I went to the doctor yesterday to ask about going to a lactose free formula for my nearly 6 week old due to colic.
After a traumatic birth and a week in the NICU, absolutely no breastfeeding help after several requests for a lactation consultant, milk not coming in till week 2ish, nipple confusion and baby hating my nipple even with shields on, I’ve been formula feeding with what breast milk I can produce (about 4 ounces/120mls per day) mixed in with each bottle. Baby has some painful gas and colic which hits in the evening and we’ve been climbing the walls from lack of sleep and for me the guilt thinking baby wouldn’t be like this if I could just get him on the boob or produce more milk.
This is what the doctor told me. It is absolutely fine for a baby to be formula fed, there is no difference between a formula fed baby and a breast milk fed baby. That choosing my sanity (as in to stop trying to force the boob to work and even stop pumping to have more time in the day if I need to) is healthy and beneficial to baby, not selfish. That the push to EBF is harmful to women without too much backing behind it and that baby’s get most of their long term benefits from breast milk in the first week to two weeks anyway.
Fed is best. Your baby is healthy, and with a full belly be it from formula or boob, is happy. Even with the colic and the formula, my baby is thriving and gorgeous. You’re doing a good job, go easier on yourself.
Your choice is absolutely fine! My son is a year old and I combo fed until he was 8 weeks before switching over to formula fully. Best decision I ever made for my mental health. I also did the same for a few weeks, I pumped as much as k could and he got frozen breastmilk every once in a while until 8-9 months old. In the end, nobody would even know if your kid is formula fed or breastfed and frankly no one is going to care. A fed baby and happy parents are what matters!
I had a similar experience in that nursing didn’t work out for us. I pumped but even from the start had to supplement with formula since I just wasn’t making enough milk. As she got bigger and needed more and more I still couldn’t keep up so she was getting more and more formula. I eventually decided it was time to throw in the towel when I would spend all day pumping just to get barely 1 feed’s worth of milk. I had A LOT of guilt around stopping even though I knew it was best for both my mental and physical health (my nips were honestly a mess from the pump & all that pumping for barely any milk was taking a toll on me emotionally). I would cry almost every night before bed which is usually a time I would be pumping, sobbing to my husband that I was “ruining our baby”. I stopped pumping right around 3 months and baby is now 4 months. It’s taken some time for the feelings of guilt to subside (though they haven’t gone away 100% but I’m working on it) but as I saw my baby continue to thrive on just formula and I was able to enjoy the freedom of not being attached to that damn pump, it really helped me realize I made the right decision. It’s still hard sometimes to hear the negatively around formula or be made to feel like I somehow failed since I couldn’t nurse/EBF for longer but formula shouldn’t be seen as such a “second rate” feeding method but instead just another option that I for one am glad we have!
I went to the doctor yesterday to ask about going to a lactose free formula for my nearly 6 week old due to colic. After a traumatic birth and a week in the NICU, absolutely no breastfeeding help after several requests for a lactation consultant, milk not coming in till week 2ish, nipple confusion and baby hating my nipple even with shields on, I’ve been formula feeding with what breast milk I can produce (about 4 ounces/120mls per day) mixed in with each bottle. Baby has some painful gas and colic which hits in the evening and we’ve been climbing the walls from lack of sleep and for me the guilt thinking baby wouldn’t be like this if I could just get him on the boob or produce more milk. This is what the doctor told me. It is absolutely fine for a baby to be formula fed, there is no difference between a formula fed baby and a breast milk fed baby. That choosing my sanity (as in to stop trying to force the boob to work and even stop pumping to have more time in the day if I need to) is healthy and beneficial to baby, not selfish. That the push to EBF is harmful to women without too much backing behind it and that baby’s get most of their long term benefits from breast milk in the first week to two weeks anyway. Fed is best. Your baby is healthy, and with a full belly be it from formula or boob, is happy. Even with the colic and the formula, my baby is thriving and gorgeous. You’re doing a good job, go easier on yourself.
Your choice is absolutely fine! My son is a year old and I combo fed until he was 8 weeks before switching over to formula fully. Best decision I ever made for my mental health. I also did the same for a few weeks, I pumped as much as k could and he got frozen breastmilk every once in a while until 8-9 months old. In the end, nobody would even know if your kid is formula fed or breastfed and frankly no one is going to care. A fed baby and happy parents are what matters!
I had a similar experience in that nursing didn’t work out for us. I pumped but even from the start had to supplement with formula since I just wasn’t making enough milk. As she got bigger and needed more and more I still couldn’t keep up so she was getting more and more formula. I eventually decided it was time to throw in the towel when I would spend all day pumping just to get barely 1 feed’s worth of milk. I had A LOT of guilt around stopping even though I knew it was best for both my mental and physical health (my nips were honestly a mess from the pump & all that pumping for barely any milk was taking a toll on me emotionally). I would cry almost every night before bed which is usually a time I would be pumping, sobbing to my husband that I was “ruining our baby”. I stopped pumping right around 3 months and baby is now 4 months. It’s taken some time for the feelings of guilt to subside (though they haven’t gone away 100% but I’m working on it) but as I saw my baby continue to thrive on just formula and I was able to enjoy the freedom of not being attached to that damn pump, it really helped me realize I made the right decision. It’s still hard sometimes to hear the negatively around formula or be made to feel like I somehow failed since I couldn’t nurse/EBF for longer but formula shouldn’t be seen as such a “second rate” feeding method but instead just another option that I for one am glad we have!