Even before I gave birth, I knew that I wanted to exclusively breastfeed my baby. After a surgery to remove fibroids followed by infertility, it felt like my body had been failing me at every turn, and breastfeeding was the least it could do. This was my chance for something to go according to plan — for my body to finally perform the way it was “supposed” to. I’d be damned if I let anything get in my way.
And I didn’t. In the three years since I gave birth, my baby has turned into quite the vivacious toddler, and I’m starting to reexamine the ways I approached breastfeeding. Exactly why was I so stubborn about it? I’m grateful for the experience and proud of what my body accomplished, but if there’s a next time, I want to figure out how to be gentler to myself.
As a Black mom, I certainly felt like I had something to prove. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that rates of breastfeeding “duration and exclusivity” are 10% to 20% lower among Black infants, compared with white infants. This means that Black babies are less likely to breastfeed compared with other racial and ethnic groups.
Ymani Blake, maternal health advocate, doula, and founder of Indigo Road Collective in Chicago, has a few theories as to why.
“Even though I believe the Black maternal health landscape is shifting, Black moms often don’t have the support or resources to breastfeed the way they are anticipating,” she told me. She cites the fact that most parents in the United States are going back to work one to two months after birth as a huge factor deterring breastfeeding, not to mention a detriment to postpartum healing and bonding. “We are also experiencing trauma during pregnancy and birth at alarming rates,” she says, “which makes it difficult to focus on anything other than just surviving the experience. Culturally, I think we are beginning to have more conversations around normalizing breastfeeding because it’s actually something that we’ve always done, despite the narrative that claims we don’t want to.”
I’m not sure where, when or how this narrative that Black women don’t breastfeed began, but I know I was on a mission to prove whomever started it wrong. And to me, breastfeeding was not only a form of resistance but also resilience. I thought of how enslaved Black women were forced to nurse and nurture the children of their enslavers, and held my daughter tight — cherishing the special bond we got to develop while I fed her.
We’re told over and over that breastfeeding has health benefits for babies and nursing parents and I told myself that if “breast was best,” then I had to provide my baby the best at all times and by any means necessary, even at the detriment of my own mental health and well-being. As an anxious person turned anxious mom, I took all of the “shoulds” and “supposed tos” of new parenthood to heart. I remember one late night (or early morning, who’s to say exactly?) when my husband was practically pleading with me to let him give Violet a bottle. I’d been pumping to build up a freezer stash (another “supposed to”), but I was fearful that if she had a bottle, she would reject me and our breastfeeding journey would be over shortly after it began. (Just Google “nipple confusion” to see what I mean.)
And while my dedication to breastfeeding may have partly come from concerns about my baby’s and my health and well-being, it was probably more about not wanting to seem like a Bad Mom. Intellectually, I knew that fed was best, but mentally and emotionally, there was more going on. After all, everyone and their mama (literally) touts “breast is best,” and I feared judgment.
I’m grateful for the experience and proud of what my body accomplished, but if there’s a next time, I want to figure out how to be gentler to myself.
My initial goal was to exclusively breastfeed for six months, per the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation — or at least that’s what I told people. Secretly, I knew I wanted to do it for a full year given all of the benefits breast milk has for babies (and, selfishly, to prove that I could do it). But when the AAP changed its guidance from the recommended one year of breastfeeding to two in the summer of 2022, I settled in for the long haul.
Within a few months of our daughter starting day care, though, that freezer stash I’d spent months building was gone. I thought I could keep pumping the equivalent of what she was consuming on a daily basis, but I was wrong, and we ran through the milk quickly.
I was frantic with my husband, Jeff. “I can set an alarm to pump every two hours overnight. I can power pump the next day and run the additional bottles to the school.”
“Stop,” he said lovingly, holding both of my shoulders and looking me in my eyes. “You’ve done enough.”
I wish I had started weaning then, but once again, my pride was getting in the way. There was also fear: Given our arduous journey to get pregnant, my anxiety convinced me we wouldn’t be able to conceive again. This would probably be my first and last chance at breastfeeding. And even if we were blessed to have another child, there was no guarantee our feeding journey would be the same. I wanted to hold onto this as long as I could.
I felt a lot of dread around what our last feeding session might look like — would I know? Would I be sad later? — but by the time December rolled around, 26 months after Violet was born, we were both done, and to my surprise, there were no tears from either of us. We were ready.
When I asked Ymani Blake whether it was possible to do what I did, but in a more gentle way, she assured me it was: “Even though breastfeeding can be a beautiful journey, that doesn’t mean that you need to sacrifice yourself for it. … Postpartum is a roller coaster ride where you will encounter so much joy and sometimes deep disappointment. No matter where you are or what you decide to do, please be gentle with yourself. You deserve the same support and care that you’re lovingly giving to your child.”
As parents, it can feel natural to put basically everyone and everything above our own needs, but it wasn’t until I became a mom did I understand the importance of putting yourself first — your mental health, your physical health, your emotional health, all of it. If tending to yourself means ending your breastfeeding journey earlier than you expected, that doesn’t make you a bad mom. Quite the contrary, it makes you a damn good mom.
L’Oreal Thompson Payton is a Chicago-based author, award-winning journalist and motivational speaker. Her debut book, Stop Waiting for Perfect: Step Out of Your Comfort Zone and Into Your Power, is a must-read manifesto for high-achievers.
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