Bottle feeding in the hospital August 26, 2009

If you’ve decided to bottle feed straight from the start, it’s best to check any hang-ups about that decision at the delivery room door. You are going to get asked– a lot– if only for logistical reasons, and it’s a lot easier to simply answer, “bottle” than if you feel the need to defend yourself and explain why each time. Since I decided nearly four years ago that I would never breast feed another child, I have left about 99% of my hang-ups at the door.

The truth is no one has given me a hard time about it. The lactation consultant popped in on Monday evening to introduce herself and let me know she’d be back to help the next day. When I told her I did not plan to breast feed, she said she’d instead tell me how to stop the milk! I was shocked and pleased.

The closest I came to feeling pressure was from the pediatrician, who, upon being told I was bottle feeding, asked if I was tempted at all to breast feed. I just smiled and said no and the case was closed. And she STILL told me that it was her unbiased opinion that my baby is unusually beautiful. She works at my ped’s practice but I have never met her before. I think it was an effective sales technique and I am thinking of switching to the dr who thinks my baby is the prettiest…

I find feeding the baby to be delightful and I love that the focus is on her. If she’s hungry, I feed her. Period. Breast feeding, for me, was all about me. In addition to Gatito learning how, I had to worry about Doing it often enough to encourage production but not often enough to bleed or just make me crazy. And when I was managing oversupply, I actually had to wake a peacefully skeepin baby tp force feed him. Every time I cheerfully pop a bottle into her mouth, I remember that pain and all those tears and I snuggle her a little closer, so grateful that it is not part of our beginning together.

The funny thing is that I keep confusing the baby nurses by asking to feed her when she’s hungry. I guess most people who are bottle feeding let the nurses take care of it, especially if it’s at an inconvenient time? The first night, I had her in my room all night, but insomnia kept ms from getting more than two hours. Wary of getting to the psychotic stage I was at last week, I sent the baby to the nursery and took the Ambien. I still woke up several times– or perhaps I sleep walked to the bathroom– but I got about six hours, so yay.

I love feeding her, though, and was disappointed she’d already eaten when i asked for her this morning She’s a great eater and sometimes afterwards she opens her gorgeous blue-gray eyes for a bit and looks at me. I know they may change and I love my own brown eyes and those of the rest of my family, but these blue gray jobbies sure are pretty.

Incidentally, today is day 3 and I’ve been wearing a sports bra since yesterday and there is no sign of milk!! I know it is likely to all come gushing in tomorrow but for an early and oversupplier like myself, a woman who had drops of milk left for nearly a year after breast feeding Gatito for a mere month, and who has been leaking collostrum since 28 weeks gestation, I am feeling hopeful that the process of drying out will not be as bad as I feared.

Feeding July 5, 2009

As you might have guessed, I’m not planning to breast feed this time around. Some stuff has changed since Gatito was born, though. For one, there are now BPA-free bottles, and we are going to give these silicone bottles a shot. There’s also more affordable organic formula available. My primary concern is the hormones in milk. It seems the cans have BPA in their lining, though, so I guess there’s always something.

You know what’s super annoying, though? Practically every review on shopping web sites or elsewhere online begins with a woman providing an excuse for why she is not breast feeding. The baby naturally weaned herself, the baby didn’t like the taste of the mother’s milk after the mother got pregnant again, supply is getting low and need to supplement, blah blah blah. Failing an excuse, and announcement that the mother did breast feed exclusively for however long.

I think it’s great that there is so much more support for breast feeding today than there was for our mothers. But I hate hate hate how much pressure and judgment and guilt surrounds the whole thing. Enough that it even invades the reviews of formula itself!

I say, breast feed if you want to and it works for you and your baby. Don’t if it doesn’t. The first four weeks of Gatito’s life were a misery for me because of it, and I’m so looking forward to that not being an issue this time around. What a relief to look forward to feeding my baby, not to dread it.

Hopefully my last post on breast feeding ever October 11, 2006

I’m putting this out there because I think there’s so much coverage of what a lovely experience breast feeding can be, and on the occasions that you do hear the other side, people tend to write about how it was hard at first, but they’re glad they kept going. Or else someone writes something like “breasts are for my husband, not my baby” and things spin off in another direction entirely.

As you probably recall, I hated breast feeding. I had my share of real problems– cracked and bleeding nipples, bacterial and yeast infections, and a near constant supply of blocked ducts, all of which I found unbelievably painful. I gave it up at four weeks, but plenty of people have persevered through those things and worse.

Hmm, maybe it *is* natural May 26, 2006

My struggles with breast feeding have been well documented. I think the thing that suprised me the most was that I was expecting two tough weeks, but when I was in the thick of it, the timeframe got extended– only then did people start telling me I should expect two to three tough months. I know so many people that continue to have issues, whether an occasional blocked duct, yeast infection, or mastitis six months later. One friend’s daughter will only breast feed at home, so if she wants to go out for more than a couple of hours, she has to bring expressed milk in a bottle for the baby and the breast pump for herself! With breast feeding so difficult, I often wonder how the human race survived.

So imagine my amazement when I saw a woman today who was opening a door for
her toddler, pushing an empty stroller, and walking along, all while
calmly nursing a newborn. I was impressed and told her so, and she said
nursing was easy for her. (Not in an obnoxious way.) So I guess the race survived because there were enough people like this woman.

This redesign brought to you by the search “I hate breast feeding” March 4, 2006

I get a lot of hits for people searching for "I hate breast feeding." I come up on the first page, generally. Since most of the other results are articles about people who hated it but perservered and then breast fed for a million years and were so so happy, I thought I would bring together all of my posts on my experience into one category for easy access. In case any of you searchers are feeling alone.

But I couldn’t have only one category so I started making others (this takes freakin forever in typepad, by the way, to go back and categorize old posts, and I’m not finished) and then it seemed like time for an overall redesign and here we are. Enjoy!

Drama, Melodrama, Trauma, and Holy Cow! December 9, 2005

Drama: Roxanne is considering giving up breast feeding and Sweet Coalminer commented that she is afraid of formula poops. To which I say: Be afraid. Be very afraid.
These days, Gatito’s one poop of the day is preceded by 1-2 hours of
noxious gas. It is huge and it is green and the stink is indescribable.
When I’m dealing with it, Gatito will inevitably pee himself despite
all my
precautions and need his whole outfit changed. When A is dealing with
it… well, suffice it to say that the entire nursery will need to be
disinfected and he will be late for work.

Melodrama: The whole eating worms thing. I have friends, even some who live nearby. One from grad school also has a newborn and we get together every week and I have plans with another who is new to town and has a one-year-old for next week. I was just disappointed that my attempt to reach out to those women was such a disaster. It sort of seemed like someone whose baby was born the same week as mine should automatically at least want to try to be friends, you know? We had a snow storm today, so I didn’t get a chance to see them in person again and there’s only one more class before the new year anyway.

Trauma: On Monday I took Gatito to the mall. It was a ten minute drive, and about two minutes in, he started to cry. Crying quickly escalated to hysteria, despite my attempts to reassure him of my presence by talking and singing. By the time we got there and I released him from his car seat, he was bright red and soaked with sweat. He collapsed into my arms and sobbed with relief as I held him in the parking lot. My heart nearly broke and I’ve been afraid to go out (except walks with the bjorn in the neighborhood) since.

Holy cow! It has been a full ten days since I have breast fed Gatito and I still have milk. Just in case you thought I was exaggerating about the whole oversupply thing.

Big Boy December 2, 2005

I know this is the least original thing I can say, but it’s true, so I’ll say it anyway: I can’t believe Gatito is already one month old and I can’t believe how much he’s changed in that time! For one thing, he weighed in at nearly 11 pounds today! His eyes have turned to brown, like A’s and mine, but his little fuzz of hair is still light and reddish. His cheeks are getting fuller and he’s also getting longer– I give those 0-3 month clothes two more weeks at most. He finds amusement from lying on the changer, staring up at his Tintin posters or lying on his play mat and staring a small purple octopus (or the wall– he’s not picky). Yesterday we left the house for the first time without A (besides neighborhood walks) and went to the bookstore, the dry cleaner, and the cell phone store. It went well. We’ll have to do more of that.

About four or five days ago, our routine broke down, but yesterday we began the one suggested by The Contented Little Baby Book (I had been using a modified version, taking key elements from it) and he was definitely happier. It’s a lot of work, though, trying to keep him stimulated and awake as much as possible during the day (but not crying!) so he sleeps at night. There was much carrying about, pacing the house reading the NY Times aloud during the day to keep him awake and not crying, but it paid off– other than the 2am feed, he was only up for an hour at 5am and I’m convinced we can do better!

For those of you interested in the status of my breasts, I went cold turkey on Wednesday, after deciding that the slow weaning was only prolonging the agony. The milk is not gone yet, but the pain is, mostly. I must tell you that Wednesday night, sitting bound up in a tight
sports bra stuffed with cabbage leaves and holding frozen blueberries
to my breast was, without a doubt, one of my sexiest moments. I’m not
sure A will ever get over it. But I absolutely love bottle feeding and the ability to focus on Gatito’s needs, rather than alternately procrastinating feeding him or trying to force him to eat based on my needs. It’s such a relief!

Are those blueberries on your breast or are you just happy to see me? November 30, 2005

I know, I know, supposed to be changing the subject here, but since Dr. Google offered me nada on how to wean from the mom’s perspective (yeah yeah, it’s all about the baby), I’m here to tell you what the lactation consultant told me, in case you need to know:

• 4 cups of mint or sage tea/day
• sudafed (which i hate because it makes my whole body feel so dry, which i realize is the point)
• cold (frozen blueberries do the job)
• birth control pills with estrogen (waiting to hear back from Dr. Nice. turns out the packs i had on hand expired some time ago. update: no go till 6 weeks post partum. damn.)
• cabbage leaves (yeah, she said it)

And even still it will apparently take another week. Sigh. But on another note, I must say how nice it is to have a lactation consultant without an agenda who simply acknowledges how much I’ve been through, how well I did to give Gatito 4 weeks of breast milk, and who supports my decision to stop, no questions asked.

Ooh, I think I hear the crabby patty now.

Not worth it November 25, 2005

As I lay on the massage table this morning, tears leaking out of the corners of my eyes from the excruciating pain, pain the therapist assured me was worse than labor, as she worked out the latest blocked ducts, the following words escaped me without thought: It’s just not worth it.

I cried all the way home while talking to my sister on the phone, as she reassured me that it’s okay to stop, saying all the things I know intellectually, all the things I would say to someone else in my situation. When I got home, I fed Gatito a bottle and cried (yet again), apologizing for placing my needs above his, while at the same time appreciating the fact that we were gazing into each other’s eyes– something that’s impossible when his face is mashed into my breast.

The fact that, since the birth, almost everything I’ve blogged has been about breast feeding is reflective of the fact that the pain I’ve been enduring and various strategies for imroving the situation have been occupying nearly my every thought. Among other things, I can’t explain the frustration of having to wake a contentedly sleeping baby in the middle of the night to try to convince him to eat, not because he’s hungry, but because I can’t sleep from the pain.

Making the decision to stop was the hardest part. But in the hours since, I’ve felt better and better, more and more relieved. I’m terrified of the process of weaning down and know it will likely be a couple of weeks till I can stop for good, but at last, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve been enduring pain or discomfort related to pregnancy, miscarriage and breast feeding for 15 months and it’s time to reclaim my body and to turn my focus away from myself and on to enjoying this baby.

***

Oh, and by the way? The decision is made and it’s what’s right for me, even if you would make a different decision in my place. (And hey, you can never be exactly in my place, yes?) So the rule is, anyone who comments something relentlessly supportive gets a link, if you don’t have one already, and anyone who writes anything mean (not that any of you would, right?) gets deleted. Thanks.

On my own November 23, 2005

Sunday night and last night were perfect, with Gatito going down at 7pm, being woken for feeds at 10pm and 3am and then getting up at 7am. The fact that I got a good rest on Sunday helped my first day along significantly, as did a call and visit from a friend and her 3 month old baby. Yesterday kind of sucked, made wore by the fact we were prevented from taking our daily walk by a cold rain, but I still made it!

The breasts are much better. I’m still waking up engorged, prodding nervously to determine if it feels like pudding (good) or cement (bad)– analogy courtesy of the physical therapist. My right breast in particular is an overachiever and I’m constantly trying to force Gatito to eat more on that side, to which he sometimes says, Get your goddamn breast out of my mouth. Or something like that…

I’m a little irritated that what started out as my mom’s support when things were at their worst (it’s okay to stop) has morphed into what feels distinctly like disapproval of my breast feeding (it’s been three weeks, that’s enough or, worse, remember when your breasts were a sexual object?) It’s actually kind of hilariously stereotypical– exactly what the books say your mother will say, and reminiscent of the time when I was having trouble getting pregnant and she said stuff like, So-and-so was having trouble getting pregnant until she took a Carribbean vacation and even the ever-popular I know so many people who got pregnant after they adopted… It’s barely worth the fight, honestly.

Wishing you all a very happy Thanksgiving tomorrow.