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| Mixing formula powder and water in a baby bottle. Image source. |
For my first baby, I did exclusive breastfeeding. For the second baby, I'm doing mixed feeding- breast milk sometimes and formula sometimes.
Basically what happened was this: she was born premature, with a low birth weight, so the doctors told us we should give her formula at the beginning, to help her gain weight. I already had experience with breastfeeding, so I was doing that too- ramping up the breastfeeding and also sometimes having my husband give her a bottle of formula when I felt too exhausted to breastfeed. Soon we got to where she was only breastfeeding and not drinking formula at all.
Occasionally, if I had to go out somewhere and my husband was taking care of the baby, he would give her formula.
And then I had some health problems, and had to take medicine, and the doctor said I shouldn't breastfeed for about 4 days because the medicine could affect my breast milk. So my baby drank formula during that time. Oh, that time was the worst, my breasts were so hard and painful, and I pumped sometimes but didn't get that much milk out. (Have to keep pumping to help with the pain from breasts being too full, and also to maintain my milk supply.) It hurt, constantly, and my baby always wanted me to hold her, and it hurt so much when I held her against my chest. And how am I supposed to find time to pump, if the baby cries every time I put her down? Then when I was allowed to breastfeed again, my supply had decreased substantially, so I had to spend a few days ramping it up again- but at least I wasn't in pain!- and giving my baby formula sometimes to make up the difference.
The next few months, I exclusively breastfed her. I was on maternity leave and I was with her all the time, so no issues there.
Then when I went back to work, we hired an ayi to take care of the baby. (In China, an "ayi" is a woman who works as a nanny or cleaner. And it also has other meanings, like an aunt who is your mom's sister, or just a friendly way to refer to a woman who is your parents' age.) I pump at work every day, but the amount I pump is less than the amount that the baby drinks during the day, so I told the ayi to give her formula in addition to the pumped milk. My thinking was, I don't want to get myself stressed out about needing to pump an amount of milk equal to what the baby drinks, every single day. I just don't want to have that constant stress in my life.
When I'm at home, in the evenings and weekends, I breastfeed her. When I'm at work, the amount of milk I have from pumping isn't enough, so the baby also drinks formula.
Also I figure, the baby was already 5 months old when I went back to work, which is pretty close to the time babies can start eating solid food at 6 months. So even if you exclusively breastfeed, your baby is eating other stuff besides breast milk at 6 months. That's not that different from doing breast milk sometimes and formula sometimes.
My main priority here, in deciding to breastfeed her when I'm with her and let people give her formula when I'm not, is to do what's convenient for me. I don't want to mess around with bottles. Breastfeeding is SO CONVENIENT. You don't have to think about "well how much formula should I mix up?" and trying to heat it up again within the hour to make her drink it again if she didn't finish it. You don't have to wash bottles. You don't have to spend time mixing it up while the baby cries. You don't have to worry about making it the right temperature. When you go out, you don't have to think about bringing formula and bottles and hot water. You don't have to ask questions like "should we bring our bottle warmer on vacation?"
All these benefits only apply if I am there with the baby, though. If it's someone else, obviously they can't breastfeed my baby, so they will be messing around with bottles and doing all that hassle with getting it to the right temperature, and washing the bottle afterwards, etc. At that point, giving breast milk is NOT really more convenient than formula. Maybe they're about the same.
BUT if they give the baby pumped breast milk, that means *I* need to pump it, and ughhh I don't like pumping. Well, let me clarify: I don't like using my electric pump. At home, I use a haakaa pump at the same time I'm breastfeeding the baby- the haakaa pump works very well for that. The haakaa is great, but it can't trigger a letdown, so it doesn't work for me when I'm not with my baby.
So if we're talking about prioritizing my convenience, then no, I don't want to spend my time pumping and pumping and pumping so that when I'm not there, the baby can always drink breast milk.
(And I've heard some moms talking about "you have to wake up at 2 am and pump" and wow, no, I am so not doing that. Strongly advise against waking up at 2 am to pump! That sounds like the worst!)
So, what works well in terms of my own convenience is that I breastfeed the baby when she is with me. I also pump. I like to use the haakaa pump at home. At work, because I'm away from my baby for the whole day, I have to pump or else my breasts will be in pain. So I have to use my electric pump. But only once a day. That feels reasonable. I don't do it enough to actually pump an amount equal to what the baby drinks. So we also use formula.
Breastfeeding is one of those "mommy wars" things- there are moms claiming that you HAVE to breastfeed, or else you're a bad mom, etc. There is research that says breastfeeding is better for the baby than formula- but a lot of that research is complicated by other factors. Moms who have the time and resources to breastfeed are likely to have more money and education, and their babies do better for those reasons, not really because of the breastfeeding. Personally, I think breastfeeding is better for the baby, but formula is also fine. Either one is fine; don't worry about "not being a good enough mom" or whatever.
And for my second child, what I realized was, the thing that's really important to me is I don't want to be washing bottles all the time. So when I'm with her, I breastfeed, and when I'm not with her, I don't really want to pump (then I have to wash the pump parts!), so, she can have formula then.
So I've discovered that formula is a very useful tool for me, as a mom. It gives me more options. Because I have formula available, I'm able to prioritize the things I want to prioritize. And I don't have to be stressed about pumping.
For my first child, the situation was totally different. The situation was, my mother-in-law was living with us to help take care of the baby, and she was constantly negative about everything I was doing. Even before the baby was born, she was pretty sure that I would "not have enough milk." So one reason that it was so important to me to exclusively breastfeed was so there would be something my baby needed me for, and my mother-in-law wouldn't be able to take over everything.
As I said, I like how having formula available gives me more options. But when my first child was a baby, formula didn't give me more options, because of my mother-in-law. I felt I couldn't allow anyone to give the baby formula, even one time, because once that door was open, I wouldn't be able to stop her from giving him formula any time she wanted. And when the baby drinks formula more, he won't be hungry, so he won't demand breastfeeding from me- and in order to produce a good amount of breast milk, I need the baby to work with me on it, I need the baby to breastfeed. If the baby has formula, in a way that the mom can't control, it will mess up the mom's breastfeeding schedule and milk supply.
I insisted that he couldn't have formula, so then she wouldn't be able to judge me as not being good enough for "not having enough milk." And so she needed to keep coming to me, bringing me the baby, saying he needed me. I was the only one who could feed him.
Every morning before going to work, I made sure to breastfeed him right before I left. Every evening when I came home, I breastfed him right away. At work, I pumped twice a day, spending 30 minutes pumping each time, plus setup and cleanup time. I tried to pump more, at home when I had time, and keep a stash of milk in the freezer. As the baby grew, he drank more, and there were many times I worried there wouldn't be enough milk in the fridge for him when I wasn't there. It was very stressful, pumping twice a day at work, and worrying about if it would be enough... The worst was when I accidentally spilled some of the pumped milk, or when I finished a pumping session and looked in the bottle and saw that the amount collected was much less than normal, for some reason. Then I had to panic and think about when I would possibly have time to pump more. But of course the baby always wanted me to hold him, and my breasts always felt empty from all the pumping and breastfeeding I was already doing- there's just never a good time to add another pumping session. Also if you're stressed, you probably will produce less during the pumping session.
But that wasn't as bad as it would have been if I had let my mother-in-law feed him formula. I had to do all of that. She was trying to take my baby from me.
Now, with my second child, since I'm in charge, I have all the options. I can choose the option that works best for me. With my first child, I did not have all the options. "Breastfeed most of the time, and sometimes give formula to the extent that it makes things easier for me" was not an option, because of my mother-in-law. The best of the available options back then was exclusive breastfeeding.
Also, back then, the advice I heard about breastfeeding was that if your baby has formula at all, you'll get into this vicious cycle where the baby drinks formula, so you breastfeed less, so your breast milk supply decreases, so breastfeeding becomes harder, so you give the baby more formula- and so on until your breast milk dries up completely. I heard a lot about how if you're away from your baby, and the baby drinks a bottle, you have to then pump an amount at least equal to what was in the bottle, otherwise your supply will decrease.
I've realized, this time with my second child, that I don't need to take those warnings super-literally. I've found it's more like, my milk supply is in a range. On weekends I breastfeed all the time- so on those days, I'm producing more milk. And on work days, I only pump once a day, so that means I'm producing a smaller amount of milk than if I was breastfeeding during the day. (Obviously in the evenings I breastfeed her.) I've found that this doesn't cause any issues. My milk supply spans this range. It's not like "OHHH NOOO if you don't pump the amount that the baby drinks, your milk supply will decrease and decrease and you'll end up quitting breastfeeding!!!!!" And when I had medical problems and couldn't breastfeed for a few days, my supply did decrease, very noticeably. But the baby and I worked at it and we got my supply up to the right level again. It wasn't as dire as you'd think, based on the warnings I'd heard in the breastfeeding groups.
Everyone is different- this is just my experience with breastfeeding. For some people it's easier and for some people it's harder, for various reasons. The important thing is that the mom/ birthing person is the one who makes the decisions about breastfeeding. She needs to be in charge, because it affects her body, not just the baby. For breastfeeding to be successful, your breasts need to be synched with the baby. You can't have other people giving the baby formula at unpredictable times. Then you end up with your breasts being hard and painful, and your supply decreases if the baby isn't drinking it.
I read something on the internet, a while ago, about black women breastfeeding. It said that during slavery, sometimes a black woman would be forced to breastfeed her white master's baby, and then her own baby might die from lack of nutrition. And someone on the internet left a comment saying, "This doesn't make sense- it's totally possible for 1 woman to breastfeed 2 babies. Just because she had to breastfeed another baby doesn't mean her own baby would die."
And, here's the thing: It IS totally possible for 1 woman to breastfeed 2 babies, IF she's allowed to be in charge of it, and she can plan it out, and people give her the support and resources and time that's required to do it. Yes. Totally doable. But if someone is constantly standing over her telling her she's doing everything wrong, then no, she's not going to be able to breastfeed 2 babies. Which was probably the case during slavery.
And what I'm finding now is, I really appreciate having formula available as a tool to help make things easier for me. It's a tool. It's an option. It's a choice. That's what it is to me now, with my second baby. With my first baby, it wasn't like that at all. Formula and breastfeeding were an arena where I had to struggle against my mother-in-law, who was trying to take my baby away from me. It was a way that she could judge me, or that I could prove that the baby needed me. Having formula available didn't give me more options; instead, it introduced the risk that she would feed the baby formula in a way that messed up my whole breastfeeding schedule and milk supply. And I had to fear that.
But now, I'm in charge. And it should be this way. It has to be the mom/ birthing person who's in charge of the decisions about breastfeeding. And the other family members or nanny support her, rather than tell her she's doing everything wrong. I'm glad now formula is simply a useful tool for me- nothing more, nothing less- rather than a weapon to use to fight over the baby.
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Related:
What I Wish I'd Known About Breastfeeding
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