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Yep.
There're a lot of kids out there living on junkfood. You might not realize it, but if you were to see some pantries and freezers, you would. And yep, there are drawbacks, but the same is true of formula.
But like formula, most kids will be just fine.
However, to say that they're fine is not the same as saying it's just as good as a diet of real food.
For what its worth, I agree with you. Formula is the "easy" option in my eyes. If that makes me a femi-nazi so be it, i really dont care. It is the easy option.
I was one of the minorities who was unable to breastfeed. My son was premature (nearly 6 weeks). We saw 3 or 4 LC's, including an IBCLC. We tried at birth and all the way up to 3 months to get him to breastfeed. We tried every trick in the book, it didnt work. Because it didnt work, i didnt give up and just give him formula, no, I pumped the milk. Atleast he was getting (most) of the benefits of my milk, not as good as breastfeeding (since the milk is adjusted to the baby and from the pump it is not), but atleast it was the next best option. I could have given into the easy way out and gave him formula, but i didnt.
Unfortunately since pumps arent as efficient, i did have to suppliment about 30% formula, but we made sure we used organic formula so we atleast gave him the best option that was out there for that.
But you did. You just said you did. My story follows yours almost to the letter, including using organic formula as a supplement.
So what would you have done otherwise?
My point is that you did the best you could, and so do a lot of other moms. I was devastated when we couldn't breastfeed exclusively.
So why are you calling it "the easy option"? It doesn't sound easy to me, in fact if you were anything like me it was awful. But what else do you do? Thank goodness for it, if it wasn't for formula my kid would've been hungry and miserable.
Honestly, what else do you do, and what good does it do to equate it to Cheetos?
(Of course there are people that formula feed because they want to. That's their choice. I understand that people would be critical of that option, but there are plenty of other scenarios out there - and just like extended breastfeeding, it's personal to that individual.)
Honestly, what else do you do, and what good does it do to equate it to Cheetos?
Because this whole tangent entered the conversation when someone complained that some hospitals weren't providing it anymore. Hospitals.
As though health care facilities should promote that stuff.
But you did. You just said you did. My story follows yours almost to the letter, including using organic formula as a supplement.
So what would you have done otherwise?
My point is that you did the best you could, and so do a lot of other moms. I was devastated when we couldn't breastfeed exclusively.
So why are you calling it "the easy option"? It doesn't sound easy to me, in fact if you were anything like me it was awful. But what else do you do? Thank goodness for it, if it wasn't for formula my kid would've been hungry and miserable.
Honestly, what else do you do, and what good does it do to equate it to Cheetos?
(Of course there are people that formula feed because they want to. That's their choice. I understand that people would be critical of that option, but there are plenty of other scenarios out there - and just like extended breastfeeding, it's personal to that individual.)
I agree wholeheartedly with your post. I have two girls. The first one took to the breast with no issue and she breastfed for 20 months. My second, born five years later, was another case entirely. Her latch wasn't good and she had tongue issues due to its shape. Breastfeeding left me bloodied and in pain. It came to a point where feeding her actually caused me more pain than anything I had experienced in pregnancy/birth.
Because of her poor latch, she did not take in adequate nutrition and was actually losing weight by the day. She actually ended up getting winded trying to extract milk and would fall asleep due to fatigue from feeding. I tried my best to get her to feed properly, but to no avail. A LC saw our dillemma and gave me the best advice ever. She said, "You need to do what you have to do. If you have to supplement, so be it. If you have to pump, so be it. The important thing you can do as a mother is see that your child's needs are met"
With that, I supplemented with formula to get her weight back up, while I started expressing milk as well. For about a month, she was fed formula and my milk, until eventually I was able to produce enough milk to provide all of her nutrition and formula was no longer needed. She is 18 months old now, and I still pump a bottle for her every night. (I freely admit that this is just a comfort feed) Moral of the story is that each child is different, circumstances are different. Nothing wrong with formula feeding. It took my own experience to see this and to also realize that at the end of the day, as long as my child's nutritional needs were met, it was ok.
It wasn't an "easy option" to FF, but I'm glad that I did have that option. Nothing more heartwrenching than you feeding your baby and she was still losing weight.
As to the OP, personally, I'd draw the limit at 2 for public feedings. But that's just me.
IMO there is a huge difference between saying breastmilk is recommended for its nutritional value over formula and saying formula is junk food. To the best of my knowledge, the major medical associations all say the former, not the latter.
It's the same thing as seeing an older kid (like an 8 year old) being pushed around in a stroller at an amusement park. It's more of a than a .
In a case like that you have no idea if the child has a disability that will not allow him to walk long distances. While in some cases, there may just be a convenience factor for the parent, in others the child may truly be unable to walk the distances in an amusement park or he may have a mental disability that precludes walking (a wanderer with autism is often better strapped in a stroller than walking).
For what its worth, I agree with you. Formula is the "easy" option in my eyes. If that makes me a femi-nazi so be it, i really dont care. It is the easy option.
Formula has only become an *easy* option fairly recently. When I was growing up, you had to prepare your own and it was anything but easy.
Breastfeeding, in general, was much easier and less expensive as well.
In a case like that you have no idea if the child has a disability that will not allow him to walk long distances. While in some cases, there may just be a convenience factor for the parent, in others the child may truly be unable to walk the distances in an amusement park or he may have a mental disability that precludes walking (a wanderer with autism is often better strapped in a stroller than walking).
Yes, true enough. If that's the case, better to use a stroller.
I haven't bothered to read other responses, but IMO, if a child can hold a cup, there is no reason he/she should be suckling on a breast.
If you feel breast milk is still beneficial at that age....pump and let he/she drink it from a cup.
This is what makes me feel that Mothers that BF older kids are doing it for themselves and not their children.
There's no reason to bottle feed because it's only a source of nutrition, but breastfeeding continues to build a child's immune system til they're 4 or 5 years old. There's a reason most children on this planet wean around 4 years of age; it's because it's the biological norm.
It builds the immune system of little teeny babies who haven't yet been around a lot of germs.
But by the time their 4. No. It is not about "building their immune systems". And if that were all it was about why not give the kid breast milk in a cup? Why continue nursing them like a little baby?
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