When breastfeeding challenges are discussed, the focus is usually clinical.

How much does baby weigh?

What centile are they on?

How many feeds in 24 hours?

How long are they feeding for?

How many wet nappies?

The questions and assessments keep coming.

This is exactly how I used to lead breastfeeding conversations when I worked as a midwife. I was thorough, data-led, clinically sound. And then I became a mum who experienced breastfeeding challenges herself and everything changed.

Now, I rarely start with those questions.

I want to know:

What are your feeding goals?

Is this plan actually working for you?

How is feeding affecting your mental health?

Does this feel sustainable?

Because breastfeeding difficulties aren’t just about milk transfer, weight charts, or centiles. They’re about feelings and those feelings are still not talked about enough.

My Story: a Sudden Shift in Motherhood

My second baby, Joss, was labelled with all the terms parents dread hearing: faltering growth, slow weight gain, failure to thrive, depending on who I was speaking to.

He was born weighing 4.4kg, well above the 90th centile. His early weight checks were fine, just like my first baby. He had a tongue tie, also like my first, which was divided at six weeks. In my mind, everything was following the same familiar path.

Looking back, I can see how much I was relying on that assumption.

This was second-baby syndrome in full force. I wasn’t watching his feeding as closely. I missed weighing clinics while juggling two children. I assumed things were ticking along nicely, until they very suddenly weren’t.

At just over four months old, I weighed him at the local library. I remember putting him on the scales and feeling that immediate drop in my stomach. Something was wrong.

I plotted his weight in the red book that UK parents know so well and saw he had dropped to the 30th centile.

The shock was instant and overwhelming.

Within minutes, panic, guilt, terror, and anxiety flooded in. It felt like I had been living one version of motherhood and was suddenly thrown into another, one where I felt completely out of control.

Despite being a healthcare professional, I didn’t trust that I would receive skilled, nuanced breastfeeding support quickly. I knew the likely pathway: GP to paediatrician, and then formula top-ups presented as a simple, unquestioned solution.

I want to be clear—there is absolutely nothing wrong with formula feeding. But it wasn’t the path I wanted to jump to without understanding why this had happened or exploring other options first.

What followed were some of the hardest days of my parenting life.

The four-day wait to see a lactation consultant felt unbearable. I couldn’t sleep. I barely ate. My thoughts were consumed by feeding and by a deep sense that I had failed my baby.

I felt my body had betrayed him. That I had starved my child. I had intrusive thoughts about long-term health consequences, about damage already done. I felt crushing guilt that he had to share me with his sister and hadn’t received the same one-to-one attention she had.

I spiralled into worst-case scenarios; tube feeding, bottle refusal, irreversible harm.

Those days were dark. And lonely.

Baby Weight, Growth, and Maternal Self-Worth

I hadn’t fully appreciated how deeply baby weight and growth are tied to maternal identity, both personally and culturally.

I had been proud of my daughter’s rolls and soft, chubby wrists. Her thriving felt like proof that I was doing motherhood “right”. I remembered conversations where friends spoke proudly about their babies jumping centiles, as though it were a quiet badge of honour.

Eating, nourishment, love, success, worth, they are all so closely intertwined.

And when feeding feels like it’s going wrong, it can shake everything.

But the hardest part, unexpectedly, was other people’s responses.

Everyone meant well. I was surrounded by care, concern, and offers of help. But what I kept hearing was: It’s not that bad.

“He looks healthy.”
“He isn’t losing weight.”
“They’re all different sizes.”
“Maybe he’s just meant to be on the 30th centile.”
“He’s long.”
“Are you sure the scales were right?”

My intuition was loud and clear. I knew there was a problem that needed support and exploration. These comments, though well-intentioned, felt like noise pulling me away from my true north.

Instead of feeling comforted, I felt burdened.

Now I wasn’t only holding fear for my baby and doubts about my mothering, I was also having to justify my concern. I had to explain why this mattered. Why I needed to act. Why reassurance wasn’t helpful.

That was too much to carry.

If You’re Struggling With Feeding, You’re Not Alone

If you are currently struggling with feeding your baby, breastfeeding, bottle feeding, combination feeding, any path at all and this resonates with you, I am sending you so much love.

If you haven’t found words for how this feels, please know you are not alone.

And if you are supporting someone who is going through feeding difficulties right now, this is what they need most:
Not advice.
Not fixing.
Not reassurance.

They need space for their feelings.

Sometimes the most supportive thing you can say is simply: “I can see how hard this is for you.”
And to let that be enough.