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By Daniella Gray
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A new mom's public service announcement [PSA] about breastfeeding is going viral.
Dana Schwartz, who is based in Los Angeles, took to Instagram (@danaschwartzzz) to share the PSA that, she said, nobody warned her about.
"Everyone always talks about what a great and magical bonding experience breastfeeding is for a mother and child, and it is, but it also is a real challenge and takes up so much time," Schwartz told Newsweek.
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Following the advice that newborns feed every two to three hours, Schwartz, 32, thought she would have a few hours to herself for personal care or to nap or eat. But then reality set in.
"Here's the crazy thing, and again, the thing that nobody tells you, they start the clock from when the baby starts eating, not when they finish," Schwartz said in her reel.
Babies can take up to 40 minutes to feed, then comes the burping and then they may need a nappy change. By the time all of that is done, an hour has already passed, meaning that so-called window between feeds is often barely an hour; "if you're lucky," Schwartz added.
"A PSA that the clock starts when you start breastfeeding. It's crazy, I do nothing else. This is like a full-time job," she said.
Newsweek spoke to infant feeding specialist, Lydia Emmanuel-Desir, who posts online as Nurture With Lydia (nurturewithlydia.com), and is an expert speaker at The Baby Show.
Emmanuel-Desir said that newborns can feed more frequently than the minimum—every 3 hours from when the baby starts feeding: "It's common and normal for your baby to feed much more often than that, as well as periods of cluster-feeding throughout the first year."
As for the time it takes to breastfeed, Emmanuel-Desir validated Schwartz's comment.
"Breastfeeding absolutely can feel like a full-time job, and a good support system around you can make all the difference while you focus on establishing breastfeeding. It's important to look after the mom, so she can look after the baby," she said.
Schwartz said that her son, Arthur, was born on Thanksgiving and, while she and her baby were fortunate enough not to struggle too much with latching, the sheer time commitment of breastfeeding was an adjustment.
"I'm a compulsive multitasker with a running to-do list, and so it was an adjustment to be forced to stop, and slow down, and wait while a newborn blindly but valiantly tries to figure out whether the milk comes from the nearby nipple or my arm, which is also apparently fun to suck, or his hand, which is another top contender," Schwartz said.
The new mom added that one of the only things she can do while breastfeeding is scroll on your phone—something she believes is "wonderful" for her mental health.
But in the newborn phase of sleepless nights, spit-covered clothes and forgotten showers, she found comfort in making a lighthearted video about the reality of breastfeeding.
Schwartz's reel has been viewed more than 1.7 million times and liked by over 65,000 Instagram users.
Many fellow moms wrote about their past experiences back when they were breastfeeding.
"Yeah, I remember this! It's just a blur! As long as you're keeping the baby and yourself alive, you're doing great," one user wrote. "Truer words have never been spoken," a second added.
Schwartz told Newsweek that there was a small collection of men who misunderstood the message behind her reel. Schwartz is "more than grateful" for her baby, now 8 weeks old. But that doesn't mean moms shouldn't be able to talk about the tough parts of motherhood.
"I can't imagine anything worse than people who think loving your child means never being able to talk about the challenges of parenting. Those people are deeply annoying, and I'm hoping none of their kids are in Arthur's future kindergarten class," Schwartz said.
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