Before I had my first baby, I remember other moms saying breastfeeding is hard. And I remember thinking, why is everyone so negative?

It turns out they were right. It is hard. But here’s the thing — just saying that is completely unhelpful. Telling an expecting mom that breastfeeding is hard, without any context about why or what kind of support changes everything, leaves her exactly where she started: underprepared and undersupported.

That missing context is what this post is about.

I’m Anne — holistic pregnancy and infant sleep coach and host of the Confident Motherhood Podcast. I nursed my first son until he was 14 to 15 months and my second until 20 to 21 months. Those journeys were vastly different from each other. The first was one of the hardest things I’ve ever committed to in my life. The second was much smoother. And I can tell you with certainty that neither of those outcomes happened by chance.

I also want to be upfront: I am not an IBCLC (International Board Certified Lactation Consultant). I’m sharing this as a mom who’s lived it and as a professional who has worked alongside lactation consultants for years and seen firsthand what adequate support makes possible. For specific medical guidance, always work with an IBCLC directly — and I’ll say a lot more about that below.

If you want to breastfeed long term — whether “long term” for you means three months, six months, one year, or beyond — this post is for you.

First, Let’s Name What’s Actually Hard

When people say breastfeeding is hard, here’s the list they’re usually collapsing into that one sentence:

Your body goes through significant physical changes as milk comes in. Sore nipples and the adjustment to a baby latching every two to three hours. Engorgement. Mastitis (which I thankfully avoided both times, but which is genuinely rough). Latch issues — not just learning to latch, but figuring out your latch with your baby’s mouth and anatomy. If you’re pumping, adjusting to expressing milk from a machine, which has its own entirely separate learning curve. And underneath all of it, the mental weight of having given your body over to pregnancy and birth for nine or ten months, and now doing it again for however long your nursing journey lasts.

That list is real. And every single item on it comes with support options — which is the part that almost never gets mentioned alongside it.

Here’s the other truth: breastfeeding is also remarkable. Like genuinely magical in a way that’s hard to describe until you’ve experienced it. Even in my hardest moments with my first son — crying on the couch with a newborn who was struggling to latch, saying out loud I just want to feed my baby, why can’t I figure this out? — there was something about the experience that I was completely in love with. I think that love is what kept me going. But love alone wasn’t enough. Support is what made it work.

The 8 Things That Actually Made Long-Term Nursing Possible for Me

These aren’t in perfect order of importance. They’re the honest list of what made the difference.

1. An IBCLC — Before the Baby Arrived

My doula recommended a lactation consultant while I was still pregnant, and I did a pre-baby call with her before my son was born. I cannot overstate how much this changed my early postpartum experience.

Because of that call, when my milk came in slowly in those first few days, I wasn’t panicking. I understood that the initial milk — colostrum — is exactly what a newborn needs, even though it feels like almost nothing is there. I knew that actual milk supply typically comes in around day three to five, and what that would feel like physically. I had expectations. And when the hard moments arrived, they weren’t new information. I had a person I already trusted, already in my corner.

An IBCLC is not just for the first two weeks. I used lactation support intensively from zero to four months with my first son, and then continued checking in every one to two months throughout that first year as new challenges came up. At eight months, when I was back at work and noticed a supply dip, I had another session. That support carried me through.

If you’re pregnant right now or newly postpartum and on a nursing journey — please, please, please seek out an IBCLC. Whether through your hospital, your insurance, or privately. Free lactation resources exist and are worth hunting for. The support since nursing is so unique to every mother-baby pair is simply not something you should have to figure out alone from Google.

2. Craniosacral Therapy for Baby

This one surprises people, and I understand why — but hear me out, because it changed everything for us.

My son was tongue-tied, and it was initially missed. My IBCLC caught it. After his frenulums were released, we combined that with craniosacral therapy — and that’s when he actually learned to latch properly, I stopped being in pain, and our nursing journey truly began.

Craniosacral therapy for babies is essentially working with a practitioner who applies very gentle pressure points on the baby’s body — not the bone-cracking we associate with chiropractic care. It’s subtle, it’s soft, and the impact on facial muscles, jaw tension, and neck tightness can be genuinely transformative for a baby who is struggling to latch or feed efficiently.

I honestly believe craniosacral therapy should be routine postpartum care for babies. It isn’t yet, but it should be. I continued taking my son until his first year. When my second son arrived, I did the same thing from the start — he didn’t have tongue tie issues, but the therapy was still supportive.

If you’re dealing with latch struggles, unexplained fussiness at the breast, or a baby who seems to tire quickly during feeds, it’s worth looking into a practitioner who specializes in infant craniosacral therapy or infant bodywork. It’s one of the most underutilized resources in the postpartum support world.

3. Sleep Coaching

This one comes directly from my lived experience — and it’s the piece that connects my two worlds as both a mom and a sleep coach.

For the first four months of my son’s life, I was his human pacifier. He needed to be latched onto me — whether milk was flowing or not — in order to fall asleep. That meant I had almost no separation from him, which meant I had almost no opportunity to pump and build a milk stash.

I was returning to work at five months. I had one month to create enough of a freezer supply to hand him off at daycare with confidence. And I had no idea how I was going to do it.

Sleep coaching him holistically at four months was the turning point. Once he was sleeping independently — falling asleep in his crib, staying asleep, taking his naps — I could pump while he slept. I had that precious separation. Within one month, I had enough of a stash to go back to work.

This is actually an incredibly common struggle for nursing moms, and one that doesn’t get talked about enough: when a baby has a feed-to-sleep association (which is completely natural for young babies), the entire nursing relationship can become tangled up with sleep in a way that makes building supply almost impossible. Getting sleep on track doesn’t mean the end of breastfeeding. In my case, it’s what made long-term breastfeeding possible.

If you want to dive into this connection more, I cover the sleep-nutrition relationship in depth in my sleep coaching work — and the short version is: you absolutely do not have to choose between a nursing journey and a well-rested baby.

4. Hydration — 100 Ounces a Day, Religiously

Breast milk is roughly 80% water. When your body is producing it around the clock, the impact of dehydration on supply is real and fast.

I drank 100 ounces of water every single day during both nursing journeys. I knew exactly how many times I needed to refill my tumbler. I did not skip this. Going back to work made it harder — work rhythms aren’t designed to remind you to hydrate — but I made it non-negotiable.

If you are supporting a mom who is on a nursing journey and you want to do something genuinely useful: hand her a full water bottle and ask when she last drank something.

5. Nourishment — Actually Eating Enough

You would think this would go without saying. But the reality of early motherhood — the chaos, the lack of sleep, the constant demands — means that eating real, nourishing meals is often the first thing to fall away.

Breastfeeding requires extra calories. Your body is doing extraordinary work. Eating enough, eating nourishing food, and not letting yourself run on empty is not optional if you want to sustain a long-term nursing journey. I say this with zero judgment, because I know how hard it is to prioritize your own nourishment when you’re in the thick of new motherhood. But it matters, and it directly affects your supply.

6. Stress Management

I’ll be honest — this was the area I was least consistent with, especially the first time around. I had a demanding job, I was adjusting to first-time motherhood, I was managing the pressure of pumping enough each day to cover the next day’s daycare feeds. Stress was part of my daily reality.

What I know now is that chronic stress is genuinely not conducive to milk production or to the experience of nursing overall. Finding your version of stress management — whether that’s five minutes of deep breathing, a short walk, journaling, meditation, or simply accepting help when it’s offered — is not a luxury on a nursing journey. It’s part of the infrastructure.

7. Supplementation When Needed

There are herbs and supplements that can be supportive for milk supply, and I used them during certain seasons of my nursing journey — not continuously, but when I needed extra support.

I’m intentionally not naming specific supplements here, because this is genuinely a conversation to have with your IBCLC or provider based on your individual health picture, what you’re experiencing, and what your goals are. What I do want you to know is that this option exists, it can help, and it’s worth asking about if you’re noticing supply dips.

8. Getting Clear on Your Why — and Protecting Your Mental Health

This might be the one that gets talked about least, and it might be the most important.

Breastfeeding, especially a long-term journey, requires a strong, clear why. Because there will be moments — and I had many — where everything in you questions whether you can keep going. Whether it’s worth it. Whether you’re doing something wrong. Whether this was ever going to work.

When my son’s entire month stash was gone in one week after I returned to work, I cried. Really cried. From that day until he was over a year old, I was living day by day — pumping what he would eat the following day, barely staying ahead, never feeling truly comfortable. There were weeks I genuinely wasn’t sure I was going to make it to a year.

Knowing my why — viscerally, not just intellectually — is what kept me going on those days.

But I also want to say the other side of this: your self-worth is not attached to your nursing journey. If you desire to nurse and it doesn’t go the way you hoped — if your journey is shorter than planned, if you need to supplement or switch to formula — that does not make you less of a mother. The mental health of the mother matters. Always. A fed baby with a mentally healthy, present mom is better than a breastfed baby with a mom who is suffering.

Buy the formula and put it in the cabinet just in case, even if you plan to exclusively nurse. Knowing it’s there removes a layer of pressure. I did this both times. It’s not planning to fail — it’s giving yourself permission to be human.

The Reality Nobody Warns You About: The System Isn’t Set Up for This

I want to name this directly, because it’s real and it’s not your fault.

In the United States, most working mothers return to work at six to twelve weeks postpartum. That is, for many women, not enough time to establish a nursing relationship that can sustain a long-term journey. I was fortunate to have five months with my first son — and it still took me nearly four of those months to actually figure out nursing. Even then, I was barely staying ahead.

We live in a culture that tells women to nurse for at least six months to a year (per WHO recommendations) and then sends them back to their jobs at six weeks with a pump and a hope. Those two things are in direct conflict with each other, and the resulting struggle is not a personal failure. It is a systems failure.

If you’re facing this reality, give yourself enormous credit for navigating something that the structures around you are not designed to support.

A Note on Comparison

My sister nursed all three of her boys without the struggles I had. For her it felt relatively easy and natural. Meanwhile, I was on the couch crying, questioning whether my baby was getting enough.

No two journeys look the same. Not even two journeys with the same mother and different babies — my second nursing experience was dramatically easier than my first, for reasons I understand clearly now (no return to work, working from home, no separation pressures). Comparison will not serve you here.

Give yourself grace. This is a marathon, not a sprint. You are doing something extraordinary, and the moments that feel like failure are often just the places where you need more support — not a reflection of who you are as a mother.

You Don’t Have to Do This Alone

If you’re pregnant and planning to nurse, or newly postpartum and in the thick of a nursing journey, please hear this: the support you need exists. You deserve to have it.

🎙️ Listen to the full episode — Season 1, Episode 6 of the Confident Motherhood Podcast, where I share both of my breastfeeding journeys in much more personal depth — including the moments I didn’t think I was going to make it.

🔍 Find an IBCLC — Ask your OB, midwife, or doula for a referral. Check with your insurance for covered lactation services. Many hospitals offer free lactation support in the first weeks postpartum. This is the single most important resource on this list.

📞 Book a free Explore Call with me — If you’re experiencing sleep struggles alongside your nursing journey, or if you’re worried about how sleep coaching might affect breastfeeding, let’s talk. Head to https://EmpoweredWithAnne.as.me/FreeSleepChat to book.

📥 Grab free pregnancy resources — Head to the freebie vault at empoweredwithanne.com for tools to support your holistic pregnancy and postpartum journey.

You’re doing better than you think. Rooting for you, mama.