I met this gorgeous young family when their little guy was a newborn! When his pretty Mumma asked me 6 months later for a Breastfeeding photography session, I was just so excited. I was a breastfeeding Mumma too, when my boys were young, and I wish I had a photo session like this!
Not everyone wants to document breastfeeding. It’s not always easy in society, but it’s normal. It’s natural. Feeding your baby, however you feed them, whoever feeds them, is normal.
Breastfeeding is hard work. Bottle feeding is hard work. Having a newborn is hard work! For a breastfeeding Mumma, to hand over your body to your infant, for days, weeks, months, even years – it’s gruelling. It’s exhausting. It’s amazing. It’s the best thing ever. It can be horrid. It can be painful and nasty and defeating. It could be the most perfect thing you’ve ever done, and yet it can feel like a sheer battle at times. I struggled too, with my first, for weeks on end, trying to get it right. It didn’t come naturally. It wasn’t fun. There was a time I said to my husband, “just feed him orange juice! I don’t care!”…. (But I did care. It just wasn’t easy).
To persist with something, to give your body to someone, and to nourish your baby, all by yourself – I’d be pretty damn proud of me, too.
Bottle feeding or breast feeding – you’re feeding your baby. YOU. Your baby relies on you. So pat yourself on the back. Stop putting yourself down. Guys – support your woman in her choices. Girls – support your men when they bottle feed your baby. We’re all in it together.
Don’t lose yourself in the day to day struggles, in your ideals, in his choices, in your baby’s needs, for this too, shall pass.
(PS. I usually tell a story of my amazing clients and their photography session… but thisone you might not believe. It has something to do with a rainy, stormy afternoon. A horse paddock in the middle of nowhere. A party with amazing colourful floodlights, with very loud slow dancing music, in a horse paddock, in the middle of nowhere. A gorgeous little boy with long lashes. A beautiful new family of 3 (plus Ella-dog). A breastfeeding Mumma. A sleeping baby. A Photographer (me) with a sleeping baby in her arms while Mum and Dad dance in light rain, in a horse paddock in the middle of nowhere, in the dark. And a little bit of “them” time, when they realised they were also him+her, not just mum+dad).
The rest is not history. The rest is memories xoxo
