I took a break from my nursing series to over-work myself, but wanted to share the rest of my experiences in case anyone is interested. You can read the older posts here (part 1), here (part 2) and here (part 3).
After the first few weeks of getting used to nursing, attempting to get rest and mentally adjusting to being a full-time mom, things started to get a bit easier.
Nursing became a wonderful chance to sit and relax and, hopefully, allow Joaquin to drift off to sleep. For the first three months or so, nursing was still a long process that occurred at least 8 times a day, several of which occurred in the wee hours of the night.
The hardest parts about continuing to nurse at this point were:
(1) Hearing stories about friends' babies that were already sleeping through the night on formula;
(2) Wearing atrocious nursing bras all the time;
(3) Wearing even more atrocious nursing pads under those nursing bras; and
(4) (most importantly) Feeling like I could not go anywhere for any extended period of time (read: more than 2 hours) without the baby.
All I can say about these things to those of you contemplating continuing or starting nursing is that, while they are annoying, they are really not that big of a deal compared to the health benefits you will be providing to your baby. Additionally, later on you will really start to enjoy nursing and be glad (for selfish reasons) you stuck with it.
The part about having a two hour "leash" is tough to get used to. Things like going to yoga or spending quality time with friends were put on the back burner. I'm not sure that this was truly necessary though. I was afraid of giving Joaquin a bottle because I didn't want to mess with not-quite-yet-smooth nursing. In retrospect, a bottle hear and there probably would not have done much harm and would have given me a little bit more "me" time.
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