Welcome to Fearless Formula Feeder Fridays, a weekly guest post feature that strives to build a supportive community of parents united through our common experiences, open minds, and frustration with the breast-vs-bottle bullying and bullcrap.
Please note, these stories are for the most part unedited, and do not necessarily represent the FFF's opinions. They are also not political statements - this is an arena for people to share their thoughts, and I hope we can all give them the space to do so.
Happy Friday,
The FFF
Please note, these stories are for the most part unedited, and do not necessarily represent the FFF's opinions. They are also not political statements - this is an arena for people to share their thoughts, and I hope we can all give them the space to do so.
Happy Friday,
The FFF
I worry about combo feeders. Sometimes I wonder if they feel like the kids on MTV's "Teen Mom" - trapped between two fighting, immature parents. I want to make it crystal (not to be confused with Krystal, since I was alluding to Teen Mom and all) clear that combo feeders are some of the most fearless formula feeders - brave enough to do what is best for them, and realize that it doesn't need to be all or nothing. I love how Victoria - whose story is below, borrowed from her awesome blog - found a way to feed her baby that worked for her, and decided to share the nitty-gritty details so that others like her would feel less alone.
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I am sharing our story of our breastfeeding experience because I want to help out anyone who stumbles across this by googling "breastfeeding sucks" at 3am (the way I did many, many times that first week). I say "our" because it is not just about me and George - my husband plays a huge role in our experience and ability to continue on, as do our lactation consultants, occupational therapists, my mom for all the help she has provided, and even the nurses back at the hospital in the very beginning. Everyone - and everything - has shaped our experiences.
Breastfeeding is hard. I knew this and I expected it to be hard. But I did not expect it to be THIS hard. And I do not think it is, for most women and their babies. Most women do not have the problems we are experiencing. But most women who choose to breastfeed do run into struggles at one point or another - my goal is not to compare our experiences, but to acknowledge that any struggle is a struggle. This is just ours.
Long story short when it comes to our unique issues (and believe me, this is the short version), George has a weak suck and chomps instead of using his tongue. This decimated my milk supply in the early days so I am playing a perpetual game of catch up. We have been supplementing with a bottle after most feedings since he was one week and five days old. For George, we do oral motor exercises, see an occupational therapist, and weigh him before and after feedings to see what he has been able to transfer. As for me, I take herbs, pump after most feedings, and even taking a prescription medication to try to compensate for George not holding up his end of the bargain in the "breast milk supply and demand" game (the more that's the removed, the more that is made).
So we are doing everything we can. And maybe it is not enough. If it ends up not being enough, I think I can become okay with that. Society, on the other hand, may not approve. The messages I have received since becoming pregnant and having George are loud and clear: Breastfeed your baby! But never in public! And when you pull that bottle out, we will assume it is formula rather than expressed breast milk and we will judge you for not doing the best for your baby! Because formula is poison, despite the many, many, many babies that formula-feed who thrive and grow into healthy children and adults!
My family is still in the trenches. For right now, combo feeding is working for us. I do all of this because I enjoy nursing George, and because George loves loves loves nursing. El Hub gets to look into the baby's eyes and bond while he gives him a bottle. Our baby is gaining weight, peeing, and pooping, and when he's not busy with those things, he is happily cuddling in our arms or playing in his activity mat.
It works for us right now. But my supply might dry up despite my best efforts. Or as George grows, my supply might not grow with him and he will go on nursing strikes, frustrated by how little he is getting for all his hard work. Or his oral motor occupational therapy for his weak suck may stall out. Or El Hub and I may decide this lifestyle is causing more stress than health and joy.
So if we end up being able to exclusively breastfeed, or decide to switch to all formula, or find that the time commitment of combo feeding continues to work for us - rest assured, we will be doing what is best for George and for our family.
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“Mere human beings can't afford to be fanatical about anything...If we are to survive on this planet, there must be compromises.” - Storm (Margaret Storm Jameson, 1891-1986) Sharing your story for FFF Fridays can help squash fanaticism like a slimy bug. Email it to formulafeeders@gmail.com. 
I think it's great that you acknowledge that *any* struggle is a struggle, and they all count (as it were). Anyway, good luck with your son, whatever he eats! :)
ReplyDeleteHere's a little flag waving in the stands from another (though former, mine's 14 months old now) combofeeder. It's a hard thing to do (sometimes you get the worst of both worlds without getting to 'belong' to either) and there's next to no help out there when you get down to things like, 'how can I keep my supply?' and introducing solids. It's basically reinventing the wheel in some ways.
ReplyDeleteI know from personal experience that combo feeding has its own unique challenges. It can be really tricky at first to "schedule" everything and make sure the baby is getting enough, you are getting enough stimulation to keep producing, the formula doesn't spoil, etc. Thanks for sharing your story, you sound like you are doing well and have found really good rhythm for your family! Congrats on the new baby!
ReplyDeleteI love being able to hear about other combo feeders. I've had to combo feed all of mine due to low supply. I've lasted various amounts of time from 3 months -10 months, but I'm hoping to make it for the long haul with my 6 month old. Thanks for sharing your story!
ReplyDeleteI was told in no uncertain terms by a lactation consultant and a pediatrician that combo feeding never works. I was also told by another LC that exclusive pumping never works, either. When I read a story like Victoria's, I cannot help but conclude that for some folks, it's not really about getting breastmilk into the mouths of babies. It's about remaining idealogically pure. When people ask how can we improve breastfeeding rates, perhaps one of the first things we should say is "support combo-feeders."
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why someone would say combo feeding never works. I know a bunch of working moms who do it---they nurse when they are home, and then the baby gets either pumped milk and/or formula in a bottle when they are at work. To me, that was the norm...before I had my babies, I assumed I would do the same, since I knew I would be going back to work.
ReplyDelete@Amy, it was difficult in my case because supply did go down because I couldn't pump/feed every few hours (working the kind of job where you couldn't take a 20 min break at will) and I couldn't feed at night b/c had to be 100% to teach in the morning. I do wonder sometimes if the fact that baby was on the bottle about half the time (pumped or formula) from 2 months on made him more inclined to go on the nursing strikes he did later. I know people who have done it more successfully when going back to work at, say 6 months because the body was less sensitive to one or two missed feeds at that point anyway.
ReplyDeletePerfesser,
ReplyDeleteOh I'm not saying it works for everyone, but where I work, women are able to take pumping breaks, there's even a space for them to go so they can have privacy. I realize not everyone has that, but I was happy to know about it before I had children, figuring I would utilize that resource. I didn't know about the complicated timing, etc that goes into maintaining supply, and since I gave up (exclusive pumping ) at 4wks, never really needed to know. But it certainly makes sense to me that if you can't pump regularly, combo feeding might not work out so well. :)
I combo fed for 10 months. It works. My baby's doing great. She'll be a year in a few weeks.
ReplyDeleteOh, wait. She's not walking OR tap dancing yet. Must be the formula...
The ped was just a militant lactivist who assumed that since apparently everyone in India breastfeeds, and women in the US are pampered spoiled brats, there's no excuse for us. He was one of those doctors who go overseas to provide medical care, and while I give mad props to anyone who does that, I feel that if he loved the attitudes in India so much better than the States, perhaps he should have emigrated there. Or at least checked his bad attitudes toward American women at customs. I have no idea if his take that "no one in India has problems breastfeeding ever" is even accurate; I can't imagine that the conditions that exist in the US that might preclude breastfeeding don't also exist in India at least to an extent.
ReplyDeleteAs for the LCs...I think they were trying to avoid the appearance of booby trapping me. Which is especially perplexing because while I had many issues, supply was not one of them.
That's funny Teri. Women in India DO breastfeed a lot but they also give babies rice water when they can't because formula is too expensive, and elite Indian women almost never BF as long as most elite American women. Of my unofficial sample of friends I can list 2-3 who were never able to BF, 1 who had problems and stopped at 6 weeks, and several who stopped after a few months.
ReplyDeleteWhat was super challenging really was pumping + feeding when baby was still doing 7 feeds a day at 6 weeks and then switching back and forth from home-nursing to work-no pumping at 8 weeks. With the next baby hopefully I will be able to take a little time off and will report back on how the supply works with combo feeding then! I definitely assumed combo feeding would be straightforward before doing it and for a number of reasons it was more complicated than I would have thought. Would actually like to hear about what worked for folks in maintaining supply in terms of ideal time to pump/be away from baby vs nurse.
ReplyDeleteOh and in our initial interview with him, he said no one in India uses lactation consultants, and that the fact that US women need them is just a sign that we're pampered and overthinking breastfeeding. It comes completely naturally to everyone, and in India women never have these problems with feeding because they go with what works naturally. Then once my daughter was born, and he found out we'd supplemented in the hospital, he immediately referred us to: (drumroll) his ?ON-STAFF lactation consultant. Sort of like "we keep this gal around for all the idiot Americans who frequent our practice." He got on my case because in our initial interview, he'd told me babies don't need to eat the first 3-5 days because they're born with extra nutrition, and yet I'd fallen for the booby trap of supplementation because I was one of those spoiled idiot Americans who didn't trust nature like the Indian women do.
ReplyDeleteI'm not making this up. In retrospect, I question my sanity in staying with this doc, but he'd come so highly recommended and I was so pro-breastfeeding that at the initial interview, I was all gung-ho about what he said, and after my baby was born, I was too busy being devastated to realize he was just a bully. An anti-American one at that. Hey for all I know some things are WAY easier for new moms in India and we can learn lessons from that in the States, but I have a hard time believing that EVERYONE in other countries has no problems nursing and it's just that we Americans overthink things.
We supplemented because our baby had jaundice, which was decently bad because my water broke so early and it took so long for her to be born. And our blood types were incompatible, as it turned out, something we had no idea could happen. (I thought it was just RH factor, and otherwise no problems.) We were going off of what we'd learned in one of our baby classes (which was supposed to be about everything baby but was mostly about feeding--specifically, breastfeeding). The instructor basically said anyone who tried to get their baby to sleep through the night the first few months was risking the baby dying of dehydration, and that if your baby has jaundice you're DOING EVERYTHING WRONG because jaundice is a sign of dehydration. If your baby is jaundiced you're not nursing often enough and making enough milk, which is crucial the first few days (directly contradicting the doc). She was basically chiding all moms that having a baby is hard, and that you're expected to breastfeed every 2 hours, and if you don't or if you pump, you're a selfish person who never should have had a baby in the first place. She also said people sometimes call child services for babies who are jaundiced because their mothers aren't taking care of them well enough.
And I wonder why the first 6 weeks of my baby's life were so stressful...
Sounds like one of those people who like to use the idea of Traditional Ways to make a point rather than exploring how said Traditionals actually do things. Funnily enough I had an old-school doc also from India who insisted I was spoiling baby by feeding more than ten minutes per side. You have to wonder what gives men the ability to speak so righteously about something they've never had to do.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it's true that the availability of formula makes people less persistent with BFing and certainly my sample is of women who could afford formula. The limited knowledge I have of women in the pre-formula days and who even now cannot afford it however suggests that people do still need to use wet-nurses or BM substitutes. Some women water down cow's milk, some use the water left from cooking rice (often if the mother has too many other responsibilities and the child is a girl and not a priority...). In many joint families multiple women may have had children who were still nursing so people did occasionally share milk-mothers (and became milk-siblings with incest prohibitions later on in life). If a baby was allergic to something in the mother's milk and just had to cry all the time, well, that's just Woman's Burden. And there's certainly high infant malnutrition, so clearly not everything is great with BFing across all social segments.
Sure, having a baby is hard and it's good to feed every two hours but your docs sound like real nutjobs.
I combofed for 7 months (2 weeks to 7.5 months) at which point solids took over for formula, except at daycare. If you count daycare we combofed until over 1 year, but I count it as if we had been together we wouldn't have been combofeeding... It was different for us as we didn't use bottles when together, so bottles were something daycare, or dad, did.
ReplyDeleteMy number one rule was FF on a schedule and BF on demand. It's really like walking a tightrope, specifically early on when supply is so volatile, and you have to find what works for you. I went back to work later than people in the US might (4 months, early for NZ) and found I needed to pump as many times (or at bare minimum n-1) as my baby would have fed during the time we were separate. My employer had no issues with that, but it was a chore for me.
Thanks for sharing that Becky. FWIW in the US you get 6 weeks paid leave if you're lucky, so many of us go back either at 7-8 weeks or 12 weeks (per laws in some places like California).
ReplyDeleteGreat post, and I clicked through to your sweet blog as well!
ReplyDeleteThis is a question for all the combo feeders here. Do u still have to pump? I have been Breastfeeding exclusively since week 5 of my son's life. I have been back at work since week 19 and would love to stop pumping at work, and just replace the pumped breastmilk with formula while I am at work. I am hoping at this point (22 weeks) it won't affect my supply substantially. But I don't know...for those of you who were combo feeding around now, when did you stop pumping?
@ Leigh - I think it all depends on the woman. I didn't notice a significant drop in my supply until I went from pumping 4 times a day to pumping 3 times. My baby was a lot older (about 10 months) so that may have had something to do with it also. I'd suggest shortening one pumping session for a few days and then dropping it altogether and keep everything else the same and see what happens to your supply. Some mom's are more sensitive than others. Good luck! If I remember right, kellymom.com has information about pumping.
ReplyDelete@ Teri, Wow. Sorry you had such an awful ped and so-called "education". (I'd say more like indoctrination, intimidation and degradation.) Glad you found somebody better. And yeah, if he wants to live and work in America, he should stop being so anti-American. It's great that he volunteered in India, and I'm sure it's great country. Maybe BFing is easier for the average Indian mom (b/c they're more likely to have friends and family who BFed and be SAHMs.) BFing problems may be under-reported, though. The poor can't necessarily afford to see a doctor. And Indian women might be reluctant to tell their doctors about Bfing struggles out of embarrassment or fear of judgment. You can't tell me that Indian women never have medical problems, work situations or SA histories that make BFing difficult and sometimes impossible, either. This former ped of yours also needs to realize that he was working with poor Indian families, who may not have access to adequate water and formula. These moms will therefore probably go to great lengths to BF. And yeah, he very well may have cared for babies who got rice water or other substitutes and not realized it. In short, this guy's perception is warped. Nobody take his comments to heart.
ReplyDeleteWhen I look back on it it seems crazy. Yet these are all things he told me. Other people's reviews of him mention some of these same themes so I don't think he was singling us out. We weren't with him long (among other things, he refused to return phone calls once we switched to formula) but it was a very damaging time. His attitude is why I'm adamant that breastfeeding be treated largely as a medical decision, and that health care professionals be held to the same standards regarding breastfeeding that they are for other medical decisions. If a doctor isn't going to weigh pros and cons, if he rubber-stamps the same treatment for you/your child as he does everyone else...run the other way. It's not ethical medicine.
ReplyDeleteHi Leigh! I ended up posting a follow up on my blog that answers part of your question, but I imagine every woman is different. I was able to stop pumping and it did not affect my supply. But honestly, pumping also never HELPED my supply - I never pumped more than an ounce at a time, usually a half an ounce. So there wasn't much for me to lose by discontinuing pumping.
ReplyDelete