It’s a Whole System.

Breastfeeding isn’t something most women can just do when their baby is born. It’s not something babies do instinctively either. The more I hear about other moms’ journeys, the more I’m convinced that everyone peddling breastfeeding as this natural, easy thing is full of it.

If you know me, you know I lean natural. No candles, no deodorant, no scented detergent or perfume, no hair dye. Mascara is the most makeup you’ll ever catch me in. So breastfeeding appealed to me right away. The problem: I didn’t have anyone in my circle who could actually walk me through it. Turns out most people need an IBCLC (a certified lactation consultant) just to navigate it. That alone should tell you how “natural” this really is.

Here’s what breastfeeding actually looks like today:

The latch. If your baby is struggling, they may have tension, tongue or lip tie. If so, you’re looking at a release procedure — cutting the webbing — which is not as harmless as it sounds. But even if you can get past that, then comes intense post-surgery care that’s torture for both of you.

My son could hold his head up days after birth — not the flex people think it is. It meant he had so much muscle tension that it was involuntary. Now we’re doing 12 chiropractic sessions on top of newborn stretches and exercises, tummy time, and every other milestone, all squeezed into his tiny wake windows.

Luckily, this time around I didn’t have as much nipple damage but that might be because I am a second time mom. I remember with my first my nipples were so raw and sore all the time. I came prepared with coconut oil this time around.

Latch gear. Latching your baby correctly means trying dozens of different positions and buying support for all of them: the Frida pillow, the Boppy, back support pillows, the list never ends. If baby isn’t latching well, they’re not getting enough milk. Which brings us to pumping.

Pacifiers. Some are designed to support oral function and good latch. Others actively work against it and can cause pain. I was using the blue hospital one that was teaching my son to chomp, which he eventually did on my breasts after 4 weeks. It got painful.

Supply. You have to feed on demand every 2–3 hours, never past 4 — especially during the day, so baby sleeps longer stretches at night. If baby isn’t nursing enough, you need to add pumping into the mix, which somehow means pumping every 3 hours and feeding on the same schedule. I never figured out how you’re supposed to feed baby right after emptying your breasts or on the reverse nursing when you’ve just pumped. Also: there are hundreds of pumps to choose from, and the good one (hospital-grade) costs a couple thousand dollars unless you’re renting.

Once you land on a pumping schedule, you still need to get fitted for the right flange size, because the ones that come with your pump are basically useless.

I have an oversupply and fast let down so I had to learn to express before feeds especially at night to prevent from overfeeding. The oversupply would put him to sleep before he was done eating because of how hard he had to work to take the milk and not die. I did not catch the milk because it was too stressful with all the latching issues we’ve had.

Bottles. If baby won’t latch, remember: fed is best, breast milk or formula. Don’t buy into the idea that breast milk is the only path to a healthy kid. I know exclusively breastfed kids (past age two) who were sick constantly and no sharper than anyone else. My siblings and I weren’t breastfed, and I promise breastfed kids don’t have secret powers as adults. I say this as someone who exclusively breastfed both of mine — my first for 4 months at the breast then a year of pumped milk, my second going on 2 months at the breast and counting, with another year of pumping ahead once I’m back at work. If you do bottle-feed, you’ll need slow-flow nipples, research pace feeding, and a plan to avoid nipple confusion. In the beginning of my journey, we bottle fed until my milk supply came in. My babe was in NICU for 24 hours so I didn’t get to work on my supply. By the time I left the hospital he weighed one pound less and the first week he lost another pound at home.

And if you get the latch right? Now it’s about form: back supported, proper positioning. I have an oversupply and a strong letdown, so my son was basically drowning every feed, which led to trapped gas and silent reflux. Nothing severe enough to medicate, but we’re not out of the woods.

Gas, reflux, colic. Breast milk or formula, you’ll deal with some combination of these. Don’t overfeed, hold upright for 30 minutes after every feed (even at 3 a.m.), minimize air intake — it’s a rabbit hole.

Growth spurts. There were moments when after feeling like I had some level of understanding of the system, there would be a growth spurt. This for me came in the form of cluster feeding and wanting to stay at the breast even after a full feed. We even incorporated bottles (half formula/half pumped milk) because he seemed so hungry and I was over touched. You cannot prepare for these because you just don’t know how your baby will respond.

Breastfeeding in public is its own chapter — one I can’t even get into right now.

Even once you find a routine, engorgement and mastitis mean you’re still getting up to pump in the middle of the night, unnecessarily, because “every 3 hours” is burned into your brain.

This stuff is brutal at first. It gets easier once you find your groove, but it is not easy, and it is not natural. Maybe it was simple back in the day. It isn’t now, and definitely not in America, where breastfeeding has become its own industry with a product for every problem. Sometimes I think we manufacture half of these problems ourselves — I bought several breastfeeding pillows I never needed. All I actually use is a regular couch pillow, which simplified the latch experience with my son.

I’m saying all this as someone currently exclusively breastfeeding. I’ve lived every bit of it, and it still isn’t easy. Some days, with cluster feeding, I genuinely feel like I have nothing left to give.

PPD. Some days I feel l have it but others I feel normal. Some days it is directly related to the support I received from my husband. He had to go back to work less than a month after giving birth. This whole experience of breastfeeding alone takes an emotional toll. Then there is the sleep deprivation, the milestone tracking, the family needs and upkeep of the home.

I am closely watching the Lindsay Clancy case because I’m in the thick of postpartum. There are things that have been said in that case that I fully understand. No where near wanting to hurt my children but the feelings of being defeated and the thoughts of being so broken down is relatable for me.

Through all of it, you have to take care of yourself — which is hard with a newborn, harder with a toddler in the mix too, and hardest if you’re doing it alone. Keeping your supply up means keeping up with you Stanley and drinking the entire bottle at least twice a day and actually eating real, ideally homemade, food. Easier said than done — I skip lunch more than I’d like to admit. But I’ve been good about a solid breakfast, and my husband’s been covering dinner as much as he can.