19 Celebrities Who Are Brutally Honest About How Hard Breastfeeding Is

"I went from being an autonomous woman to essentially being a food truck."

For many, the image of breastfeeding is one of total serenity: a glowing mom peacefully feeding her baby with a smile. But, in reality, it's a lot less pretty, at least most of the time, and especially in the beginning. Breastfeeding can be really, really hard — and it doesn't help that the stigma of "breast is best" is still rampant over the thought that "a fed baby is a well-fed baby." So it might be reassuring that even the moms with every resource at their disposal can struggle.

In honor of World Breastfeeding Week and National Breastfeeding Month, here are 19 celebs who haven't held back when talking about how much of a struggle breastfeeding can be.

1. Chrissy Teigen

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"The feeding schedule surprised me a lot," Chrissy Teigen told Entertainment Tonight. "If you kind of do the math, you’re kind of breastfeeding for 10 hours a day total. It’s very loving and sweet, but it’s not easy. They just use you for your milk and you just feel like you are just a cow all day."

2. Kelly Rowland

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"I had my heart set on breastfeeding, but I wasn't producing enough milk,” she told Parents Magazine. “I got down on myself, which I think was mentally limiting my supply." Kelly also wrote in Whoa, Baby!, "All that gnawing at your nipples will take its toll!"

3. Amy Schumer

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“We had a lactation expert come over,” Amy said on Dr. Berlin’s Informed Pregnancy Podcast. “[Gene] didn’t latch and I just didn’t feel that push to make that happen. Then I pumped for, like, the first month...I was like, ‘This is not for me.’ I didn’t want to do it. Some people just absolutely love it and I’m so happy for them, but it was just bumming me out. ... Once it occurred to me that I could stop, I was like, ‘I’m going to stop.’ And then every week I just took away one session of the pumping.”

4. Adele

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“Some of us can't [breastfeed],” Adele once told an audience during a concert, as Scary Mommy noted. “I managed about nine weeks with my boobs. … Some of my mates got postnatal depression from the way those midwives were talking. Idiots.”

5. Kim Kardashian

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"The hospital suggested [nipple] shields to me, since at the beginning I found nursing super painful and difficult, so I took some home and never looked back," she wrote on her lifestyle website. "I find the baby feeds better, and it allows me to never get irritated nipples or anything because they're protected by the shield."

6. Jessica Alba

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"I think what’s difficult about it is you’re tethered to the baby," Jessica told SheKnows. "And babies… they’re not really on a schedule. They're just growing and sleeping and eating, and we're so programmed to have a schedule and kind of do what we want to do, so leaving the house when you have a completely unpredictable baby is, to me, what was difficult. It’s hard to leave the house. At home it’s easy, you’re just in pajamas."

7. Khloé Kardashian

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"I had to stop breast feeding 😩😩😩 it was really hard for me to stop (emotionally) but it wasn’t working for my body," Khloé wrote on Twitter in a string of tweets to her followers. "Sadly... I tried every trick in the book- water, special cookies, power pumping, massages etc. I tried so very hard to continue... I had a lactation specialist and everything 😩... It was so frustrating because for Kourt it was sooooooo easy for her to breast feed. My experience was very different... I fought and fought to try and continue but then when I actually stopped, I didn’t realize what a relief it was for me to not stress and worry anymore. Any sec I had of downtime I was stressing to produce more for the next feeding."

8. Thandie Newton

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For Thandie Newton, breastfeeding was really hard to juggle with her career at one seminal moment: When she was in talks to star in Westworld. She later told Harry Connick Jr. the story, saying, “I actually just had my son, Booker ― he was maybe 4 months old ― and the showrunners Jonah Nolan and his wife, Lisa Joy. I was talking to [them] on Skype. And we started our conversation talking about Westworld, the show, and it was going on quite a long time, and I could hear my baby out the door, and he wanted to be nursed. You know how it is, ladies, when your kid needs you, everything is firing up. And I said to Jonah, ‘Jonah, I’m so, so sorry, I’m going to have to bring my baby here.’ And I thought: This is going to lose me the job. It’s gonna lose me the job! ... My husband brought in the baby and I ended up breastfeeding my kid while talking to Jonah...and then, do you know what happened? Lisa came onto the screen breastfeeding her little baby.”

9. Ali Wong

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"Giving birth ain’t nothing compared to breastfeeding," Ali said in her Netflix special, Ali Wong: Hard Knock Wife. "Breastfeeding is brutal. It is chronic physical torture. I thought it was supposed to be this beautiful bonding ceremony where I would feel like I was sitting on a lily pad in a meadow, and bunnies would gather at my feet... No, it’s not like that at all. Breastfeeding is this savage ritual that just reminds you that your body is a cafeteria now."

10. Hilary Duff

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"[I] felt so lucky to be so close to her and give her that start. I know many women are not able to and for that I am sympathetic and very grateful that I could. For six wonderful months," Hilary wrote on Instagram about breastfeeding her daughter, Banks. "But I needed a break. I was going to break. With the stress of a dropping milk supply and a baby that was getting bored or not caring about nursing when I was available to, I was sad and frustrated and feeling like a failure all of the time. When really I’m a badass rock star... I wasn’t myself at all. Something scary was hovering over my brain and my heart...the part of me that I know is smart and rational. The lows felt horrible...I am happy to say that I haven’t fed or pumped in three days and it’s crazy how fast you can come out on the other side. I feel fine and happy and relieved and silly that I even stressed on it so hard. Banks is thriving and I get even more time with her and daddy gets to do more feeds! And mommy gets a tiny bit more sleep!"

11. Shay Mitchell

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"To be honest, [there've] been ups and downs with the breastfeeding," Shay told Us Weekly. "At the beginning it was really difficult and I definitely had my moments of, 'I can't do this!' Or, googling everything online. Or, asking anybody that I could just for advice."

12. Angelina Jolie

Mike Marsland / Mike Marsland / WireImage

"You think, 'Ah, if anybody can do that, I can do that.' It’s very hard,” Angelina said on GMTV of breastfeeding her twins, Vivienne and Knox. “I stopped at three months, [it was] about as much as I could do. ... There’s this football hold — it’s a lot harder than it looks in the books. I did that a few times. I would take turns. It just takes a long time.”

13. Zoe Saldana

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"So ladies- moms... Breastfeeding moms. What do you have to say about pumping??!!!," Zoe wondered on Twitter, before adding, "#Breastfeeding #breasts hurting!!"

14. Tamera Mowry

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"Aden wasn’t latching properly, which meant I experienced soreness, my nipples were callused and I was in pain for about eight weeks," Tamera wrote on her website. "I was having a hard time keeping up my supply of milk, and it was taking a major emotional toll on me."

15. Mila Kunis

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"It took us a little back because people actually looked at us in a shameful [way], and we were like, 'Oh my God,' because it's so not a sexual act," Mila said about the experience of breastfeeding in public to Vanity Fair.

16. Kristen Bell

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"I went from being an autonomous woman to essentially being a food truck," she said on #Momsplaining. "Because that's essentially what you are. Isn't it crazy how much of your nipple and your boob has to go in their mouth? You gotta flatten it out and put half of it in their throat. And if the latch is wrong, game over."

17. Amal Clooney

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“When I was nursing, it was much more complicated, because there are two,” Amal told Vogue. “I had all manner of weird cushions and pillows and machines.”

18. Sienna Miller

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"I do miss my breasts being where they were. And, yes, I have nipples like fighter pilots' thumbs," Sienna told Allure. "But I also sort of like that they're a little '70s. And that they fed my kid."

19. Whitney Port

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"For me, breastfeeding was difficult from the start, and thinking back, I wish I’d stopped earlier and not put myself through all the torture that I did," Whitney told Refinery 29. "At the time, I thought breastfeeding was the BIGGEST deal, and the stakes felt impossibly high — as if my little Sonny’s life was solely dependent on my success. I remember not being able to see outside this narrow view that I had created in my mind of what was acceptable as a new mother and what wasn’t. I agonized over every feeding, dealt with immeasurable emotional and physical pain, and put so much pressure on myself that I managed to get mastitis not one, not two, but three times."

So to all of the moms out there, however your baby is getting fed, take a moment to praise yourself for giving your baby exactly what they need.