If you need to and lose the supply for that feed you can always supplement and still be the best mum to the best people
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I should probably buy some not-cow-milk-based formula so I can give it to her without worrying over her maybe-maybenot milk allergy.
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The baby, she sleeps so good. We have done nothing, it’s all her.
Also: I just had an excellent women’s health physio postpartum appointment. I want you all to have one, and if you can’t do in-person safely there is a surprising amount they can help with just through Telehealth. Go do it. So, so validating. No OBs or GPs are looking properly at women’s vulvas etc at their 6 week postpartum check-up right now, and she doesn’t know why but she does know it wasn’t just my (expensive, private) OB being weird.
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This morning it kind of hit me that most of the postpartum haze and recovery is over for me! The big turning points for me mentally & physically were a big improvement in sleep at 4 months, reaching my main PT goals (pain-free joint movement) at 5 months, and starting daycare and deciding to stop pumping at 6 months. He still nurses a small bit 2x a day but DAMN it’s liberating to not be attached to a pump or pumping schedule now. Now I’m just regular-parent-tired, not recovering-from-birth tired.
I’m just shy of 8 months postpartum, which is roughly how long I was pregnant. The symmetry is interesting. I so appreciate all the advice and stories from this thread 
.
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Just coming back to this - I’m 4 months pp and saw my OB about some concerns I had. To him, 4 months is not fully recovered yet and we booked another follow up for 8 months pp if my concerns haven’t cleared by then.
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Really liked the Skimm’s bit on matrescence.
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I figured this was the right place…
Edit: it’s about parents who have postpartum mood disorders being much more likely to be very sensitive to sensory input, like scents etc
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Big “oh wow” here for me. One study I was part of when I was like 6 months PP was like “yeah sounds like you met screening criteria for PPD and/or PPA, please fill out this survey” and I was all “okay wish I had more details on that but cool, glad I’m better now, onward”. Meanwhile me over here wearing underwear with holes in them because I literally cannot handle the sensation of new underwear. (I’ve always been a little odd, but I was never anywhere near this bad before).
Aaaaanywho you gave me something significant to look into, ty.
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I don’t think any of my PPD/A screening asked anything about my sensory stuff, but this might prompt me to talk to my psych about it more. I still wouldn’t mind getting some kind of screening for highly-sensitive-ness, if such a thing exists.
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Wow! That’s so neat! And it makes total sense that if you’re sensory sensitive and then introduce a very demanding new human with lots of new noises and smells and sensations (letdown and being totally touched out) that it’d be really hard to take.
I’m going some trauma specific therapy focused around some perinatal trauma I experienced and the first step was learning some resourcing activities to help manage trauma responses while working through it. We ended up talking a lot about the things that helped me manage labor including essential oils and hot water and breathing and I’ve been breaking some of my labor practices out to cope, sounds like some of the same goals.
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I wish I had this info when I was postpartum! Glad someone out there is doing research like this.
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I think my hormones are cycling now but no periods yet? 11 months postpartum. Last full term pregnancy took ~15 months before period arrived. But what’s throwing me is I’m getting (incredibly mild but obviously there) cramps about once a month without bleeding. Quite rude of my body. It’s been happening for a couple of months.
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That is really interesting. With both of my pregnancies I got my period back at 6 months postpartum, when I started introducing solids to the baby. Of course I didn’t know it the first time until I got a positive pregnancy test 
Period returned in May, 14 months PP.
Also fun fact: early pregnancy symptoms from your first trimester may become your postpartum pre-warning period symptoms. I now am faintly nauseous for a week leading up to it and will vomit in my mouth once or twice. Huzzah. I think this faded after a year from return of period after Duckling but not sure.
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Is breastfeeding ALWAY impossibly difficult and complex? For everyone? Is that what I should expect?
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No, but you should do a course of some sort to be prepared because it does always involve learning. My mum, for instance, did not have much trouble, but she also had close experience with observing other animals nurse and watching her mum feed her sisters only a few years before I was born. Pumpkin was very easy to nurse, but I’d already learn my side of how to nurse while feeding Duckling, and if she’d been my first I would have only needed to learn a few holds, depth of latch and a couple different methods of burping. I had almost no pain from nursing (but I did have “afterpains” which are the cramps from my uterus contracting to stop the bleeding and heal). Nipples were fine. A small amount of that was because I had nursed one baby already. But another part was her mouth and latch was a lot bigger, there was absolutely a difference between my newborns.
Eta sorry for half a dozen edits i kept thinking of how to explain why it was different
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No, some people have a pretty easy time of it, but like so much else in parenting you don’t really crow your easy wins out of kindness for those it was harder on. It is a skill though, for both you and baby. A class is a very good idea. Even having shadowed an LC in nursing school and having plenty of friends who BF kids by then, I think it’s the single best piece of birth prep I did probably. Helps for “tricks” and norms to expect and when to know to get help and stuff.
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No, but when it goes perfectly mom code is to not talk about it around other moms. We all hit this wall where everything is too hard, and my easy thing could be your impossible hill.
Also first vs second matters a lot. My first was harder because while that kid was better at nursing at a week than this one is at eleven weeks, my body had issues, I was to track how often and how long he nursed, I didn’t know what was normal and they closed all the lactation clinics and stuff a few weeks beforethe rest of the world closed.
So with number one I was in agony, because with both kids I had clogged ducts from before they were born and I didn’t know if it was a clogged duct or how to treat it until it was mastitis, and then things were easy. Wear snd tear on the nipples was also worse because he was in agony and throwing up , both leading to extra nursing, plus newbie nipples.
With child two, it has been easy and straightforward. I identified his food intolerance in the first week. I had normal - sore nipples not I am dying sore. And the clogged ducts were awful but short lived and I knew what to do and who to call. It helps a lot that any medical professionals just ask me if he drinks well at feeds, and no one is optimizing anything
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How do your ducts even get clogged BEFORE a baby is born. Wow
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My clogged duct felt like a weird hard raft inside my boob. Started as a worrying pressure and started getting painful as mastitis set in. ETA this was When Latte was like 1.5? And started nursing way less suddenly. I nursed her until a little over 2 years old.
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