**PLEASE NOTE - this thread is not to belittle anyone...its to help others see the other side **
Id love to start a thread (this one) so that woman can share why they choose to Formula Feed their babies. My intensions are not to start slinging matches ect, I just think as BF is very important to woman so to is the reason's to why woman FF.
FF mum's are not monsters..they educate themselves, most have tried and failed to BF and there fore some have alot of self doubt on their abilities and get upset when others around openly state how easy it is to BF.
MY STORY
DS1 - I was uneducated. Plain and simple. I tried and tried but after having an Emergency C/S after 22 hours of labour I was drained. I claimed defeat after my mum told me I needed to 'get a bottle'. I could kick myself for it now, if only I trusted myself. N was formula feed from day 2.
DS2 - Not wanting to go down the same road I took formula and bottles to hospital with me straight away. I remember sitting on my bed in the ward the night before looking at them and crying at myself for having them. DS was born and I tried...he screamed and screamed when ever I picked him up. The lacto even couldnt settle him for me to get him to even attempt to latch on. He was FF from then on. At 18 months old DS2 had a pre-diagnoses of autism....which th epead explained was why he screamed when ever I picked him up.
DD1 - BF straight away in recovery!! OMG it was WONDEFUL! But not knowing how hard it owuld be with 2 other children, especially one with SN who got gastro at DD 5 week mark made it very hard for me...no support network sucks big time. Formula was bought and DD was FF from then on.
DS3 - BF from birth, I demanded that they take him out of his humi crib in the NICU so I could BF him. I was lucky enough to have J man home for the first 2 weeks, made BF a hell of alot easier especially with an active toddler. At 2 weeks of age we were rushed to the Royal Childrens Hospital in Melbourne as DS3 suffered multiple strokes...I had nothing better to do then to express and BF him for the time we were there. by the time we had gotten home BF was well established and we continued until almost 8 months when he self weened.
I hope that my FF-BF experience can help and maybe open the eyes of some. You may read my story and disagree with what I did or say you could have done it another way...but its the way I choose to do things and it worked for us. FF was there for us when we needed it. No woman should feel insecure for her parenting or feeding ways....we are insecurein ourselves enough without the added pressure.
Nothing like a cuddle from DD after a hard day's work!
Oct 2007
in my own world
3,267
I BF DD for 3 months. Wish i did it for longer.
But my situation on going on FF was that i had to return to work and could not express as I work 2hrs away from home so by the time the milk got back home it would have been off.
Also, its not a very women friendly environment where i work.
I absolutely loved BF, loved it loved it loved it but that doesnt make me a bad mum to switching over to FF as I shower DD with the most love any Mum can give their children and in the end that was what's important to us
Last edited by Mum2SweetCs; October 18th, 2010 at 02:08 PM.
DD1 had a very bad tongue tie, i literally couldnt feed her, i expressed for a few weeks but got over that pretty quickly and she ended up on formula.
DD2 was BF till about 6.5-7 months when she started breast refusal, i'd just been very very sick and decided not to fight her and gave her formula and allowed my body to get back to 100% to look after her properly.
I wouldnt change either decision if i had my time again, at the time when i made the decision to FF it was what was best for me and my babies, and thats whats most improtant
I had a 16 hr labour with DD and we ended up having an emerg C sect due to failure to progress and she was struck. For 3 days I was told my milk would be in anytime - I had LC's try annd try to get DD to latch and she wouild but would pull off as there was just no milk. I didnt get a drop no colostrum, nothing. So after 3 days of no food I demanded that they give me some formular to give to DD and she took to it and we have never looked back.
I felt like a HUGE failure, but now I am just glad that I had the option to feed my beautiful, stunning and very cleaver DD!
I will again try BF with number 2 on the way - but I know that If I gove my best shot and it again doesnt work that this bub will be as healthy and happy as his/her sister!
Thanks to Maz for starting this thread and thanks to all who've replied.
Although I BF Moo I'm always interested in hearing other people's experiences. I've actually been wanting to start a thread like this but didn't know how to ask.
Doing my studies has tought me a lot more about all this and made me realise its NOT always in the mothers power to control these things eg: Certain interventions during labour can make breastfeeding difficult if not impossible.
I continue to learn from you lovely ladies and because of you I will be an even better, more understanding Doula/breastfeeding Doula
I persevered with fully BFing DS until he was about 3 months old, then I switched to a combination of FF and BF, then went to full FF at about 5 months. He had a reflux so all he wanted to do was suck and suck to take away the pain, although he actually wasn't drinking much. We tried dummies, Gaviscon etc and I also tried expressing but it just didn't work for me - I would only produce a few drops with the pump. I nearly went crazy, not being able to leave the house without him because he wanted to feed from me every hour or so.
I am the same as Skybie - I don't regret my decision at all. I sometimes think that if the doctors had of diagnosed his reflux earlier and got him onto the meds which made a massive difference, it may of been easier to continue BF. But one of the most postive things that came out of it was that my DH is a night owl and absolutely loved doing the night feeds, so it was lovely that he could share that with our son.
I got terrible mastitis with DS1 a few weeks in, with no education I had no idea what to do or look for and before I knew it I was in hosp on a drip. DH had to stay with me as the nurses said they were too busy to be able to deliver the care I would need....I could hardly get out of bed! So i would express before I attached DS1 etc whilst in hosp but the antibiotics were going through him something bad & I was not comfortable with this. It was here that we decided to FF, I did then settle back into home (remote WA), and tried to establish the BF again. When asking the doctor for the tablets to help my milk supply he had to google it (WTF?) after feeling ill for a bit from the tablets I went back to another doc to find out I'd been given the tablets to dry my milk up!!! a big WTF!!!!! I had been attaching DS1 at each feed then giving him a bottle for weeks for no reason. It was here our jouney ended.
I have been BF DS2 now for 10months and going strong.
With DD, I bf/ff from birth. I had a long and difficult birth, haemmoraged, had pain relief drugs which made me and DD sleepy. The midwife asked if she could give her a bottle and I just couldn't be bothered arguing. I tried to bf once I felt a little more up to it and while she suckled, she had a terrible latch. I saw the LC and was forever calling the midwives to help me feed her. She absolutely shredded my nipples and I had blisters and cracks all over them. I pumped in hospital on the LC's advice, as well as being on motillium to help with milk supply (which was slow to come in as I was so badly anaemic, even after recieving 4 units of blood, from losing so much blood at birth), and one night I remember I fed DD then pumped and saw that the bottle was half full of blood. DD then projectile vomited blood everywhere. I was horrified, mortified and just so so sad. I stopped bf for a few days again at the suggestion of the LC to rest my nipples, so for those days DD was fully ff and so much happier. I started to try again to bf with nipple shield and the support of the LC, as well as DH. But DD wasn't a good sleeper. DH refused to have her in our bed and I was up all night trying to feed her enough. So I went back to ff, and would bf when I felt I could. I was a nervous wreack and crying all the time. I am pretty sure I had PND. It was really difficult, DD and I both got thrush, then mastitis. My bfing journey with DD was hell, but I persevered for 7 months with combine feeding, until I fell pg with DS and DD refused the breast totally. So I finally gave up. It was such a relief and such a sad day too. I so loved feeding my girl, but it was such a hellish time.
When I had DS, I was terrified of having similar issues, but we had a natural birth, he had a bit of a breast crawl at birth and suckled for about an hour when he was born. From then on, alothough I had sore, blistery nipples for a while, suffered 3 bouts of mastitis and one of thrush, I had a 16mth old toddler to care for too, and had to return to work 3 days a week when he was 5mths old, we had a wonderful easy bfing relationship, compared to DD's. We coslept from birth too which I think made a huge difference, plus DH was tremendously supportive and would take care of DD when he was home and left me to caring for DS, so I could sit on the lounge and feed him for an hour or two if necessary. We bf for 23 months
I'm praying with our next bub we have as much as succes as we had with DS, but if not, I will not hesitate to use formula again.
Kellie, your stories are such a wonderful example of the reasons things can sometimes go pear shaped, and some of the things that are most important in helping things to go right
DS & I established BF really well and very easily. I felt so lucky. BUT life circumstances are not always perfect. I had to return to work with DH being a SAHD for financial reasons. I did try working from home when DS was 6 weeks old and feeding him on demand. It would take me 6 days to do 3 days work. It was incredibly stressful. We decided to try expressing. DH would feed DS a bottle of EBM and I would express when I could. It would take over an hour to express just 100ml when DS was downing double that in 10 mins. The result - more stress and very painful nipples. I ended up taking more time off work as I was so stressed. This time was the best. But we could simply not afford for me to take any more time off. When DS was 5 months, I returned to work. Due to the previous stress, I chose to give DS formula while I was at work and BF him whenever I was home. From that point on, my milk simply dried up. His last BF was at 8 months exactly. I had been persisting with a night time feed for weeks - each night ended in tears - mine & his. DS would suck and suck and suck until I felt like my nipples were falling off. Yet he still seemed hungry. And so the stress started again. Finally on the day he turned 8 months, I made the decision to give him a bottle after yet another night of torture. He downed the lot in 10 minutes. I never BF him again. I didn't even get a hint of becoming engorged - there was just no milk left. It was an incredibly tough decision to make and even now I have tears in my eyes. I really wanted to feed to 12 months.
I hate being made to feel that I didn't try hard enough. But my boy is very healthy, very happy and very loved.
Last edited by Rowellen; October 18th, 2010 at 03:19 PM.
I FF DS1..this was my choice and my choice alone right from conception and in fact before I even became pregnant and DH went with it. I was nervous and un-educated about BF so decided to go with FF. It worked for us and my DS1 thrived, was in fact the healthiest baby out of all my Mother's group who all BF, never got a sniffle until he was at least 3yrs old Lol!
When I was pregnant with DS2 my OB asked me if I was going to BF, it was not a loaded question, just a question. I gave it a go, had a terrible time to start with, and then when AF returned another terrible time, got over the terrible times and it worked.
With DD it worked straight away, no attachment problems, no milk not coming in problems and no starving screaming baby waiting for my milk to come in.
I really am happy that I had a mix of both BF and FF. It makes it alot easier for me to both sides. Or is perhaps I am little more chilled these days, that old saying..never a judge a person until you have walked a mile in their shoes
Firstly, Sam was born four weeks early with very low blood sugars and he needed something quickly in order to get them stabilised. I was given a choice of a glucose drip, or formula. I chose the formula as it seemed less traumatic. And so it began.
I desperately wanted to breastfeed him, so once we were able to, I tried as often as I could to feed him. In the early days I had a lot of support in SCN as there was only one other baby in there and her mother had gone home and she was being formula fed. We tried. I had nurses helping me express frequently, we tried to put Sam to the breast as often as we were allowed, but being a premature baby he had lots of trouble attaching and sucking and couldn't maintain it for any great length of time. But we persisted.
Then after a few days he had some breathing issues. His paed said I was no longer allowed to breastfeed him for a few days, but we kept expressing. He was doing reasonably ok with bottles when he was allowed to have a suck feed, but at this point, he was mostly having tube feeds. I would pump at every feed, whether it be a suck feed or tube feed, but no matter what we did, I was never able to get more than 3mL of colostrum in one session. Even with motillium, even when we were home, after two weeks of pumping constantly I could still not even manage to get even 3mL of colostrum each time.
I was in pain from the pump, I was in pain from my arthritis, I'd need to express for a week to be able to give him enough for even one feed. The pain from the arthritis was becoming so crippling that I was having trouble picking up and holding my 2.5kg baby. I stopped. I started taking the medications I needed to treat the arthritis, but that meant I could not feed my son without making him very sick.
I have since found out that my ridiculously high insulin levels (I have severe insulin resistance) mean that it will always be hard for me to have my milk come in. I've also discovered that it's pretty certain that I have tubular breasts - meaning the breast tissue didn't form properly at puberty (also related to the PCOS and insulin resistance, apparently) and the tissue that makes milk just isn't there.
So, even without the stress of a premature birth and with a baby that could attach properly, I have come to accept that the best I will be able to do with subsequent children (if there are any) is give them SOME breastmilk. I feel that it is pretty much impossible considering all my health issues to EXCLUSIVELY breast feed a baby for any significant length of time.
But formula exists. Formula sustained my son when my body could not. It may not be the best source of nutrition for him, but it was the only one we had available.
My children have been breastfed for the most part. However formula feeding has allowed me some small freedom. It has meant that I have been able to leave my babies in the care of my husband or parents whilst I worked for a couple of hours, went to the gym, spent a night in emergency, went out to my DH's work function, attend a funeral. When 2 out of 3 of my babies decided to wean themselves at 10months of age, it meant that there was an alternative I could give them to ensure they were getting the healthiest alternative available.
When my DS1 was about 2yrs old (who had been breastfed until 1.5yrs), he had some health complications, which resulted in a poor appetite and an even worse diet. Putting him on formula allowed him to regain badly needed vitimins and minerals, which healped his health and allowed him to regain much needed weight without going to more extreme measures.
I have combination fed DD from the start.
After I lost over 2L of blood during delivery my colostrum disappeared. it came back day 6 and my milk came in day 10.
DD was given formula by the hospital as she was losing weight, she lost 1kg in the 2 weeks we stayed.
I expressed what little I could and topped up with formula. I was expressing every 2 hours, 4hrs overnight (until DD was 8 weeks old)
Once we were discharged we tried and tried, but DD had HUGE problems attaching so I kept expressing and top-ups.
Then the midwife came around and said "have you tried nipple shields?"
BANG! we attached and I had a booby monster.
(it WAS hard though, and I kept saying that Id try to 4 weeks, then 6 weeks, then 8, and things were so much easier as DD grew stronger)
I took/take meds constantly as well as vitamins for boost my iron levels (Im still low/anemic after 5 months) and was feeding DD except for one expressed bottle every morning.
Then her weight kept dropping.
At her 8 week check up, I was allowed off bed rest, and the doc suggested giving her two small bottles a day (ebm if I could, then formula to fill the bottle) to help her gain weight, as she was failure to thrive.
So we did that until her 19week checkup where her weight stabilized yay!
Now DH gives her 30 mls formula and 100mls ebm (i still express every morning after feeding) before bed, and will keep going till the formula tins empty.
Ive had 5 transfusions and will be on meds until she starts solids (or even till she weans) as my body is struggling to make milk still.
I know how hard it can be but I did have a few advantages that many women dont
- DH left work when I was 32 weeks preg as I needed bedrest, and is only back 2 days a week now (DDs 5 months)
- My fil is a gp and had all the contacts plus gives me the prescriptions
- My mums Friend is a lactation consultant for the ABA
- My sister/nana will pop around to hold miss E so I can sleep if DH is working
Great thread I have been struggling with the decision to FF and reading this has helped me.
DD was born 6 weeks early and was small even for her gestation when she came out. She arrived via emergency c-section after movement dropped right off and aside from about 30 seconds where my DH brought her to meet me I didn't meet her properly for 14 hours after she was born. She spent 3 weeks in the NCU and despite constant attempts and help from the midwives there we just never managed to get breastfeeding. She just couldn't latch on and at first they said it was due to her size and that it would come as she grew but it didn't happen.
Dilligently I expressed. Every three hours around the clock and I hated it. When DD came home we kept trying to breastfeed without success. I was still expressing - for up to an hour at a time and every three hours, and with a new baby at home to look after it almost broke me. I would wake up, change her, feed her, pump, go back to sleep for maybe an hour and then the whole process would start again. My DH helped but it was just too much and I became so resentful of organising my life in three hour chunks. Eventually I started trying to talk to DH about FF but I struggled. I had really had my heart set on bf and he wanted me to bf too. I had thought I was going in for this whole 'earth mother' thing and it just wasn't working out that way and with everything everyone had to say about how wrong it was to FF I was feeling horribly guilty. In a desperate attempt to get bf going we went to a full day lactation clinic but once we got home we couldn't get going again and in a tearful moment we decided it was time to transition to formula.
Eventually we realised that there was no way the routine we had to follow to keep up giving her EBM was sustainable and we decided to switch over. Two days later and I have been put on medication for something unrelated and as it turns out I would have had to stop BF anyway, so I do feel a bit better about it.
I BF DD until exactly 5 months because my supply ran out as I'd gone back to full-time work.
I had to use a nipple shield the whole time while I was BF because she just couldn't latch on.
I hated BF. I hated the way my boobs got so hard, I got sick of the smell, sick of having to wear a bra all the time, sick of the way they just hurt anytime I thought about DD and just hated the way I didn't feel "normal" until I stopped BF.
I remember telling mum this and that I didn't know if I wanted to BF if we had another child and was so pleased with her reaction "do whatever feels best for you and don't let anyone tell you what you should be doing because believe it or not, you actually do know what is best for your child"
So, if we decide to have another child I've decided that I will most likely FF from birth. This is also because if we have another child I'll most likely go back to work after a couple of months as I earn more than DH and probably always will.
DS was BF for 4 months, same thing, milk dried up, I tried everything to get it going again, LC, feeding heaps, expressing even meds but nothing worked
WHY do we FF? **NOT A VENT THREAD**
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