It was breast feeding week across the world recently and I got to speak to a Project Accountant who exclusively breastfed her son. Read her story and be inspired.

Why did you choose to breastfeed?                                                                                                                                        I chose to breastfeed because I had done a lot of research into the benefits and I felt that it would be beneficial for my baby. Part of my research involved attending a breastfeeding workshop while I was pregnant and that taught me a lot about breastfeeding so I felt quite confident about breastfeeding my son when he was born.

How has your breastfeeding experience  been as a whole,  have you had any challenges?                          He latched onto the breast not long after he was born but it painful because he would clamp down and bite with his gums when I breastfed from the left side. I would use my finger to open his mouth up and he stopped biting quite quickly. I breastfed on demand exclusively for the first 6 months. His was in the 91st weight percentile so he was feeding well. After he turned 6 months I began to introduce solids into his diet and I  continued to breastfeed on demand.

My son doesn’t breastfeed for long periods of time, not more than 10 minutes at a time. The Health Visitor said he is an ‘efficient feeder’ so that has been his pattern .He sleeps in the same bed as me and he breastfeeds throughout the night. I went back to work a week after his first birthday but I continued to breastfeed him on demand  in the morning, evening and night. He is now 17 months and I am trying to stop breastfeeding him so he can be less dependant on me. He breastfeeds as a source of comfort and I am trying to encourage him to find comfort from other sources.  Apart from the initial clamping with his gums my main challenge was when my son had colic like symptoms. I tried so many things but they didn’t work.  Thankfully he grew out of it.

How were you able to combine breastfeeding with your job? I went back to work when my son was one years old and I was trying to cut back on breastfeeding so it was quite easy to combine work with breastfeeding in the morning, evening and weekends.