long past early infancy. I knew some people nursed their toddlers and didn't think there was anything especially *wrong* with that but I didn't realize that if you don't do it you have to replace the bm with formula or animal milk.

I also *thought* I was better informed/prepared than I actually was. My mom bf all of us very easily with no problems so although guess I'd heard of people finding bf 'difficult' that was pretty abstract to me and I didn't give it much credit. It didn't make sense to me that 'the norm' should be hard to achieve.

Also I figured my mom could talk me through any issues but since she had always had a pretty easy time, she couldn't really advise me when I ran into difficulty. I really wish I'd done some reading before I delivered.

Now that I am still bfing my 8 month old I am actually surprised at how 'mainstream' my parents are. I always thought of my mom as on the crunchier side but she clearly thinks it is overkill that I am still bfing, and my dad actually said LO was "too big for that" when she was 6 months old (!).

[starling&diesel]

When I was eight I stayed with neighbours to finish the school year when my mom went ahead to her new job in another town. These folks were super crunchy, even crunchier than my mom, and had a toddler. The mama was still nursing the toddler. That got me thinking. And then I found their photo alum of beautiful black and white photos of their gorgeous homebirth. And then they took me up the mountains to a commune one weekend and I met several women who were nursing their babies.
I remember asking if I could try nursing their babies, and one of the mamas said, "When you're older and you're a mama, then your breasts will be ready, and so will you."
If only that had been true ... I have low supply and have had to supplement with donor milk, take herbs and drugs, pump, and us a SNS. But here we are, still nursing at over a year!

[TopHat]

My mom only breastfed me for a couple of weeks and never tried with my siblings (I was the oldest). When I was growing up a lady across the street would nurse her 3 year old on her porch and that was "icky." In fact, on the phone after my daughter was born, my dad said breastfeeding was "ok" as long as I wasn't one of those ladies who breastfeeds their 3 year old on their porch. Well, my daughter is almost 2- I don't know if we'll have a porch in a year.

It wasn't until I decided I wanted a UC for my daughter that I ran into a lot of breastfeeding information and mention of LLL on UC forums. My MIL was a member of LLL in the 70s/80s/90s so my DH had grown up around breastfeeding- his sister was breastfed until 2.5 and he remembers it. Anyway, my MIL is a BIG proponent of it, so when I mentioned LLL my DH was all, "Yeah- my mom went to that!"

So yeah. I came into breastfeeding through the "backdoor" of unassisted childbirth. A little atypical, I know.

I wish I knew that woman who breastfed on her porch- I was like 11/12 and I don't remember her name at all. I would like to thank her for trying to normalize breastfeeding where we lived.

[crunchy_mommy]

This is great!! Everyone has such different stories, so interesting! And gives me some ideas on the small ways to promote BF'ing that seem to make a BIG difference!

[Ellien C]

I always knew that my mom breastfed all of her kids - at a time when it wasn't very popular. She talked about the nurses scowling at her when they had to bring the baby to her at night and how my sister was in an incubator for 8-10 days and her breasts swelled and she thought - one more day and then I'll take the shot. But sis came out and she could nurse.

BUT - there were 2 women in my historical re-enactment group who openly breastfed - and sometimes the baby would fall asleep and pop off and they'd be just HANGING out - not even noticing. This was a group where nudity was not uncommon but seeing them both breastfeed really normalized it for me. I owe them a lot. I've told one of them (she wore her baby, too) when I saw her.

I always knew I would pump my milk when I worked, though I had never seen a breastpump til I ordered one on the Internet after my baby was born. I had one friend at work who was like - oh yeah - I pumped. It was no big deal. You just go into the room, but your feet up and it's great. That helped a lot, too.

[KristyDi]

My mom breastfed all 4 of us for some time (3-6 months) and in my extended family, which is large and has lots of kids, it's expected that you'll breastfeed your baby at least for a while.

I remember one of my dad's cousins breastfeeding her toddler when I was around 7 or 8 and that was considered a little weird, but not bad.

It never occurred to me to choose not to breastfeed, so when we started TTC-ing I started researching breastfeeding along with birth. The more I read the longer I thought I'd breastfeed. We're still going strong at 23 months with no end in sight. My family generally thinks it's excessive, but they're a respectful lot and leave me alone about it. Thankfully I'm not the only one. I have an older cousin who also nursed her 3 beyond a year.

[maplesugar]

I am the oldest of five breastfed children. Although my mom didn't generally breastfeed beyond 1 year (I went the longest for 19 months), she was very vocal about the benifits of breastfeeding. I am very grateful for this as I grew up in the 70s and 80s when formula use was the norm.

I think my mom would have been personaly affronted had I not breastfed my dc. I didn't ever consider not breastfeeding, though.

[rhiandmoi]

I grew up in a mainstream community, but practically every mom I knew growing up nursed. I've seen practically every adult female in my family's nipples, the ones that I didn't see didn't have any babies during my lifetime. At church most moms nursed. What was news to me was the idea that people needed to actually be taught to breastfeed. I remember the first time I found out there were lactation consultants. That just about blew my mind. In my world, breastfeeding is tribal knowledge that women pick up over a lifetime of being exposed to it, not something that you go to a class for. I mean it makes sense now as an adult, but it still threw me for a loop the first time I heard about it. To me that would be like having someone teach you how to breathe.

[SeekingJoy]

I knew my mom breastfed me and by brother for a year each, and I remember watching my step-mom nurse my half-siblings after they were first born. I heard stories of my grandfather delivering babies (at home ) and then helping the moms to nurse. I got to hear my mom playfully tease my aunt about coming home from kindergarten at 5 and laying down to nurse and nap with my grandmother. I couldn't imagine not at least trying to breastfeed by babies, which I am actually incredibly grateful for.

[Hey Mama!]

It crossed my mind as an option when I was pregnant with my first. But, I didn't try because I thought it would be too time consuming. I was still a college student and working a part time job and didn't think I had it in me. Well....oldest dd had several feeding problems and food sensitivities so I was determined to breastfed subsquent children. I bf my second for almost nine months. She had a high arching palette and small mouth and a very weak suck and was not an efficient nurser. I took fenugreek, I tried to pump, feed every two hours round the clock, multiple visits to a lactation consultant etc and it just didn't work. I was devestated but went ahead and nursed my third dd for 15 months. It wasn't until I nursed her that I knew that middle dd was a very poor nurser-I never had to break a latch with my pinky like I did with youngest dd, I could just pull her right off without effort.

I had to go to visit my dying grandmother for 3 days when youngest dd was 15 months old and when I came back she didn't ask to nurse and I didn't offer because I was starting an antidepressant. I'm content in my decision though because I feel like it was quite an accomplishment for me to nurse her that long. Recently she was evaluated for speech and the therapist told me she had an unusually high palette as well. I'm glad she was a much better nurser then middle dd.

I did not grow up in a breastfeeding culture, in fact my mom actively discouraged it because she nursed my brother for 6 months and then weaned him to a bottle. She said it was easier to formula feed. I was called disgust by a cousin for nursing my youngest past a year. Like a previous poster said, I will be sorely disappointed if my girls don't at least TRY to breastfeed. It is truly the best thing you can do for your baby.

[SashaBear]

I had minor exposure to breastfeeding. I had large breasts (even bigger now!) and there was often jokes when I was holding a breastfed baby. At 15-16 having a baby root all over your breast can be very embarrasing. Breastfeeding was normal to me and wasn't encouraged to me. When we were TTC I researched it and was amazed by the benefits of breastmilk. Thats when I decided to breastfeed.

[Tine]

I was FFed and raised in a very FFing family and community. I was aware of the concept of breastfeeding from a fairly young age -- I think I came across it in a book. But it weirded me out. I didn't really think about it through my teen years.

Then, when I moved out of state for my first job after college, I made several new friends. One of them happened to be a dietitian employed as a WIC counselor. She talked about BF so matter-of-factly. Then she got PG, had her first baby, and practiced what she preached.

The birth was quite a dramatic event -- almost 2 months premature, kicked off by a bad fall on the ice in the dead of winter, in a teensy IL prairie town. I came along for the long, wild trip to the hospital and stayed with friend & her DH through the birth, which resulted in a C-section (not to mention a full-leg cast for my friend's broken leg). I realize *now* that BF could easily have been a major problem for my friend, but she made it seem like a foregone conclusion.

That experience had a major impact on me. It showed me how important BF really is and how not to be afraid of BF obstacles.

[trustedinstincts]

My brothers and I weren't breastfed, mom was on epilepsy drugs. I don't remember ever seeing it while I was growing up. I just knew it was how I wanted to feed my babies.