babyblog

breast and bottle

Much is made of confusing babies if you offer them both breast and bottle. One theory is not to do it too early (to avoid this), but I've noted that many of my friends who tried to introduce the bottle later on had enormous troubles getting their babies to accept the bottle at all. I suspect the theory of not doing it very soon is propaganda put forward by the boob nazi's to prevent you ever being able to bottle feed :)

I'm very determined to breastfeed H. I couldn't do it with D past 3 wks due to the PE and being hospitalised and put on various nasty medications and I was extremely upset and depressed by this and felt like a total failure as a mother. I blame much of this sense of failure on the boob nazi's, they apply so much pressure to you to breastfeed that if for some reason you can't, you can't help but feel that you're doing something wrong. None of the classes I attended during my pregnancy with D, none of the midwives or health visitors, told me that there were occasions where you might not be able to do it. They implied that everyone can do it, regardless.

After I came out of hospital having been pumped full of radio active drugs and serious pain medications I was told by the DR's not to breastfeed because of all the stuff in my system. By then my milk had dried up anyway after a week in hospital. I was in serious pain, finding it hard to breathe, trying to cope with the emotional trauma of what had just happened, trying to cope with the fact I'd been forcibly separated from my baby, trying to come to terms with his now being fed by totally different means which his dad and nanny had established and I had no idea what to do with. The NCT midwife that took our classes prior to his birth then tried to make me feel bad about this and told me that I should consider using a breastpump and pump out milk and throw it away for the next 3 months or so until my system was clear of drugs at which point I could resume feeding. I remember coming away from that conversation in tears and G telling her never to offer an opinion again!

Anway, D thrived on formula and as hard as it was to come to terms with at the time he did infact change from a whingey whiney dissatisfied big baby boy to a contented peaceful happy one.

Anyway, I have nothing against formula at all. There are circumstances in which you may need to use it, and your babies do thrive and grow and do very well....... contrary to opinion from those boob nazi's. My sister in law when her 3rd child was born, after seeing how content D was compared to her two sons, decided to supplement her daughter with it as well as breastfeeding and thought it was marvellous.

Having said that, right now I want to breastfeed Harry. I want to do what I wasn't able to do last time, although I am open to the need for formula should it arise for any reason. And more importantly I'm actually enjoying it. I remember with D he would sit at my breast for hours at a time sucking furiously and never seeming to be satisfied. Harry will go for 10 or 15 mins then 5 on the other side and then fall peacefully back to sleep. He seems much more satisfied by it than D ever did.

What I don't want, though, is to be completely dog-tied to him 24 x 7 for the forseeable future. I want G to be able to feed him if I have something I need to do or want to get out of the house for a few hours. To this end I bought myself an expensive Medela Breastpump which is apparently the best on the market. I've been a little too nervous to use it until now, I haven't wanted to start draining out all the milk only for H to want a feed 5 mins later. Plus there's this nipple confusion thing to worry about so I've waited until my milk supply is well established and H is on an almost predictable feeding routine.

So I tried it for the first time this morning, and G fed him the 2oz I managed to drain out from a bottle. He was quite confused by it to begin with, lay there with his mouth open and didn't suck, but after a little encouragement took to it like a duck to water and drank it all up. Afterwards he had his most wakeful spell to date, and then requested more so I breastfed him..... this time he looked confused by my boob! So I dont quite know if weve done the right thing or not, but at least he took the bottle so I guess the thing to do is persevere and give them to him periodically from now on.... maybe once every day or every other day, Im not too sure!

Posted by katie at August 3, 2004 02:04 PM