my dirty little secret

When I was a new mom with Anna and I would have friends having babies, the subject of feeding would always come up. I would ask if they planned on breastfeeding and would offer my 2 cents if the answer was "I am going to try". My opinion was that everyone can breastfeed. Its tough in the beginning but once you and baby learn how it is simple the best option. At the time I had a dream baby. After a rough 2 weeks in the beginning with cracked nipples and several night feeds, i ended up with a child that would eat while I walked around, would latch on in the dark with no effort and would go 4 hours between feeds. I didn't realize how close minded I was being.

So now, with baby number 2 here, I say that a very important tool for all new moms, and people in general to have, is the ability to have an open mind!

Max and Anna could not be more different and the biggest difference is how they feed. When Max was born he took to the breast right away. My milk came in not 24 hours after he was born and we were off. The beginning was rough but I kept telling myself it gets better. He was eating every hour around the clock. I was tired but I knew the end was near. When 2 weeks passed and he kept eating around the clock, I decided to seek the help of my doctor and a lactation consultant as it didn't seem right that he would need to eat so much. it turned out max had a tongue tie and he had no gusto in his suck. So after my milk would initially pour into his mouth, he would not get much more. His latch was so sensitive that if I so much as sneezed he would fall off. With enough milk to feed an orphanage, this would then mean that both he and I were soaked and he wouldn't want to wrap his little mouth around the waterfall again. We would work at it and then he would fall asleep. I would switch sides but after he was asleep he was done. So that's the end of the feed until an hour later when he woke up and said through his screaming cry "hey, I wasn't done". I needed to supplement with pumped milk in order to get some extra sleep and keep the demand up as his suck wasn't telling my boobs he needed what he actually needed. for the next 3 weeks, every feed was breast, pump, bottle. this would buy me an extra hour before I would do it again. He got his tongue tie snipped at 5 weeks and I hoped for the best but the best didn';t come. I cut out bottles to try and work on his latch and went exclusively to the beast again but at 10 weeks old, in a teary ball on the shower floor after yet another sleepless night, I said I was done! I gave max his next feed out of a bottle and he was happy for almost 4 hours! I realized then that my poor boy was miserable because he was always hungry!

So my dirty little secret is that i now feed my 2.5 month old formula. Yes I admit it! the proof is in the nasty green stinky poop. Now that I do something I secretly crucified other moms for doing, I have learned that having an open mind is a gift. I have no idea why people do what they do so who am I to judge. Society already throws it in my face that breast is best in commercials, magazine ads, on the side of the formula can, and even in infant apparel (note Max's shirt in the picture above) so i don't need anyone else telling me that I am giving my son second best. With this realization, I will never judge someone who decides to feed their child formula for whatever reason as I can only hope people won't judge me.

As a final note, I do wish i was breastfeeding. There are so many positives aside from the milk being the best most natural thing for baby. Formula is expensive and now that every member of my family is registered for the nestle gift I will have to start paying for it eventually, the poop is beyond nasty, and or course it involves preparing and washing bottles. For that I obviously suggest everyone give breastfeeding a good solid effort if they can. But ultimately my open mind says do whats best for your baby and for YOU!