The other day, I got out into the abnormally beautiful weather to walk over to a friend's house for a visit. Between the home owner, myself, and the other friend present, there were 5 kids rolling or running around, so things were a little hectic. But in between grilled cheese and diaper changes, we were able to manage a few snippets of conversation, and as it does when moms of babies are chatting, the subject turned.. to guilt. One mom of a three month old baby was talking about her breastfeeding challenges, mainly being supply issues, and how she's handled these issues differently than she did when she had her (now) four year old. "Back then", she said, "I refused to take domperidone. Did everything I could to get my supply going without it, and after a while, it worked. But this time, I don't have time to mess around with constant feeding and pumping and everything I did to keep going with my first, so I'm taking the drug. And I feel totally guilty about it, like I took the easy way out."
The easy way.
When I decided to stop fighting Avery to feed from the boob and just pump exclusively, I felt guilty. Guilty because I too felt like I was taking the easy way out. Yes, hooking myself up to a breast pump 6 times a day and constantly having to wash and fill bottles was "the easy way". When I said that to my friend, she looked at me like I had seven heads. "Yeah," she said. "That wasn't the easy way out."
Of course it wasn't. But it felt like it. And when she said she felt like she was taking the easy way by taking 6 tablets of domperidone a day, I knew exactly what she meant.
When it comes to kids, I'm starting to realize, there *is* no easy way. There's just the way that works for you and your family, the way that keeps everyone happy or at least alive and not mortally wounded at the end of each day.
Why is it that we think that unless we fight for it, unless we struggle and make life really hard for ourselves, that we've taken the easy way out? Is it really true that the only things worth having are those we have to fight for? Or have we just read too many motivational posters with kayaks at sunset?
For me, pumping was the easy way because it meant that every feed wasn't a screamfest. But it also meant giving up on getting my kid on the boob. I chose to give up the battle. Is the guilt over taking the "easy way" because I knew I'd never get that sense of accomplishment of getting her back on the breast? Would that truly have been an accomplishment, or was it a false goal, an "ideal" that I knew I would not reach by choosing to pump and therefore ended up putting it on a pedestal that it didn't deserve?
If we really want to talk about the "easy way", it sure wasn't pumping. The easy way would have been for my kid to latch perfectly and eat straight from the source from Day 1. There wouldn't have been bottles and screaming and endless pumping and bottle washing and agonizing over supply. And for my friend, the easy way would have been, well, basically the same thing - easy latch, easy supply, easy feeding, happy mom, happy baby. But we all know that nothing with a child is ever "easy". We do what we have to do to feed our kids, and to get them to sleep, and to keep them warm, and whatever else it takes to raise them in to happy, healthy, lovable people.
So maybe we all need to give ourselves a break over taking what we perceive as the "easy way". Because odds are, it isn't the easy way in the first place - and even if it is, we should probably thank our lucky stars that something in life is easy, for a change.
4 things to say:
I think the easy way is an illusion. I think there are often trade-offs and difficult decisions, but I don't think it is ever (or at least not very often) between the easy way and the hard way. What is easiest today might be harder long term. What is harder today, might be easier long-term. What is easy might be what is best. What is harder might be what is best. Sometimes we know, sometimes we don't know.
One of the most important things, I think, for new mothers to learn is to take what works for you and leave the rest. It is the intro mantra at any LLL meeting, but I think can be applied to parenting in general. If we listen to what others have done or what others think is best all the time and let ourselves feel guilty about it, it will consume us. But if we can listen and learn, take away best practices, but also disregard the things that just won't work for us, our baby, or our family, I think we would all feel a lot less guilt.
Easier said than done, I know.
So true. I consider the easy way to be relative to us all. What's easy to one mom is hard to another... I guess that can be applied to life in general. Great post!
This post had me thinking back on my own breastfeeding issues, the 6x/day Domperidome doses and pumping like crazy.
I felt guilty (and like a failure) when I had to start supplementing with formula.
Sometimes the easy way means reaching a point where you stop banging your head against the wall trying to make something work that just isn't working (no matter how hard you try).
It's all about doing what's best for you and your baby. :) Great post - thanks for sharing your experiences.
Your post really resonated with me. I have to admit that I have always felt quilt about feeding my kids. When the nursing didn't work with my 1st and 2nd child I felt guilty for feeding them formula (and taking the easy way out, I often told myself I should have and could have tried harder). Now I am nursing my 3rd child and I worry that I am not doing it right, that he nurses all the time because he isn't getting enough... I need to relax, its hard though.
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