You Don’t Get an Opinion!

I had some trouble getting my son to breastfeed. My husband mentioned to my FIL that we would be going to a lactation consultant the next day. His exact words to that were, “I don’t know why she needs to see a lactation consultant. There are two women walking around with tits in this house that could help.” Meaning my mom and MIL. First of all, my mom did her best to help me breastfeed. She used to be a L&D nurse and breastfed all four of her children, but she’s not a trained lactation consultant. She helped me the best she could. Second of all, MIL never breastfed any of her children. So she’s not someone I would ever take breastfeeding advice from. What does she know? Third of all, just because someone has a certain body part, doesn’t mean they know how to use it. Just like with FIL, he has an ass but he keeps using it wrong because his head is always in it.

When my husband and I later had the big confrontation that would either make or break our relationship with the in-laws, I told him that what he said was rude and disrespectful. He immediately got on his son for telling me what they had talked about. Sorry dude, but his loyalties lie with me, not you. When someone offends me, my husband will be offended too. FIL then turned it on me and said, “Well you’re the first woman I have known that didn’t go to her mother to learn how to breastfeed.” I don’t know how many new breastfeeding women he’s been around but if I were his wife, I would be concerned since, like I said before, she never breastfed. That was his way of cutting me down as a mother and a woman. I told him that my mother did try to help me quite a bit but because he wasn’t invited to my nursing sessions, he didn’t see my mom trying to physically put my breast in my son’s mouth.

When we went to the lactation consultant, we realized there was no way I could have breastfed without her help. My son didn’t know how to open his mouth wide enough and he needed a nipple shield for the first month until he learned to eat the right way. So really, there was NO way the “two women with tits” in my house could have helped me.