Why indeed.
This was a question posed by the parentcraft class tutor, and meant to be rhetorical. Almost six weeks on, cubling is still exclusively breastfed, but I feel like whopping the tutor with a good few reasons.

1. It hurts. Ah, I can hear all you NCT gurus, breastfeeding counsellors, midwives, health visitors and government spies screaming that oh no, it shouldn't hurt and if it does, you need to work on your positioning and attachment. Right. Worked on that for six weeks, got the "you're doing it beautifully" from everyone and it still fecking hurts. I no longer have bleeding nipples, that's right, but the friction caused by strong sucking action of babymouth still has me in agony.

2. It is time consuming. Big time. You don't know how much time. It's surreal, really.
Cubling feeds every 2 hours and a half, if I'm lucky. She feeds for an hour. Most of this time, she doesn't really feed but just suckle away without swallowing, but midwives told me to let her come off herself. And that takes at least an hour each sitting. This is followed by burping, entertaining her for half an hour, then frantically trying to calm her as she won't sleep, and time for the next feed. At the moment, there is almost no time for anything but baby. This includes no time for cooking healthy meals, drinking enough water, going to the loo, and above all, blogging. Little wonder rates of Postnatal Depression are on the rise.

3. It means all is down to mum. Almost all anyway. No break ever. It's constant and makes me snap at my beloved constantly, begrudging his freedom to do all the things I can't do. The feeding and that just takes so much time and energy and there's no time for little rewards like getting away from it all for an afternoon.

4. The fear of not producing enough milk is constant.

5. As if feeding isn't enough, if you plan anything at all that involves being away from cubling for more than 90 mins, expressed milk has to be provided. Expressing takes even more time and is frustrating, slow, involves sterilising and all that hassle, often all for ridiculously meagre amounts (back to point 4).

6. It gives you an all body rash. Well, admittedly, not everyone will get that, but if you do, good heavens it's irritating. Ever not known where to scratch first? Ever happily scratched beyond the point of drawing blood?

Reasons why breastfeeding is good:

1. It shuts the crying up. Instantly and always. Boob out, nipple into cubling's mouth. Peace.
That's worth millions.

I'll continue breastfeeding then.