I wished I knew I could refuse formula with my son, I truly felt that ruined any chances of us having a breastfeeding relationship. He is small, he’s barely 5 lbs, we need to give formula to supplement. Well that started the continuous downfall. Because all he ever wanted was a nipple from the bottle. For 2 months I tried to breastfeed. and just never was able to do it. I couldn’t afford a lactation consultant. Didn’t know about the La Leche League until a month after I decided to stop breastfeeding him. I was struggling with PPD, feeling like I failed b/c I ended up in what I know now was an unecessarian. I still cry b/c I wanted to nurse him into toddlerhood. My husband while supportive of me breastfeeding, would say lets give him a bottle as he cried b/c he wasn’t getting enough milk from me. I know he didn’t mean it but I truly wish he would have not worried so much but he was a first time daddy and his son was crying. He thought he was hungry. :(

You know some paediatricians/family doctors are female and have had babies of their own. Mine had breastfed hers exclusively on demand for a year and said it worked for her. When I broke down bawling because I hated breastfeeding she advised it’s OK if it’s not working for you, gave me an alternative route to take and I ended up breastfeeding exclusively for 5 months instead of 2 weeks because her advice. I don’t know about hospitals in the US but where I’m from my hospital was certified baby friendly, meaning they were pro breastfeeding. They were not allowed to supply any formula and all the nurses were trained to teach and help new mothers breastfeed. I can’t tell you how many people touched my boobs while I was there, they were afraid I was not breastfeeding correctly since my son lost too much weight after being born, but when I left I felt pretty confident that I could do it. We have nurse visits approx. 3 days after leaving the hospital at which time they make sure your breastfeeding is going good and can correct things while they are at your house. There are breastfeeding clinics in almost every town to help out with breastfeeding and still I hated it until I spoke to my doctor. We should stop judging moms who can’t breastfeed by the guidelines of breastfeeding “experts”. Isn’t it better for a baby to be breastfed no matter the way as long as the baby is drinking breast milk?

I find this post sort of ironic, considering this entire blog and therefore a part of your paycheck is sponsored by Similac.

i completely agree with the part about the hospital staff….they made me feel like I was a bad mom for not giving her formula when they told me to so finally i caved and started supplementing. I was in tears at the end of my first day as a mother because the nurse basically told me I didnt care enough about my child and rather than offering me help with latching her on she was trying to shove formula down her throat. I did end up giving my daughter formula for a couple days but i kept breast feeding and I still am 4 months later.

This really is a great list! I didn’t have any problems with my hospital staff or anything like that. I did have problems with latching which led to a pretty ugly bout with mastitis one weekend all of which almost had me turn to formula a number of times. BUT we made it we kept pushing through and now my daughter will be one at the end of the month and has only had breastmilk (well I introduced whole milk about 2 weeks ago but she doesn’t really drink much of that or juice or water ….. so mostly breastmilk and solids) I have had a number of friends who came home from the hospital supplementing. It makes me so sad because in most cases the supplementing turns into formula feeding because of ruining the supply!

This is so amazing! Thank you for posting!

Here’s my take on it: http://nora-bear.blogspot.com/2010/06/if-you-think-you-might-want-to.html

and @elita – i think it’s fabulous you wouldn’t write for a site that gets money from similac. i also think it’s fabulous that you frequent one!

To Amber, I am kind of shocked that you were told you had to give your baby formula until your milk came in. I never would have thought that was an issue because you produce colostrum until your milk comes in. I had a similar issue when my son was born because either he did not want to breastfeed or I wasn’t doing it right and he lost a drastic amount of weight. At my hospital, a baby friendly hospital, the nurses stepped in and made me pump to insure my milk would come in properly and they also spent a lot of time with me making sure my technique was good. I had to ring for them when ever I thought it was time to breastfeed so that they could observe each time. He ended up gaining back the weight he lost by the time we left, so it doesn’t make any sense for your nurses to have told you what they did. It’s shocking and proves that more education on breastfeeding is needed, even in hospitals, which are mindboggling.

I’m planning on breastfeeding (I’m 35 weeks with my first right now) and although my Mom said she breastfed both my sister and I until we started getting in teeth she doesn’t really seem all that supportive of me…

I received a free bag the other day at the hospital containing free newborn formula which I promptly took out and gave to my Mom to see if she could find someone who needs it (my sister had a second daughter 7 months ago and they still have some free formula they never used for her.) She told me I should hold onto it just in case… I refused.

My sister told me the same thing… She thinks she’s an expert on birth even though she had two C-sections (and never even went into labor with the first), has never read any baby books, and has never taken any child-birthing class or anything of the sort. She didn’t have a choice as to weather to breastfeed or formula feed as she’s bipolar and her medications would harm the baby.

She seems to think that I won’t be able to breastfeed, that I won’t have enough milk or something… As I told her…

Only 1% of women don’t have enough milk, and I know there may be other reasons that I may not be able to breastfeed once it comes time but I’ll be damned if I’ll set myself up for failure.

I don’t want to hear it anymore. I was already told to take off the breastfeeding basics on my baby registry by my Mom who said no one would want to buy me breastfeeding stuff… So I did remove them to appease her. :sigh:

I don’t want to hear anymore from my sister or Mom about breastfeeding and I don’t want to hear from my sister that I’m crazy for not wanting to try to have a drug-free natural birth. meh.