Coco Austin got the “breast is best” message loud and clear during her pregnancy with daughter Chanel, but it doesn’t seem she had a chance to read the fine print. As great as breastfeeding can be, it isn’t without its hardships!
“They told me breastfeed, breastfeed, breastfeed,” the 37-year-old shared with People magazine’s Mom Talk.
“But the first week, they were like, ‘The first week is hard, but once you make it over that first week, it’s going to be great.’ That first week my nipples were bleeding and scabbing over. I was like, ‘No one tells you that your nipples bleed!’ ”
Coco Austin previously bragged Chanel took to nursing like a “pro,” but when her and husband Ice T’s little one caught a cold things changed.
The proud mom explained to E! News, “[Chanel] is 6 months now, but for a good five months, she was great at breastfeeding. Just recently she got a little congested and, since then, it was hard for her to drink from my boob so I had to force the bottle in her mouth.”
“Now that it’s cleared up, she wants the bottle more, and it hurt my feelings. I’m seriously hurt by this! I’m doing whatever I can because now, she’s growing, so she needs more milk … so I have to go from breastfeeding to formula, breastfeeding to formula, but I wish she would want a little more of me.”
For me, the second experience Coco recalled here rings more true to the “nobody told me” line. As someone who thinks and writes about pregnancy and parenting daily, perhaps my awareness is skewed, but most often when people say “no one talks about” or similar sentiments I barely relate. Bleeding nipples falls into this category for me — between What to Expect When You’re Expecting and BabyCenter’s info (which I scoured every inch of long before joining the blog team), I was prepared for that unpleasantness.
However, I do empathize with the feeling of doing really great at breastfeeding and then suddenly things change.
I’d heard that it would be hard to start, and worried like crazy over getting the latch right. I knew about let down and leaking, engorgement and mastitis — but I didn’t know that once baby and I got the hang of things our groove could disappear. I thought that once we were good we’d be golden.
Turns out baby having a cold is a pain in the butt (and the boobs), just as Coco learned, and when they’re old enough to get distracted and whip their head around to look it’s a whole new ballgame. Oh, and let’s not forget teething. Kudos to all who stick through it, and an ‘I’m right there with you’ to those who get their babies fed by whatever means work best at that time.
Is there anything you didn’t know about breastfeeding that surprised you?
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More celebrity moms talk about their breastfeeding struggles:
"I had my heart set on breastfeeding, but I wasn't producing enough milk," Kelly Rowland told Parents magazine after welcoming her first child, a son named Titan. Sharing she eventually supplemented with formula, the singer added, "I got down on myself, which I think was mentally limiting my supply."
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"I did nipple shields, nipple guards, supplemental nursing system, it was horrible," Molly Sims said while opening up about trying to feed her son -- who was born with a tooth -- during an appearance on Anderson Live. "He was literally like a vampire on me for three months; it was unbelievable. Cut to: I'm not breastfeeding and I'm proud of it."
"When Brooks was born, my milk never came in, and I tried to breastfeed for three months," the model mom shared during another interview. "I felt awful and ashamed. I wanted to breastfeed because it’s so good for the baby, so I worked with a lactation specialist. After three months, she said, ‘You’re done. You don’t have any milk.’ I’ll try breastfeeding again, but if it doesn’t work, I won’t push it."
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"You feel guilty about every single thing, every decision you make, everything you do," Carrie Underwood told People while opening up about being a new mom to Isaiah.
When asked about breastfeeding the singer shared she was trying to keep it up for "as long as I can take it. It’s hard. My supply is pretty nil. We have to supplement with formula. I’m doing the best that I can, you know?"
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"I’m 10% breastfeeding now," Bethenny Frankel told Parade in 2010, when her daughter Bryn was 3 months old. "And I feel guilty about that and like a failure."
When Bryn was just a few weeks old, Bethenny revealed that breastfeeding was “the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life."
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"For me, I had to have a a breast reduction in my early 20s and at that time I couldn't even fathom having children," Ricki Lake explained while talking about her breastfeeding experience with The Stir.
"I was able to breastfeed but not solely, I had to supplement. I had to have a lactation specialist come to my home and help me. I could afford one, but it was not easy for me.
"I remember feeling disappointed, like my body failed me in some way. It was hard for me. With my second son in 2001, I had donated breast milk from people sent to me in weekly jars."
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"It went without saying that I would breastfeed my kid," Elisa Donovan told People in 2014.
"I was utterly and completely unprepared for the reality that I couldn’t do it. Not only was it not working, and excruciatingly painful for me beyond anything imaginable (yes, even beyond the pain of labour), I also realised that (wait for it, this is gonna be a doozy) … I HATED IT."
The actress went on to say, "Everyone is well aware of the benefits of breastfeeding, and there is a plethora of information out there in support of it. Yet there is zero info on what to do if you are one of those women who can’t — or who chooses not to."
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Una Healey talked latching troubles with baby two during a Hello! Magazine interview by sharing, "The day my milk came in I couldn’t get Tadhg to latch on."
The Saturdays singer went on to share, "I had a bit of a meltdown, sobbing, ‘It’s only been three days, I feel like such a failure.’ But I got a breast pump and expressed three ounces. The relief was incredible."
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"It was so hard. It became stressful because I really wanted to try and breastfeed him, me and Justin were up every hour of the night," Kimberley Walsh said while talking breastfeeding struggles as part of the AOL Original series, Being Mum.
"We would squeeze out the tiniest little bit of colostrum, syringing it into his mouth, just to try and give him what he needs. "
"I think there is so much pressure on women, breastfeed, breastfeed, breastfeed," the singer added. "I just didn't want to feel like I’d given up."
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"My boobs are killing me. I feel like my nipples are going to fall off," Snooki said in 2014, shortly after welcoming daughter Giovanna.
"With Lorenzo, I didn’t actually latch on. I just did the pump, so it didn’t hurt that bad,” she went on to elaborate. "But with Giovanna, I tired to latch on at the hospital and she latched on right away. So I said, ‘You know what? Let me just do this until I get my milk in and then I’ll just go straight to pumping, but Giovanna has been on my boob every single hour for the past four days, and my nipple is going to fall off. I can’t feel it! It’s so painful, but I gotta do what I gotta do because I feel like my breast milk is the best milk for my baby."
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Ali Landry saw her hopes of longterm breastfeeding disappear when her daughter was 10 months old.
"As a new mom, I was determined to ... nurse as long as possible, but when her teeth came in she started biting me," she explained.
"I talked to other moms, my doctor, and a lactation consultant in search of a solution, but nothing helped. I even tried hand-expressing my milk directly into her mouth, in a desperate hope that I could nurse without letting her little piranha teeth anywhere near me, but in the end, I decided it was time to wean."
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When asked about "breastfeeding mummies" during a concert, Adele took the opportunity to let her true feelings be known.
"You know what, the pressure on us is f--king ridiculous," the singer told the crowd.
She continued, "You can go f--k yourself, alright? Because it’s hard. Some of us can’t do it!…Some of my mates got post-natal depression from the way those midwives were talking. Idiots."
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