My Brest Friend

So breastfeeding is painful. Really very painful. It is supposed to get better, but I've heard that can take up to six weeks!!! It's enough to make you want to put a lock on your shirt until then.

The nurses in the hospital were good about showing us how to start out, but they definitely didn't tell us about anything we could do or use to help reduce the pain or make the experience more pleasurable (or less horrible!). The end result is that although we are breastfeeding, I've ended up with sore, cracked nips (sorry - tmi, but it's true!). I love the closeness of nursing though, and want to persevere.

I thought that it might help with the positioning and the latch if we got a better pillow. I had a recommendation from a friend for the My Brest Friend pillow, and it really is a fantastic tool.It is pretty lame looking - you strap it on around your waist, giving you the look of either a musician playing the steel drums or a planet being orbited, but it really does provide a terrific surface to position the baby on. It's very firm and apparently the #1 choice of lactation consultants. Much better than the slithering stack of pillows that I had been using!

I won't say it's not painful anymore, because it certainly is, but it helps to feel like we can do something to help a little bit! Also we are using Lanolin cream... I have a breast pump and some nip shields too, in case I need to take a break.