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I'm sorry you're feeling this way
I was adopted and formula fed, and I think I'm fine, lol. I just found out that a couple of my friends chose to stop breastfeeding because it was too difficult in the beginning. And I don't think any less of them. Actually, I'm kind of scared now that I'm going to have mean LCs and stupid doctors who tell me to just keep trying... I definitely want to BF, but I'm sort of terrified about not being able to after hearing everybody talk about how much they're judged and persecuted for not being able to. I can't imagine being watching somebody in public and timing how often they feed their infants just so they can judge. People are terrible!
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I am so sorry to hear people have treated you this way. I'm not a mom yet (9 weeks pg), but I have often heard the same comments you've mentioned being made about non-breastfeeding women by other women and I want to tell you that I stood up for the non-breast feeding women. There are a million reasons why women can not breast feed (whether they originally wanted to or not) or why they made the decision not to. You deserve support and you have mine.
My brother, as an infant, was allergic to breast milk and could have died from it. I have cousin that was adopted, yet his mom would be judged in the mall when she used a bottle w/ formula. Frankly, my SIL was judged when seen feeding baby from a bottle that was filled with BREAST MILK.
The people making those remarks to you are ignorant jerks.
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@Mrs. Jacks: True dat!
Anytime you need someone to talk to, I am right here. I also had a really tramatic experience with breastfeeding my daughter, so much so that I didn't even try to breastfeed my son; I went straight to the bottle. I've gotten all the comments from strangers, friends, and family, but to be perfectly honest, formula feeding is working for my family and I'm very upfront about telling people that. Let people talk; they don't get to make the decisions about my children.
You've done nothing to feel guilty or ashamed about; you're doing a fantastic job taking care of little C, especially with all the extra complications you went through. Keep your chin up, my friend; you're an awesome mom!
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hugs!
you are doing what is best for your baby and your situation. everyones situation is different, and no one should look down on anyone for the decisions they make.
DS has been exclusively formula fed since he was 2 weeks old. i tried to BF and DS and i just weren't getting the hang of it. the 2nd night he was home he was crying and crying and it was making it so hard to try and feed him that i started crying. for the sanity of the entire house, we gave him a bottle. i tried pumping, but to be honest, it just wasn't for me. i knew what everyone says, but in the end, all that mattered was what was best for us.
i had my pp visit last wednesday and my doctor asked if DS was breastfeeding ok(i had problems in the hospital, one nurse even got really snippy with me when i said i wanted DS to get a bottle in the nursery during the nights) and when i told him i got a little upset because i figured id get a discouraging look, but he was really good about it. he said 'don't be shy about it, sometimes it just doesn't work out the way you want it to and that's nothing to be ashamed of' made me feel much better. -
Hugs to you! You have a very valid point that all moms need support, not just those struggling with breastfeeding. I hate that everyone has to feel so defensive about their choice in how to feed their baby.
I started thinking about this on Saturday- I was having lunch with my best mommy friend with our sons. They start fussing as soon as our food comes, so we both whip out our big Avent bottles and start feeding them. We had a woman come up to us and say that breastfeeding is better for our babies along with a nasty comment about them being so chubby.
What the stupid woman didn't realize was that these boys are similar sizes, simlar ages, and one was drinking formula and one was drinking pumped breastmilk. It is nobody's business what is inside those bottles, there is nothing wrong with either liquid. It brought on a whole new round of guilt for my poor friend who was physically unable to breastfeed, and who already got a bunch of flack from her parents about it.
Formula saved us those first few crazy weeks when I wasn't making enough milk, the only thing I have against formula is that it is so darn expensive!! Formula is liquid gold too. I always save those formula coupons that I get in the mail and coupons I clip and pass them along to my friend.
I'm sorry that we don't usually think about the struggles you are going through, you are doing a great job, and as you can see the posts above, we all support you too!
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Kudos for a great rant! With 40+ comments, it's obvious that you've got some serious support. I know nothing about the topic, so no advice to deliver, but I think you've brought up something important. Hang in there!
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I don't think you necessarily meant for it to come off this way, but as a FF mom I take offense to the statement "I'm sorry I didn't choose to feed my child formula". Well, some of us do and I'm not sure that you realize when you make a statement like that how condescending it is towards moms that are FFing by choice and not out of necessity. There are a lot of reasons that people FF other than because they can't BF. What if you don't enjoy BFing or it doesn't work for your family situation or you plain and simple just don't want to do it? It feels like you are implying that if you are FFing by default you should get some kind of gold star or extra Mom credit. I don't know- that's the way I took it. I feel like we've created a culture now where it's not acceptable to say "BFing is not for me". There has to be a justification for it and it's ridiculous. Whatever makes you and your baby happy is the best thing.
I'm not trying to stir things up. I just think that if you want everyone to be supportive of FFing you should be supportive yourself of all women that FF, no matter what the reason is. If you aren't than I think it's just as bad as the "militant BFing Nazis" who shove the "breast is best" down everyone's throats.
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I'm so sorry you're feeling so unsupported, and I definitely understand what you're saying. I was not able to exclusively breastfeed b/c my supply never increased beyond 1 oz per feeding. I tried everything -- lactation consultants, pumping, supplemental nursing systems -- but nothing worked to increase my supply. So I've been supplementing (heavily) with formula since my daughter was 3 days old. When I go back to work next week I'm finally going to switch my daughter over to being exclusively formula fed b/c it just doesn't make sense for me to go to all of the trouble of pumping when I produce such a small amount of milk.
The first time I fed my daughter a bottle of formula I was so overwhelmed b/c I knew almost nothing about formula. We had some on hand at home "just in case", but I never in a million years thought I would have to use it since everyone always told me that any woman who really wanted to should be able to EBF.
Every time I whip out a bottle of formula in public I still feel like I need to apologize and explain that I did not choose to formula feed. I wanted so badly to EBF, and it still makes me very sad that I wasn't able to.
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@blushink: That article is amazing. I shared it with a couple friends.
Thank you so much.@dookie32: Okay... the thing about this post is that this is a rant. Which means it is my personal feelings about my own personal situation. This is what happened to me and this is how I feel about it. I wanted to breastfeed and not being able to was extremely hard on me. It has nothing to do with anyone but me. I am pro-feeding, means as long as you are feeding your kid... I don't care what you're feeding them. My whole post is about being pissed off about judgement... why would I judge anyone else? I'm sorry if it came off that way because it was not my intention.
@skibobrown: That's exactly how I feel. I feel like I need to apologize for having that container of formula in my diaper bag... which is ridiculous, I know, but I definitely still feel that way. I so badly wanted to EBF too.
As for the rest of you ladies, thank you so much for all of your words and stories. I really appreciate your support. This is why I love HB. You guys are amazing.
I reached out in a local Mom group for women who live on the bases here and I got a really amazing response. We're going to start our own support group on the base. We have collected 12 women so far and that's just in the few hours since we put the facebook group together last night.
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Best of luck with your group! I have to say, I always find posts like this so surprising, and not for the reasons you think. It stuns me how some places, people are so willing to walk up and comment/judge/harass a complete stranger! That just does not happen here. At all, on any issue. People would stare, I think, at an obviously pregnant woman smoking, but even on something so clearly wrong it would be very rare for anyone to actually say anything. I know that cos my SIL's SIL smoked through her pregnancy, and none of us actually said anything to her.
I'm breast feeding and formula feeding the twins, and because it's twins the nurses/midwives etc were fairly understanding about however I chose to feed them. Only one nurse made me uncomfortable- "why are you giving them formula?" "Cos it's feckin hard to bf two babies!" she immediately backed down, and was really nice then.
Bf rates are really low in Ireland, and because of that there's a lot of support/pressure within maternity hospitals to get as many mums as possible doing it, but socially nobody bats an eyelid at seeing bottles- they'd be more surprised to see open breast feeding. My SIL breast fed at home and bottle fed out and about as she just didn't feel at ease with it in public. I still haven't breast fed in front of anyone other than DH, and nurses etc. stupid, I know, just can't do it.Move to Ireland, nobody will notice the bottle!
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Your situation is identical to a friend of mine (placenta left in uterus during pregnancy and had extreme bleeding afterwards, D&C and hospitalized ... basically almost died)... and I hate to break this to you - her milk also never really came in... maybe 1 oz per pump. Her baby is 4+ months now.
She also tried really hard - we went to breastfeeding groups together...etc. and she sees lactation consultants. take fenugreek, make delicious lactation cookies and pancakes (and we became the ones who benefits from it!). I think now that she went back to work she decided to only nursing 2 times a day: morning and night. Long session of pumping at work is not worth it for her because it took her 20 minutes to get 0.5-1 oz. so she decided to drop it. I don't know about her other friends but we didn't judge her (there is really nothing to judge anyway) because we know what she went through.
Just ignore what other people say. They are morons and they don't know how hard it is, especially when your body is not cooperating. Formula is just as good too and they all grow up the same! And by the way my baby is exclusively breastfed, 4.5 months now, and is coming down with another virus. This is the 2nd time he's been sick since he was born. So breastfed babies don't necessarily become immune to all diseases ! Don't feel bad at all.
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FOOD is best for babies. That's what you should snark back at people.
I think the "every woman can breastfeed" line comes from the assumption that back in the good old days, every mom fed her kid or half the world would have died. The issue there is that there *was* high infant mortality, and people used wet nurses. There have always been women who have had trouble breast feeding. Sometimes people just put a nostalgia on a fake image of yesteryear that never was.
I was adopted and formula fed, and I think I'm fine, lol. I just found out that a couple of my friends chose to stop breastfeeding because it was too difficult in the beginning. And I don't think any less of them. 
Thank you so much.
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