Ashley Tisdale Talks Her ‘Unexpected’ Troubles With Breastfeeding After Welcoming Baby Jupiter (Exclusive)

Ashley Tisdale had to make the right choice for her and her baby when having “unexpected” trouble breastfeeding. The actress, 35, opened up to PopCulture about one of her “toughest hurdles” in motherhood so far after welcoming daughter Jupiter Iris with her husband Christopher French, 39, in March.

“What was unexpected was we had trouble breastfeeding and no one really kind of explained how hard breastfeeding actually is,” the High School Musical alum explained. While she initially was looking forward to the experience of breastfeeding, from day one, Jupiter was having trouble latching, which was making the infant “really frustrated.” Tisdale joked, “She’s a bit hangry sometimes.”

Despite trying time and time again, breastfeeding was not what Tisdale had ever expected. “I just kind of [had] this moment where I was like, ‘Oh wait, I just didn’t expect for this to happen.’ Like I thought [breastfeeding] was very easy and it just happened. I see my friends breastfeeding and I’m like, ‘Wait, what?’”

After almost two weeks, the new mom realized she was “striving versus thriving” with her newborn, creating “this frustration around feeling” she didn’t want baby Jupiter to experience. Tisdale recalled to PopCulture a “special moment” in which she had a revelation surrounding her breastfeeding attempts: “She’s crying and fussy and still not latching really well. And I just was like, ‘Why am I doing this? Is this is for me or is this for her? Because it’s obviously not her — there’s a better solution.’”

It was then Tisdale decided to turn to formula to feed her baby, which she said was a “no guilt” decision, especially when finding Enfamil’s formula Enspire. Having actually also been fed with Enfamil when she was a baby, Tisdale said she trusted the brand and appreciated it being the “closest to breast milk” in ingredients. “I just felt for us, this was the right thing,” she said. “And honestly, it was the best decision, because it’s been … so much better from there on out. [Breastfeeding] was one of probably our toughest hurdles.”

Three months have already passed since Tisdale became a mom, and while the “time flies by,” The Masked Dancer judge said the “days seem long” as well. “It’s like you’re in it and you’re like, ‘This is a really long time,’ but then it flies by and you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s not so little anymore!’” Seeing herself become a mom, Tisdale has found a whole new depth to her patience.

“I learned a lot of patience because you have to, and there are those times where … in the very beginning, obviously, when all of that stuff was happening [with] the breastfeeding, it was just like… it was hard,” she shared. “And so I just had to gain a lot of patience there. So that is definitely something that’s transformed about me.”