Leaking

There are some things that nothing can prepare you for, I thought labour would be at the top of my list. After hearing all the horror stories, reading almost all of the internet and attending plenty of classes, I was well prepared for labour and motherhood. Accepting that sleep deprivation was inevitable, I'd look like crap for months to come and chocolate would be my best friend, I thought I've got this.

Nothing however could prepare me for my body's ability to know exactly what my baby needed. This revelation came a week or two in, during the early hours whilst stood over her changing table for a nappy change, the strangest thing began to happen. As she began to cry I felt something wet dripping on my foot, half asleep and completely confused I looked down to see my breasts leaking!!! WTF?!?

I woke up the next day still a little bit confused about what on earth had happened, I once again turned to the Oracle that is Google and there I discovered that I wasn't broken it was purely a hormonal response to my daughters needs. Wow - mind blown. So if this was going to become a regular occurrence I decided it was probably a good idea to start wearing breast pads. I started with disposable ones not knowing how long I would be able to feed for, I had some Lansinoh ones which were great, nice and soft and super absorbent, once these ran out I grabbed some shop own brand ones - well what a huge mistake that was! I felt like I was rubbing sandpaper on my already sore breasts - ouch! No amount of Lanolin was protecting me against them so decided to go for some reusable "Close" ones. These were soft and super absorbent too so worth the money for 3 pairs all day long! I highly recommend in just investing in these from the outset if you want to try breastfeeding, your nipples are worth it.

I thought these pads would be the solution to the leaking, then one night during my ridiculous sleep deprivation phase I forgot to put my pad back in, got into bed and fell back to sleep. I woke up freezing cold and wet, I found myself in a puddle of milk this time she hadn't been crying so clearly my hormones were having a senile moment. I wish I could say I learnt my lesson, however i'm pretty sure this happened somewhere between 5-10times during my first 3 months of feeding. So there it is something that people don't prepare you for, leakage is real, accept it and plan for it! "https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0035\/1705\/5043\/articles\/Leakage.png?v=1535661217" } }