To all the moms who feel guilty, that feel like they failed themselves or their babies by not being able to breastfeed/pump. Whether you couldn’t at all, or couldn’t as long as you liked, I feel your struggle.

At 23, knowing the stereotypes around judging mothers on breastfeeding I was nervous but keen to try.

Knowing how much a baby benefits from the first few months, I wanted to try my best to at least make it that far.

Well little did I know how hard it could be. My little guy had a slight tongue tie making it hard for him to latch properly. So when I did get him to latch he never stayed long.

After two days of attempting just breastfeeding I was at my last line. My little guy went from not crying at all, to screaming all night. He was hungry. And I felt horrible. As a new mom I didn’t know I would feel like this so soon.

I called the nurse in, it was the middle of the night. I looked at her and I just started to bawl. I told her I couldn’t do it no more I knew he was hungry and that he wasn’t getting enough. That’s when I decided I was going to take a journey on exclusively pumping. And let me tell you, I thought pumping would be easy, boy was I wrong.

They brought me a pump and I latched on for 20 minutes then I switched to the other side for another 20 minutes. The end result all I could think was, ‘this had to be why he was so hungry.’ I had only gotten 5mls. Feeling yet again like a horrible new mom, I decided to supplement and it was probably the best decision I ever made. My baby was happy once again.

Now with pumping in the hospital I had felt off and I figured it was just because it was new and my body also just went through labour. So all those cramps, feelings of contractions, yeah, they actually stayed for the first month, EVERY pump session. And if that wasn’t bad enough, my hormone levels never balanced out until about two months postpartum, resulting in me being nauseous EVERY pump session. Not fun.

But I was stubborn, I pushed and pushed, thinking just one more week the nausea will subside. NOPE. It didn’t.

So the weeks rolled by. And by week 4 I knew this was soon going to have to come to an end if the nausea didn’t stop. I started to slowly cut out pump sessions to cut my supply down incase I did have to stop.

Week 6 rolled around. This was the week I said if it didn’t subside I’d be done. And things didn’t stop, pump sessions still were horrible I dreaded them, but I felt good because it was for my baby. But I really did need to stop, the sickness of each session was getting to be too much.

It took me two weeks to stop. Every day I would say it would be my last. But then somehow I’d always pump whether it was only once or twice, I’d still pump, get nauseous and put myself through the pain because I felt guilty.

I felt so guilty, that I couldn’t give my baby what so many people saw as the “best” thing for him. I felt like I couldn’t give it up. And as I mentioned it took a few weeks to make myself realize. I wasn’t a bad mom. I wasn’t horrible for giving up. I tried my best. My baby is happy and healthy. He got it when it was most important. And I did everything I could.

Finally, by two months I had stopped. And I began to transition him over to formula. This didn’t go as planned. The first formula I had supplemented with I decided to use again as he had already had it while I waited for my milk came in. But it didn’t go well. He projectile vomited everywhere. It was like a fountain. Scariest moment to date.

Like I said by this point I had stopped pumping. All I had left was what I had frozen for a about two or three weeks to transition him to formula. And once again that guilt feeling was back. Thankfully after a switch everything worked out fine and his belly settled to formula.

Choosing to stop pumping was hard. But choosing to my health over breastfeeding was the best decision I made in the end. And lone behold my baby is still happy and healthy as ever.

Don’t put yourself down. Whether you can’t, or tried and couldn’t, or even simply just don’t want to it’s your body and your health. Don’t feel guilty. Love that baby and it will grow happy and healthy, breastfed or formula fed. ♥️