Nikki Bella is getting candid about the difficulty she initially had breastfeeding son Matteo three months after welcoming her first child with fiancé Artem Chigvintsev. The Total Bellas star told Us Weekly Friday that she had a “tough” time figuring out how to feed her baby and take care of herself for the first two months of his life.
“Breastfeeding is so tough,” she told the outlet. “But now, with him being three months old, it’s so easy. He knows what to do, and it’s now a beautiful thing. I love it. He loves it. But that first two months, oh, gosh, it rocks you. It really does.” The former WWE Superstar advised other mothers to take nursing classes before giving birth, admitting she was a little lost upon giving birth for the first time.
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“I remember I pushed him out, and then 15 minutes later … they put him on my breast, and I’m like, ‘What do we do? What’s going on?’ I mean, within a day I had blisters on my boobs because I didn’t know anything,” she recalled. Twin sister Brie Bella then chimed in that she had begged her sister to meet with her breastfeeding doula, but she “decided to skip that Zoom meeting,” which Nikki acknowledged was a mistake.
Nikki and the Dancing With the Stars pro welcomed their first child in July, and Brie gave birth to her and husband Daniel Bryan’s son Buddy, their second child together, less than 24 hours later. Brie said 3-year-old daughter Birdie was “an amazing eater” as a baby, but she struggled to “just get a schedule going” with Buddy at first. “Even with his latching, it wasn’t as good as Birdie’s,” she admitted. “So it made me feel like a new mom because I was like, ‘Wait a second. It was so easy with Bird. This is really hard.’”
Nikki also has been open about her struggle with postpartum depression after welcoming Matteo, which compounded with Chigvintsev’s busy season on DWTS, which ended with the Mirrorball Trophy for him and partner Kaitlyn Bristowe. “I would be lying to say, ‘Oh, it’s great.’ It has definitely been a struggle for us,” the new mom told Us Weekly of Chigvintsev being away so much during the season. “It’s hard. We have so many ups and downs. It’s been so difficult on our relationship because I need so much from him, but he’s, like, torn between his job that requires so much from him and then us at home.”
