It’s World Breastfeeding Week! To celebrate, each day this week I’m going to have a breastfeeding-related post.
When Maia first arrived, I wore a hair elastic on my wrist to indicate which side she had last nursed from. During each nursing session, whenever she delatched for one reason or another, I studiously swapped her to the other breast.
After a week, I stopped paying as much attention to which side she had last nursed from. I’d forget to switch my elastic to the other wrist, or take it off for a shower and never put it back on. To figure out which breast to feed her from, I’d just choose whichever one felt heavier. I was too damned exhausted, physically and mentally, to worry excessively about which boob to put her on. Also, at about the one month mark or so, we swapped to doing “cluster feedings”, which is when I nurse her on one side only for a certain amount of time — ie, any time within a two hour timeframe that she wants to eat, I put her on the same boob, and then for the next two hours, I put her on the other — because it helped quite a bit with her gassiness.
Well, now, twenty four? twenty five? weeks later… I have one BIG boob and one smaller one. Fortunately, she doesn’t seem to show a preference for one or the other all the time, although there are some feedings where she will simply refuse to nurse from one side — but I think that’s just her being picky.
I’m totally thrilled with the size of the big one… now if only the other one would catch up.
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From what I hear, this is totally common. In fact, totally common for women to have different sized breasts, period. Not just due to breast feeding. I had this issue when breastfeeding–not to the point that it was noticeable to everyone, but I could sure tell. Everything pretty much went back to “normal” when I stopped breastfeeding. Exercise and wearing a bra 24/7 helped keep the girls in pretty good shape
I can so relate to this. I was unable to breastfeed, but I’m still lopsided. Lovely.
Uneven boobs – the sign of motherhood. sigh.
I am loving your series on Breastfeeding. What a great idea! Keep up the good work.
And I can totally relate to chucking the nursing elastic band. I thought I would be ambitious and do a log for dirty diapers and breastfeeding when “Baby” was born. I think it last a day.
~ humps