On Wednesday, Carly posted a very personal photo of her postpartum body on Instagram and explained why she stopped breastfeeding her newborn son, Charles “Charlie” Wolfe Bass. In the picture, Carly wears only a pair of white underwear and holds cabbage leaves over her breasts. She stares straight into the camera with a stoic, powerful expression.

Her caption began, “It’s been a week since Charlie was born, he is the greatest blessing and one of the greatest lessons for me as a mom. I had all these hopes and dreams that postpartum would be easier this time. But I still ache. I’m healing. I’m tried.”

Carly compared Charlie’s infancy to that of his older sister, Bella. She described Bella as a “colicky newborn” who “cried and cried for months. Threw up. Had gas pains.” Carly continued to breastfeed Bella “for months because that’s what I was told was ‘best’.” However, everything changed when she switched Bella to formula: “she was a new, happy little baby.”

The 34-year-old “had hopes that Charlie would be different,” but that “just isn’t the case.” She wrote, “I decided to stop breastfeeding and try him on the same formula Bella was on, and within a bottle or two he was so happy. He stopped crying. He could relax. He could sleep. He smiled.”

Carly called out the negative remarks often made about mothers who stop breastfeeding early on. She continued, “There is such a stigma about breastfeeding. If you don’t do it, you don’t care about your children’s health. You don’t love you kids enough. You’re being selfish. You just aren’t being a good enough mom. Honestly, I know my comments will prob be full of people telling me all sorts of things I could have/should have done to make it work for us.”

She tuned out that negative noise and instead “made a really hard decision within myself as a mom to listen to my gut about what was best for my child.” Ultimately, “it worked.” She said, “He is soooo happy and that is all that matters.”

Carly concluded her note, “I wanted to be real and thank you guys for checking in with me on how I have been doing this week. It’s been beautiful and painful at times. Thank you for all y’alls love and congratulations. It means SO much to me.”

She’s passionate about discussing parenting and motherhood. Carly and her “Mommies Tell All” podcast co-host Jade Roper brought their motherhood expertise to “Bachelor Happy Hour” as the two women chatted with Rachel Lindsay and Krystal Nielson about parenting and mom shaming. Carly said, “The big stuff to the small stuff — it doesn’t end.”

The singer and her husband Evan Bass welcomed Charlie into the world November 12. Evan told People about the birth, “Delivery was fast and perfect and straight into Mommy’s arms. He is super healthy and everyone is doing well!”

In an Instagram post a few days later, Carly described Charlie’s “beautiful and unique” delivery. He “came into this world face up (OP to the medical community) with one eye open and one eye closed like a pirate looking directly at me!” Carly said Charlie “literally jumped straight into my arms, because the doctor let me pull him out the rest of the way!”