I really wanted to give my baby the best start in life so , I knew when I was pregnant I wanted to breastfeed.

I knew the benefits of breastfeeding, the fact it didn't cost anything to breastfeed and no faffing about with bottles and sterilisers.....but it ended there.

After a heavy blood loss, (and something I didn't know then but know now) I didn't realise it could affect me and breastfeeding, but we gave it a good try.
After giving birth my daughter latched on straight away, I thought 'fantastic, we have nailed it', but throughout the night I couldn't get out of the bed to lift her out of her cot, and didn't buzz for the midwives, thats where I went wrong. By the morning I had very sore nipples, and by the evening I was in agony. When we were let out of hospital I lied and said everything was okay.

My mum was coming to visit and I made the decision to put her on formula over the weekend while expressing my milk, and give me chance to heal...little did I know it would also affect my milk supply.

Luckily she latched on well on the Monday, but we were still struggling so she would be topped up with expressed breast milk and the odd bottle of formula....we managed this for 4 weeks, and although I was having a tough time but not wanting to give up, it took my health visitor 4 weeks to refer me to someone about lactation.

I went to the breastfeeding cafe and they were lovely, made me determined to carry on, showed me some new things to keep up my supply etc, check the latch. I got home and while feeding my daughter had to be sick, and it kept coming, then my daughter got it, I must have picked up a bug, and I decided enough was enough...

We did 2 more weeks of expressing and formula feeds, and then she went completely onto formula, which I felt so guilty for, but I instantly felt better in myself.

When I fell pregnant again, I knew I wanted to try more this time, and although we had bleeding nipples to begin with and another heavy bleed, I went to the breastfeeding cafe from week one, and still go now, and they are lovely and I am still doing well, with a daughter who is gaining weight each week. We have lots of expressed milk, which hubby gives my daughter on the 10.30pm feed to give me some rest, but I feel so proud of myself for working through it with all the help and support, we are only onto week four now, but with my first daughter I would rather reach for the bottle of expressed milk first, with my second I would rather breastfeed first.

I still don't like to feed in public and I know I am only going to do this for 12 weeks as I go back to work, but I will definitely try mixed feeding.
I really feel the support has been invaluable and I wouldn't have got this far without it. I know they say breastfeeding is natural - but it is once you and baby learn how to do it, and I know they are trying to promote breastfeeding more and more, but they need to have support networks to go with it to help us, which I am glad we do :)

I have also lost some more weight this time too which is a benefit