As World Breastfeeding Week 2025 has just finished, I find it’s time to write a very long overdue blog.

Breastfeeding. Beautiful, brutal, bright, bloody, brilliant breastfeeding.

My journey began in pregnancy. How would you like to feed? Midwife Carol asked. I’d like to try to breastfeed, if we both can.

Why? Thinking back, I must have wanted to breastfeed because my Mum breastfed me. I knew she’d had a bumpy road with both me and my sister in different ways. But she inspired me to try.

So I did some research, I attended an online class (Covid, remember?). I was given the colostrum harvesting syringes to squeeze a few drops into before baby came. Midwife Carol said ‘be careful not to touch your actual nipple, it could get sore’.

So, I completely ignored that advice and at 37 weeks began trying to extract some liquid gold. Did I touch my nipples when harvesting colostrum? Of course. Did I live to regret it? Very much so.

By the time our 8lb12 Sophia had spent the first hour of life with her Dad and they plonked her on me, she was ravenous. I tried to feed. We got on OK. But before we even left the hospital, I was hurting. I think you’ve got nipple trauma. A midwife said. But what did that mean? She didn’t say.

Those first few days at home are a blur of tears and pain, to be honest. Midwife Carol said I admire you young girls, I couldn’t be arsed, to be honest. Truly inspiring, I must say.

I remember sitting in our arms chairs, holding Sophia and sobbing. God, please just help me to feed. Nathan counteracted my prayer And thank you God that there is such a thing as formula so Poppy doesn’t have to go through this if she doesn’t want to. Point well made. Sophia started to have a daily bottle or two to give my poor body a break.

In the middle of the night about two and a half weeks in, I remembered the little business card the Health Visitor had left. Breastfeeding Support Sefton. I opened Facebook and joined the group. I put out one last plea for help. I was about to give up.

By Sophia’s next feed, my post had been approved and there was a reply full of care and advice. By the feed after that, I’d got an appointment that morning to see the Breastfeeding Coordinator, also called Carol.

I was fed up of people peering at me as I fed, to be honest, so I wasn’t sure about going. But Nathan said ‘tell me where you want to go and I’ll take you. Let me help’. So he drove me to the Feelgood Factory in Netherton, and that’s where it all changed.

Carol was so calm and understanding. She listened to me and heard me. She showed both of us what a good position and attachment looked like, and explained that this is a team effort. I managed to feed Sophia without my toes curling in pain. Carol explained the sore nipples (bleeding by this point), would be sore for a while, but with an improved latch, they would start to heal and the pain would lessen. She found us a feeding pillow that worked just right for us and let us take it home. She invited me to the group on Friday to meet some other Mums who were also breastfeeding.

I went to group that Friday and met some brilliant women. I was motivated by group so much that I pushed through feeding another week so I could see them all again. By then, Sophia was nearly a month old. To think I’d almost quit at day 3!

A few weeks later, I went to my Mum and Dad’s and hunkered down in bed, determined to try and get back to exclusively breastfeeding and to ditch the daily bottle. I was timing every feed at this point, and in one 24-hour period, Sophia fed for over six hours. It worked though. My supply increased, and we dropped the bottle of formula.

Then, we started to fly. My supply of milk stablised, I cracked the latch, and with the help of group, I got confident enough to feed in public. Slowly, the pain disappeared. I remember one blissful evening, lullabies playing and starry nightlight shining, realising that it didn’t hurt, in fact, I felt amazing. Nathan was asleep on one side of the bed, and I fed Sophia in the other. Such a remarkable moment and achievement.

That moment propelled me all the way through to my labour with Aidan. I gave birth to him with those same lullabies playing in the background, knowing I had already overcome one huge hurdle while listening to that music. I had managed to breastfeed Sophia, and I knew I would manage to birth this baby, too.

To date, I have breastfed for 41 months and 6 days. I fed Sophia until she was 2 and a half. I’m still feeding Aidan.

We’ve had some bumps along the way. Thrush with both of them, mastitis with both of them, Aidan’s tongue tie. Sophia once took on so much blood from me that she was sick, and when she was sick, her babygrow, sleep suit and cot mattress were all covered in sick that was deep red.

I’ve faced some really unhelpful comments. When are you going to give her a bottle? You don’t want her treating you like a dummy. Isn’t it disgusting how some children are fed after they’re one! That last one was spoken to me in my house, by somebody who clearly didn’t realise I was still breastfeeding my then two year old. I wish I had challenged her.

Hurtfully, I’ve had people refuse to look at me, even in my own home, because I’m breastfeeding. Even when I said it was fine.

I’ve made wonderful friends and bonded with other women so quickly. I also decided to leave a breakaway group (yes, even this can be political!) when I saw horrible and personal comments made about somebody else.

I’ve fed on planes and trains. I’ve fed in restaurants and at the theatre. I’ve fed walking around the zoo and in cathedrals. At times I’ve felt very vulnerable. But mostly, I’ve felt very strong.

Eventually, I got trained up and became a breastfeeding ambassador so I could help other people. St Giles was the first church in Sefton to become breastfeeding friendly through Breastfeeding Support Sefton and ASSF was the second. Nathan is even Father Christmas at the group Christmas parties! Group has been a safe and constant space for Sophia and I for 4 years now, and when Aidan was born, we were there within 48 hours.

I didn’t stop feeding Sophia until I was pregnant with Aidan. I didn’t think the dynamics of tandem feeding would work for us, so Sophia was slowly persuaded that a bottle of milk while reading her bedtime stories was OK. This means, though, that for a few weeks, the food I ate nourished my body, Sophia’s body and the tiny little Aidan growing inside me.

So, as you can tell, I’m a huge fan of breastfeeding. If a woman doesn’t want to, fair enough. But so few women breastfeed for as long as they want to. It’s a huge shame, and often, a lack of support, a lack of knowledge and society in general are to blame. So here I am, at the end of World Breastfeeding Week 2025, trying to normalise breastfeeding in my little corner of the world.

Thank you for reading.