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A good friend gave me a lovely book on breastfeeding that I’ve been reading on my Kindle… while I’ve been breastfeeding. It’s very recursive. While I haven’t really had any particular questions or issues with breastfeeding (seriously, it’s going much better than I had anticipated), it’s a pretty great resource and I’m very much enjoying it – even if I do skim over the parts about pregnancy and tips for problems I don’t personally have.
I’ve been very happy to find out that I’ve been doing most everything right! My mama (who used to be a labor & delivery nurse) helped me out quite a lot with various holds and helping The Whuff get a good latch. Other breastfeeding mama friends have given me a lot of tips and support as well and truly, thus far it’s been an awesome experience.
There is, however, one piece of advice in the book concerning the immediate post-partum period that I’m quite glad that I didn’t have.
Apparently, experts advise breastfeeding mothers from supplementing with formula before 6-8 weeks of age – the idea being that moms who have easy access to formula will give up on breastfeeding as being “too hard” and go with formula as the easy way out. I, personally, couldn’t disagree with this more and have actually passed on to friends that supplementing with formula – especially before my milk came in – relieved a lot of stress for both me and Paulo and I credit it with having him back at his birth weight after 6 days.
Clearly, I hadn’t read this book while I was pregnant. And I’m quite glad I didn’t. When Paulo was born, the nurses asked me if I planned on breast or bottle feeding him and I answered quite honestly “both.” I never, ever planned on breastfeeding exclusively – partly because I wasn’t sure if it would work for us (having heard and read about a lot of women who had significant problems with it) and partly on the advice of my own doctor who advised me to supplement so that I can get longer stretches of sleep (I have a chronic but totally boring medical condition that requires a lot of sleep to keep under control). Due to said medical condition, I actually wasn’t sure if breastfeeding would work at all, but my doctor and Paulo’s pediatrician were both very supportive of my wanting to give it a try.
Then came his birth. Now, most of my target audience already knows that a mama’s milk doesn’t come in right away. If you didn’t know that, you do now. So, getting started with breastfeeding was a little tough. Paulo didn’t appreciate the work that he had to do in order to get food and there wasn’t all that much to start with. So, he was supplemented with formula right from the start. I’d have him on the breast for a while, he’d still be hungry, and someone would give him a bottle. I remember very clearly our second night in the hospital and he was just starving and I couldn’t console him with the breast, so I opened up a bottle of formula from his little cart. I felt like such a failure in that moment, but as soon as I got the food into his mouth…
… that primal mothering urge to FEED YR CHILD was soothed. And I felt relief.
I felt like this was going to be ok. That even if breastfeeding didn’t work for us, that I knew he’d be alright. And that’s the way it was for a few days. I’d try him on the boob and if it didn’t work, he’d get a bottle. By the fourth or fifth day, that was down to maybe one bottle a day. He’s now pretty much exclusively breastfed, save for a bottle when I sleep in the mornings.
The availability of formula for me didn’t discourage me from breastfeeding. Quite the opposite. It gave me a safety net. It took the pressure off and made it ok for me to not get the hang of it right away. Paulo and I could figure it out at our own pace and he’d still get fed. Figure it out we did and I credit the supplementing with his getting back to his birth weight at 6 days. I hated the idea of him being hungry or uncomfortable and the ability to feed him even if he didn’t get the hang of the breast soothed *me* greatly.
I would – and have – absolutely recommend to new moms who want to breastfeed not to feel afraid to use formula as a supplement in the first few days. It saved my own sanity and was absolutely the right thing for me and my baby.
What about you? Was their any expert advice you were given that you found to be completely off-base for your own parenting situation?
ED: This post was featured on Bottle Babies. Hooray! I’m in total agreement that all moms need support, no matter how they feed their babies and breastfeeding doesn’t have to be all or nothing. So, if you found your way over here from that group, welcome! 🙂