As a new mum and with lots of different advice available, be it from parents, friends, the internet or other healthcare professionals, I felt a bit lost when my baby didn’t seem to be wholly responding to breastfeeding. I had been adamant that I wanted to breastfeed my baby- to form the extra close bond and to take advantage of all of the nutritional goodness- and so I felt very upset and a bit of a failure when he wasn’t gaining weight at the expected level. I felt let down by local health visitors who simply told me that it was clearly time to ‘just start bottle feeding’ or start to ‘combination feed’ but then didn’t give me advice on how to do this.
This is when, luckily for me, I was put in touch with Charlie from the ‘Healthy Child Company’ who totally understood my angst and helped me and my baby establish a wonderful breast and bottle feed routine. A clear and unbiased view of ‘combination feeding’ was expertly talked about and introduced so that both baby and I felt truly comfortable.She helped me see that I wasn’t failing as a mother if I introduced the bottle and that I could totally manage to do both and keep the extra close bond that was being established.
Now after ten months, my baby boy, who is of course now eating solid foods too, is such a happy and healthy little one that I am so glad I put aside my worries, spoke to Charlie who knew what she was talking about and took that step in feeding, because now it seems like such a distant memory, but at the time felt so all consuming. In my experience, I don’t think there is enough ‘unbiased and helpful’ information out there on feeding and as of one of the most important factors in any new baby’s life- it saddens me when I still hear of friends who have endured hours of worry because of the unhelpful guidance they have received. Motherhood, especially the early weeks/moths, is such an anxious time, even for people like me who claim that they didn’t used to be phased by much.. the feeling of responsibility is so great that you just want to ensure that you always do the best for your baby. Charlie and the ‘Healthy Child Company’ helped James and I immensely and for that I am eternally grateful. Feeding sorted.. now on to the next thing to worry about…:)