Breastfeeding is best where possible...

My breastfeeding years are behind me. Thank GOD. Yep. Not a fan.  As my posts on this blog from my breastfeeding years attest I was a milk cow of the highest order. Massive over supply and accompanying leaking, swelling and agony were the order of the day. My let down half drowned my kids, my clothes were endlessly soaked, we were going broke buying breast pads, and I smelled horrible.

I could not wean overnight. And nor did I want to. Because despite the discomfort I knew that breastfeeding was the right thing to do.  But after about three months I was over it.  Completely over it. So I got some goat's milk formula and slowly, over the next few months I weaned my baby off the breast and onto formula.

I did this with both kids. They were perfectly fine, and I was happy.

The End.

That is my breastfeeding story.

It was not brought to you by the media, the australian breastfeeding association or the formula floggers. No indeed. It was brought to you by me and my local GP, who gave me the advice 'breastfeeding is best where possible.' I took that advice and made my decisions.

I remember clearly that back in 2005, when I was pregnant, the media had obsessed itself with the 'too posh to push' issue. Where apparently, mothers were electing to have a cesarean rather than a 'normal' birth (I have certainly never met any mother that actually did this). But suddenly everyone deemed my plans for birth their business!  Conversations would actually start 'You're not going to have a Caesarean are you?" With smiles of approval when I said 'not unless necessary.'  How I got my baby out of my body was between me and my obstetrician, ffs.  Not the business of people in the checkout line.

You see, despite what the media seems to think, we mothers have the best intentions for our children, and spend most of our time half killing ourselves to do the right thing.  The decisions we make take into account our own circumstances, needs and values, those of our families and the children themselves.  We've known the little blighters since they were an egg, after all.  We love them, and you know what? Because we love them we give them the best we possibly can. Always.

It is not for the media or anyone else to judge us.  I, for one, am thoroughly sick of seeing this endless attack on mothers, these days you cannot conceive, be pregnant, give birth, have a new born, breastfeed, have a toddler, breastfeed a toddler, go out in public, stay home, work, not work, have a pre schooler, home school, or start your kid early, late or in between at school, without some journalist thinking they can have an opinion on your decisions and use it to sell a few papers or get a few more clicks on their website.

It is none of their business.

It is none of your business.

It is none of anyone's business.