Breastfeeding...

is for the birds...seriously.

I'm a wimp. Its fine, whatever. I survived 37 hours of labor, 28 of it sitting at home, breathing it out WITHOUT meds mind you. So, my boobs, my heart and my kid could not take more than 11 days of breastfeeding. The litmus test for boobie feeding seems to be 3 months. My cousin lasted 7 weeks. Had I tried to do it for a month I might have had to cut my boobs off.

The first night, it seemed really easy. Eli and I seemed to get into a rhythm of things, he was feeding, I was feeding him, we were both really happy. Day two went really well too, he ate, slept and pooped. I ate and slept.

Then, there was night two. When suddenly, Eli had a fit. Its fine, to an extent, except that hearing my child SCREAM cry is not something I can remotely handle at all. It kills me quite frankly. I can deal with him crying in general, and I can deal with some moaning and whining, but screaming? Nope, not happening, breaks my heart. So, when he did it that night, and I couldn't seem to calm him down to save mine or his life, I freaked out. I was exhausted. They took him from me to do some tests and I slept while he was gone. When he came back, he was sleepy and so was I, but the nurse insisted that I had to feed my kid, who was asleep. It was a rather painful feeding and Eli seemed to struggle through it. Something was off from the night before.

The next day, the day we were released from the hospital was even worse. First off, they circumsized him, poor little guy. When they came to get him for his circumsision, they took him in the middle of a feeding, so he only got to eat for 15 minutes and was STILL HUNGRY! After they did that, he was obviously upset, but instead of bringing him back or waiting until I was done feeding him to take him, so that maybe he would've handled it a bit better, they gave him sugar water! WHY ARE YOU GIVING MY KID SUGAR WATER WITHOUT MY PERMISSION??? By the time they brought him back to me, 3 hours later (because he had to have other tests done), he was passed out from the stress of it all, and didn't want to eat. 2 hours later, Eli finally wakes up and he's PISSED! He's upset, i'm trying to eat and feed him, he seems to be having trouble latching on, and on top of that, he keeps pulling away from me and SCREAMING! Ack! I'm starting to freak out, because at the rate we are going, we are never going to be able to leave, because I can't feed my poor kid. On top of everything else, breastfeeding is a bit of an art form, and if your kid doesn't latch on right, you are asking for problems, i.e. my nips cracking! Owwwwwwwwwww! Some how or another we got through it, and made it home. That night was exhausting, with lots of crying on both his and my part, but we sorta made it through it.

Here was what pushed me over the edge...

1. My kid crying relentlessly and fighting me constantly to get on and off the boob. First, he'd cry to get on, then pull off and cry some more. Who has time for that fight?

2. Eli developed the worst diaper rash in the world. I mean, his butt turned bright red and it started blistering. My son literally scooted away from me at a week and a half old to have me avoid touching his ass with a diaper wipe. Ummm, I'm not sure that's entirely okay with me.

3. We had a 4 day stretch of the following scenario. 5 to 7 hours of...eat, poop, sleep for 10-25 minutes, wake up, scream to eat, poop, sleep, eat, poop, sleep, eat, poop, sleep...Don't get me wrong, babies eat, poop and sleep. That's what they do. Its fine. But doing it without a relentless break for hours on end. I'm sorry, i'm not a strong enough woman to do that. And quite frankly, neither are my boobs or Eli's little butt.

I finally relented when Ray lost his mind and told me to end it, because he couldn't take coming home and finding me and Eli both crying. Fix the problem. We first tried regular formula. That ended lovely when me and Ray took him to his first doctor's appointment, fed him while we waited for the doctor and then first had Eli spit up all over daddy and not just a little bit, but quite a bit, and then while Ray was cleaning himself up, had Eli spit up all over me...down my shirt by the way. The doctor was a bit concerned and suggested we try another formula. Ray went and bought soy and two days later, Eli's diaper rash cleared up, we had no more 5 hour stretches of relentless eating and both me and Eli started eating and sleeping better.

I understand the wonderfulness of breastfeeding, don't get me wrong. Its healthier for mommy and baby, its cheaper (to an extent), and a whole host of other things you get told when they are first trying to convince you to breastfeed. However, at the end of the day, I can't help but feel like the best decision I ever made for me and my son, was to switch to the bottle.