What I didn’t expect from breastfeeding again was the pain. I thought I was an old hand, having learned so many valuable lessons the first time around. I was wrong. Whatever challenges I faced in my first experience in breastfeeding occurred again when I gave birth to my daughter. However, now that my daughter is a month old, there’s one thing that is absolutely certain for me: I won’t give up on breastfeeding exclusively.


Preparing for a Second Birth
The decision to breastfeed again was a no-brainer for me. When I gave birth to my eldest in 2006, I had a very difficult time. I didn’t prepare ahead. While I took a childbirth class, I didn’t think I needed any advance preparation for breastfeeding. After I gave birth via CS, I wasn’t able to latch my baby again until after the next day. My mature milk came in a little later (5 days after giving birth) and by then I was panicking. I didn’t know how to latch the baby and suffered from sore nipples and painful breastfeeding for a month. Luckily, I was able to get support from a La Leche League member and I realized that breastfeeding wasn’t meant to be such a painful experience. More than that, after I read a couple of books on breastfeeding (The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding published by the La Leche League and The Breastfeeding Book by attachment parenting advocates Martha and William Sears), I realized why breastfeeding was par none to nurturing my baby.

For my second baby, I didn’t take a second childbirth class anymore but I did read up and prepare for my breastfeeding experience. I’m a volunteer for a breastfeeding support group (LATCH) and I made sure to attend a class prior to giving birth. There’s nothing like psyching yourself up for a better breastfeeding experience.


Same Problems, Faster Learning Curve
After two hours in the recovery room, I requested to room in my baby immediately. I latched on my daughter as often as I could and, at first, I didn’t have any problems. On my third day of breastfeeding, I started to feel nipple pain. How could this happen? I prepared ahead and I did everything I could to do proper latching. I even had a portable mirror in bed with me to help me examine the baby’s latch. Why was I still having nipple pain? It got worse and I got cracked and sore nipples. I dreaded feeding the baby. The whole time I was hard on myself: didn’t I go through this before? What hadn’t I learned?

Click here to read on about Justine's story breastfeeding her second baby.