‘I lied that I breastfed for months’

Kimberley van Heiningen (29) lives with Kevin and is (bonus)mum of Norah (5) and baby Jackie. Every Tuesday she writes about motherhood and everything that comes with it. This week about stopping breastfeeding and the momshaming from himself.

I had prepared myself for the fact that I wouldn’t come out of the battle completely unscathed. A tiger stripe here, a tea bag there. I had thought that the postpartum body would not be a temple for a while. Mine craving for giant marrowbones has undoubtedly contributed to, as a colleague who had just given birth said, ‘the ruins of what my body once was’.

Slosh sockets

What I hadn’t included in my expectation management is the hormonal shitholes I since the arrival of The Baby. Thierry Mugler’s Aliennot the subtlest perfume, my ‘eau barely mask the hot flash. Wet-snowing outside, I’m still warm in my short sleeves. I quickly find myself in subtropical atmospheres, so to speak.

The same goes for the beautician. Maybe it’s the steam device that has been blowing my pores open for ten minutes on tornado setting (and I think I had booked a relaxing treatment) but I’m scorching hot. ‘Oh yes, those hormones,’ she reassures me. “You’re definitely breastfeeding.”

Shame

It falls silent for a moment. Shall I just hum in agreement from under the vapor? Squeeze a resounding “yes” out of my mouth? Or honestly say that after six weeks I ‘already’ threw in the towel? And the breast pump just not out the window? “Just stopped,” I lie. I’m a bit ashamed: for my hormones that apparently should have been less present – so without a baby on the breast – but especially for the formula my daughter has been getting for almost 4.5 months.

Strangely enough, I hadn’t worried about that for a moment. Does it work, nice. If it doesn’t work, she will grow to the same size with the bottle. I am living proof. I would continue there not being too difficult about it and certainly not letting myself be guided by other mothers and what they would or would not think of it.

Berta 66

But then Jackie was there, breastfeeding got off to a damn slow start and suddenly I had a little voice in my head that sounded deafening. That the best mothers breastfeed. Total nonsense, I had never looked at a girlfriend who gave up, but it was apparently different for myself. I pumped badly and felt more and more Bertha than just Kim, who had also become a mother.

I listened to the well-meaning advice. To try again. To stop. Not to listen to the advice but to my own feeling. And so it took me six weeks to take the plunge.

Mom shaming

Since then I feel the relief every day. For her – on bottle feeding she grows like cabbage – but also for me. The freedom to come and go as I please, as far as that goes with a baby, makes me a much nicer mother.

And yet… in the treatment chair suddenly the shame kicks in. Why? Not the beautician, but me momshamed just myself. Stupid! Especially when she answers honestly: ‘How clever, I thought it was a bit spicy’. I leave the salon with a blush of shame on my cheeks, even warmer than when I entered.

87% of mothers in the Netherlands have to deal with mom shaming, according to research by Kek Mama. The editors found this so shocking that they started a campaign: Kek Mama launches mombracing, the counterpart of momshaming, and calls on all mothers to support each other instead of criticizing from now on.

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