I was feeding on demand but she wasn’t gaining weight. I couldn’t stick to exclusive breastfeeding because sometimes she’d be crying for food within one to one-and-a-half hours. The kiddies doctor also said she was not severely underweight but still a bit under for her age and so I could maybe give her an extra feed. I started giving her an extra bottle [of formula milk] in the morning and in the afternoon. Now if she sees me she knows she’s getting milk from the boob but otherwise she takes the bottle happily.

I’ve learned when she’s hungry now: She wiggles around on me until she gets her head closer to my breast. It can get super funny – she goes crazy and behaves like she has rabies [laughs], then she’s totally happy when she latches. It was like that in hospital as well actually. I had an emergency caesarean section which means it’s not really possible to get up and down from your bed in those first days, so I couldn’t place her back in the crib. I just kept her with me and had pillow supports all around me. If I put her on my tummy she would wriggle, by herself, all the way up to my breast to feed.

My husband and I joined an antenatal class in preparation for her arrival. The class covered many topics. When it came to feeding, the advice was that it didn’t matter if you give your baby formula or breastfeed, you are still a good mom – but breastmilk is the best. They explained that breastmilk is always [nutrient] rich enough, a perfect product. I was happy to feed her but even on demand she didn’t put on weight, she picked up so slowly. Formula helped us.

It was a team effort in the beginning. I’d pump and my husband fed the milk to him. We needed to do that for quite a while until he understood how to drink straight from the breast. I made a device, like a broad elastic band with a clip and I cut two holes in it for the pumps to attach to the nipple – that way I could pump and have my hands free, lah lah lah [singing]. I’d even forget I was pumping until it overflowed [laughs]. It made all the difference because I was able to do other things at the same time.

I almost always expressed in private but once, at a weekend-away workshop I had to pump during lunch. I knew I could sit in the changing room but then I thought to myself that I knew all these people quite well, so I just switched on the pump and covered it partially with my jacket and joined lunch. I announced what I was doing and then everyone passed me food and things [laughs]. Mostly though, you really have to stand up for yourself. Like, “I’m just not making food in a toilet.”

Now we feed mostly just in the morning and evening. I’ll lie on my back with a pillow behind me and he just crawls all over me, then slurp! He sucks my nipple up and has his bum in the air and he just crawls all over; over my head, with his tummy in my face, playing in my hair – he makes the funniest moves to feed. He’s became totally experimental. I just lie there like his playground. This makes it very difficult to feed in public [laughs]. Once I held him upside down for ten to 15 seconds while he was drinking, so funny. If he can latch, then he can drink.  He loves that time he gets with me, I think.