People think I’m nuts. I have two children, my daughter is now 16 months and my son is 15 weeks old, but that’s not why, it’s because I expressed fully to feed my daughter for 3 and a half months.

I never managed to get my daughter to latch on properly. I think this was more due to the fact I moved house within the first month of her life, my in-laws came over from France for a week when my daughter was 2 weeks old and my health visitor wasn’t exactly super. I never spent the time we needed to learn the art of breastfeeding. I am stubborn and still wanted my daughter to have my breast milk. Expressing for me was the easy option.

I only had to express 5 times in 24 hours including once through the night. My husband said the noise of the breast pump was like having a tractor driving through the room with us. You can buy or hire silent breast pumps but I was unaware of this at the time! I would advise anyone to buy or hire an electric pump and have a hand pump on standby. If I really wanted to annoy my husband I would wait until he was nice and relaxed watching one of his programs on tv and I would start up my tractor so he couldn’t hear a word!
There are positives and negatives to everything in life. My husband had the pleasure of being able to feed his daughter and had no excuse for not doing his share of the night feeds. Also, because I was expressing, he got to sterilise the bottles. However I couldn’t just whip out my pump in the middle of a restaurant.

With about 4 hours between expressing times, I managed to do whatever I wanted. Most high streets/shopping centers have mother and baby rooms. I have even found myself expressing leaning against a toilet sink in a wee cafe on the Royal Mile, with strict instructions for my husband to knock the door 3 times if a queue was forming or if you could hear my pump in the seating area!
So if breastfeeding isn’t working for you, you don’t have to automatically reach for the formula. No one will advise you to express fully, but I would ask why not as it can work and should definately be considered.