A painful affair or a love affair?

Breastfeeding is a bonding activity that only mother and child gets to feel. No fathers would understand that special kind of bond. That was what I thought initially until when your nipple feels as if it cracked due to an hour long of suckling, which the child only wants to suckle on for comfort and not for milk.

This is what that is happening with Jaden lately. He will only suckle on for comfort till he falls asleep but he refuses to let me go. Once I pull myself away from him thinking he is fast asleep, he wakes up, sits up and starts crying! and when he cries, he cries non stop till there is a toy to distract him and by that time, hes already wide awake and wants to play for another hour or so before he feels sleepy again. How la like that to keep sane without the beauty sleep that I require? *Grin* (not to say i pretty until need to maintain.. boleh tengok dah boleh! ahahahhha)

What I do now is I feed him an hour before bed time or half hour before his bed time with the rice cereals and formula milk. Make sure he is at least half full or 3/4 full.. then before he sleeps, he will suckle on for awhile until he feels that he has enough (which is usually less than 20 minutes) and he will sleep till like 6 or 7 in the morning. YAY! Mission accomplish. Boleh tidur lebih now compared to waking up every hour to feed him, hear him struggle and cry a while before he sleeps back... Hopefully he will continue to do so and better still, sleep till 8 or 9 in the morning. Can't wait for him to sleep straight for 7 or 8 hours now.

So is breastfeeding a painful activity? I will say, well.. it all comes down to the baby. Whether if he/she decides to bite your nipple just to see your reaction and sadistically laughed when you cringed and cry out in pain or whether he/she just wants to suckle on for comfort (read :- 1 hour or longer) and refuse to let you go, then its a painful affair. Other than that, I have no complains. I love the bond shared between us Mother and Son.