Because I had the caesarean, the problem was I think, was that we weren't able to feed sitting up, so a lot of the feeding was had to be done lying down, and I don't think I was ever taught how to do that properly [Pause]. Sorry do you want to?

So let's just.

Talk about those problems…

Yeah.

…how they started? Well I think I first realised that I was having problems was when my nipples started to get sore and this was possibly around day four after the birth, and then I came home from hospital.

So your milk had come in by then?        

Yeah. And I suppose again I didn't really understand what was a good latch, was it, was he suckling well? I just didn't understand these things were explained to me but some, for some reason it just wasn't going in my head. So they started to get really sore, a number of midwives that came through to see me were showing me different positions, how to feed, I mean by that time I could sit on the sofa etcetera, but he just seemed to be, every time he was latching on it was so painful, and I suppose by day six it was excruciatingly painful that I'd started to dread each feed. Every time he cried I used to think, 'Oh my goodness, oh no he's going to want to be on me again and it's so painful'.

And was that pain right through the feed?

Oh yes absolutely from the moment he clamped on, I understood that people said, “Oh it might be a little bit painful to start with 'cause they're a bit sore and you haven't breastfed before so, you know, it will go” but it never went within the feed it just was dreadful to be quite honest and I knew then that I've, if I was going to continue I had to seek help.

Okay, and so the midwives showed you lots of different positions? Anything else in the hospital, that may or may not have helped?

My problem was and I know a lot people won't want to acknowledge it, my problem was is that I didn't feel that all the midwives were singing from the same song sheet. A lot of them had different positioning, different theories, different attitudes, and it's very difficult I think then to know which is the right thing to do, what is the best advice to follow to be quite honest.

How did you cope with that, maybe conflicting advice?

When you get lots of different advice sometimes you think, 'Well I'll try them all and then the best one for me I'll stick with', but of course once it's breastfeeding, it's very difficult because you constantly try one idea like a rugby ball position, or trying him under you, trying lying down, and you just think, 'Well this is so confusing, I'm getting confused, he must be getting confused, he's not latching on right' and because of the nature of needing to feed a child they're not happy they need to latch on and it should be the most comforting thing for them and it wasn't like that so, it's very difficult to then know which is the best thing to do. It's very hard.

So you went regularly to the hospital, daily…

Daily sometimes, yeah.

…to get help? What sort of things was that counsellor doing?

She was, the breastfeeding counsellor I went to see at the hospital who helped me and said, “We will get there” helps so many women because it's that whole thing of you're all there together, there might be, she might see up to seventeen a day that come in to her drop-in centre, we're all there, we've all got similar problems, I mean mine declined so bad I was eventually then on nipple shields which I knew was, it was the only way to just keeping going 'cause otherwise I, I would have given up. But the fact that she was able to help me get off those, the fact that she was there at the end of the line that I could ring her and say, “Look it's gone pear-shaped today, I don't know what to do” and she would just say, “Well I'm down another hospital so do you want to come see me this afternoon? I've got a gap I can see you then” I think I had the support from my breastfeeding counsellor because she knew that I was so determined to make it work, and it was an investment, and she invested a hell of lot of her time for me and I couldn't have done it without her, I really couldn't.

So you went there, you talked to the other women, you fed, did she…

Yeah.

…help you latch on?

Yeah, absolutely, you know, I would go there, I would go to the hospital around ten o'clock in the morning for his mid-morning feed, and I will wait for the breastfeeding counsellor to turn up and I would say, “Can you please help me get him on? Today I'd like to try continuing this position” my problem I think was that I saw the achievement in breastfeeding was to be breastfeeding sitting up. I didn't realise again that actually in order for him to have a really good chance at the breastfeeding getting established, that actually the easiest position for him might be lying down. And a lot of women turn around and said, “Oh I can't be lying down, I can't be lying on the couch in the supermarkets, or in Marks & Spencer's, you know, feeding a baby” and you think, 'Well no but what it means is, is it means if you've got to stay at home a little bit longer to feed your child whilst the breastfeeding is getting better then that's what we will do, eventually, hopefully I will be able to breastfeed sitting upright in a chair so that I can do it outside wherever we go'. But it was a long process and it was a long process of seeing the breastfeeding counsellor to try these positions out, but to be able to try them out over a long period of time in the day not just somebody coming to the house and just saying, “Well you could feed him like this” and then going. It was the constant repetition and the learning and watching how he latched on. Even down to things like needing a little face towel to prop your boob up a bit, all these little techniques, you know, I learnt there really, which I could then use on the weekend or when I came home.

So when I came home I could learn what I, so when I came home I could put into practice what I'd learnt at the hospital that day with the breastfeeding counsellor and hopefully that would get me through the night or it would get me through the weekend. The clinics, the open clinic were run on a Monday and a Friday, my breastfeeding counsellor agreed to see me if I had lots of problems in the week I think because she knew that I was so determined not to give up. And that went on I'd say till he was about four months old, when he was four months old, when the baby was four months old, that's when we had a real decline in weight and there was one last position that [breastfeeding counsellor] showed me, sorry. When the baby was four months old he had lost a lot of weight again and wasn't gaining at the rate that the other health professionals were happy with, so one last position was showed to me by the breastfeeding counsellor. As the baby was big enough I would feed him sit, he would sit next to me and I'd sit upright and latch on like that and thank goodness he put loads of weight on, he put enough weight on then for us to actually get to six months to be able to then start weaning him on the baby rice, and I think that was when all the breastfeeding got better because I'd stopped then having to go to the hospital to see the breastfeeding counsellor on such a regular basis. But I would say I kept going to see her once or once every two weeks up until he was around nine months old.