This Wilderness Our Home

How three feeding journeys reshaped what I thought I knew about motherhood

Part 2 of the From Milk to Meals series — the story of how each baby taught me something new about feeding, patience, and trust.

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By the time I started feeding my third baby, I thought I knew what to expect.

But milk has a way of teaching you humility.

Each of my babies had their own rhythm — and each time, I had to learn it from the beginning.

🌸 My First — The Gentle Start

My first was born at 7 pounds, 1 ounce, and lost almost a full pound in those first few days.

He was tiny and so sleepy — the kind of baby who could nap through anything, even a meal.

Before he was born, I’d taken a breastfeeding class at a local baby store that doubled as a community hub for new parents — part education, part connection.

I’d also read about preparing the breasts ahead of time and tried what was called the towel method — a gentle warm-towel massage meant to help circulation and readiness. Whether it made all the difference or not, I remember feeling more aware and confident when my milk came in.

After birth, we joined breastfeeding meetings at our doctor’s office, led by a certified lactation consultant. Those sessions taught me how to keep him awake, what a real swallow looked like, and how to trust that slow, steady rhythm of nourishment.

His weight came back gradually — ounce by ounce — but he was healthy, calm, and content. He hit every other milestone right on time. I didn’t yet know how fragile that balance was, and maybe that unknowing let me rest a little easier.

🌿 My Second — The Familiar Challenge

My daughter arrived at 7 pounds, 3 ounces, and, like her brother, dropped nearly a pound soon after birth.

She latched easily but had the same sleepy tendencies — nursing well for a few minutes, then drifting off before she’d had enough.

It became a familiar pattern: slow gain, long nights, and the occasional bout of mild mastitis that reminded me how much of motherhood is learned through discomfort.

She wasn’t fussy — just comfortable — and that made it harder to notice how slow her pace really was.

Even so, she grew steadily and met her milestones.

That season taught me that progress doesn’t always look like forward motion.

Sometimes it’s quiet and gradual, showing up in contentment instead of charts.

🌼 My Third — The Lesson in Patience

Then came my third — born at 7 pounds, 14 ounces.

He dropped to 6 pounds, 14 ounces before we left the hospital and seemed to yo-yo from there, gaining and losing a few ounces at a time.

He was strong — really strong — rolling from front to back at two months and holding his head high with ease. There was no tension or stiffness, just determination.

But even with all that strength, he wasn’t efficient at milk transfer.

This time, the tone around us felt different.

The doctors weren’t just observing — they were tracking.

It wasn’t unkind, just procedural.

More policies, more numbers, more checkpoints.

Even though they had the history from my other two — the slow but steady patterns — the focus had shifted to measurable results.

It wasn’t about flow anymore; it was about progress that could be charted.

We brought in a private lactation consultant, began triple feeding — nurse, bottle, pump — and added pediatric physical therapy for oral coordination and endurance. The therapy wasn’t corrective; it was supportive, helping him use all that early strength more efficiently.

I had the milk — but not yet the rhythm.

In those early weeks, I couldn’t stay ahead of him. I’d nurse, feed him the pumped milk, and then pump again, trying to create just enough of a cushion to be ready for the next round.

There were nights I lay in bed, pump parts drying on a towel beside me, thinking, I should know how to do this by now.

I’d done this twice. Why was it so hard again?

The truth is, I couldn’t bridge the gap alone.

He wanted more than I could give in the time it took to cycle through nursing, pumping, and feeding.

So we supplemented — not because I didn’t have milk, but because I couldn’t stand the crying while he waited.

I won’t pretend I didn’t cry too.

That choice didn’t mean I failed him; it meant I chose peace for both of us.

For me, formula made me question my body for a moment — and that stung, because milk wasn’t the issue. But it was what we needed for my mental health and for his calm.

That’s the truth I want to leave here:

I don’t care how you feed your baby.

Nursing can be amazing, tough, rewarding, beautiful, painful, and heartbreaking — sometimes all in the same day.

Not everyone is able, and not everyone wants to. I may not understand every choice, but it isn’t my business to.

A fed, content baby and a supported mom — that’s the right outcome.

However you get there.

🧠 What Milk Taught Me

No two babies will ever feed the same way — even with the same mother, in the same home, under the same roof.

Milk taught me flexibility, humility, and grace — not the kind found in books, but the kind that shows up when you’re doing the same thing for the tenth time at 3 a.m., still hoping it works better this round.

It taught me that feeding isn’t about performance; it’s about connection.

It’s about meeting your baby where they are — and meeting yourself there too.

🌿 Takeaway

Looking back, I can trace the lessons clearly:

My first taught me trust.

My second taught me persistence.

My third taught me surrender.

Each baby drew something different from me.

Each feeding season built another layer of patience.

And together, they formed the foundation that every meal — every act of nourishment — will stand on.

📱 Helpful Tools for Tracking Feeds

If you like having gentle structure while you find your rhythm, a few apps can make early tracking easier — especially in those foggy, sleepless days when minutes blur together:

Huckleberry — easy, visual logs for feeds, diapers, and naps; grows with your baby into sleep tracking.

Baby Connect — customizable tracking with graphs and exportable logs if you like data.

Glow Baby — intuitive, colorful interface that helps track pumping sessions and ounces at a glance.

Notes app or whiteboard — sometimes the simplest method is still the best.

No sponsorships here — just real tools that can help you see your progress when everything feels like a blur. Note: I used Huckleberry a lot through the early weeks.

🪶 Author’s Note

This reflection is part of This Wilderness Our Home, a series about motherhood, meals, and the quiet lessons hidden in the everyday work of feeding.

However you feed your baby — nursing, pumping, supplementing, or formula — every ounce given in love is part of the story.