Breastfeeding isn't free op-ed

[Matryoshka]

59 minutes ago, Farrar said:

I don't usually struggle overmuch with executive functioning, but I certainly did when I had two infants to care for on very little sleep!

I'm with you in that I also just found everything about bf so much simpler once I had supply and everything was settled after those first few weeks. I never had to think about it. I never had to worry. I never had to question anything about feeding. It was so much easier. When I stayed with my brother after his little one was born and they were exclusively doing formula, the bottles! The washing! Oy my. It would have been the straw that broke the camel's back for me.

But everyone's straw is different and being trapped between bf'ing babies on the sofa off and on all day with just the TV and book would have been someone else's.

I think a big thing that's being lost in the conversation is that feeding breastmilk is not the same as breastfeeding - feeding from the breast - when it comes to what's simple or cheap.  Both formula feeding and expressing human milk involve bottles, washing, etc, but obviously pouring or mixing formula is way easier than hooking yourself up to that infernal machine.  And you still have to pay for the machine/bottles.

But actual breastfeeding - baby gets stuck on boob and drinks however much they want, whenever - that is in fact no-brainer easy.  You can sleep and feed at the same time (did this for years), so not a big deal if they're not 'sleeping through the night'.  Baby can nurse in sling while you go about your day (I didn't do this much but I know a lot of moms who did and I did one time while on a hike in the woods with three cranky toddlers and the hungry infant in a sling, out of sheer desperation.

The thing is, being able to breastfeed this way in the modern age is a huge privilege.  You have to be able to stay home full time, so be in a good place financially, and you do often need community support/family (not pressure or shame, but good advice and also people around who will help with other stuff so you have a lot of time to sit with newborn while not stessing about other tasks).  Many mothers have to work.  Many mothers don't have anyone they know who will give them good advice (and I know LLL can sometimes be shamy rather than helpful - that thank goodness was not my experience, but I held off calling them for over a month because I was sure they'd shame me for using formula).  And of course there are mothers who have all sorts of reasons, medical, physical, and others why breastfeeding just isn't possible.

I had a hugely rough start.  Preemie twins, who had two extended hospitalizations and uncontrolled seizures.  Like every hour.  I pumped and pumped and got not much of anything, and of course supplemented with formula.  Their heads were so tiny they couldn't latch, so bottles all around.  Also, can't nurse a seizing baby.  Pump, pump, supplement.  Without forumla, my twins would have died of starvation.  When they finally found the right meds that controlled the seizures and home from the hospital, I tried getting them back to breast and things didn't get settled till they were 3 months old (the advice that had been helpful for me when I finally called LLL was to give it till they were 6 weeks based on their due date, not their birthdate).  But again, I did have the privilege of sitting on the sofa all day and do nothing but nurse/pump/supplement.  I didn't have to work.  I didn't have to chase older kids.  I didn't do much cleaning or cooking.

But then, let.me.tell.you.  Once we got going, it was the easiest thing in the world.  No bottles, no washing, no thinking about if I needed to buy another thing of formula, no packing food/bottles when going out - I am LAZY.  I did this because it was less work.  I had always planned to supplement at night so I could sleep, and I most certainly was not going to cosleep - until I realized that I could lie in bed and nurse and no one - not me, not dh, had to get up at all.  No bottles, no warming, just stay in bed, everybody.

But again, I was danged lucky, in spite of that rough start.  I could stay home.  I had people to help.  But I just wanted to point out that when people say breastfeeding is cheaper/easier, it's true, but only if you talk about someone with a full supply who is not pumping.  Pumping is feeding breastmilk, but it's not easier.  If I'd had to stick with pumping (and it looked for a while like I might), I would have likely either continued supplementing heavily with formula, or just done forumla.  Because I'm lazy.

Next baby was full term.  Never used a pump or a bottle.  Because lazy.  And cheap.  Without pumps or bottles it is pretty much free.  I did not notice that I ate any more while breastfeeding.  But that made me lucky, and privileged.  Did not make me a better person.

 

Edited June 2, 2022 by Matryoshka

[Arcadia]

8 hours ago, Matryoshka said:

The thing is, being able to breastfeed this way in the modern age is a huge privilege.  You have to be able to stay home full time, so be in a good place financially, and you do often need community support/family (not pressure or shame, but good advice and also people around who will help with other stuff so you have a lot of time to sit with newborn while not stessing about other tasks). 

I am a twinless twin and because of my twin dying at 3 days old, my mom had a lot of help. My aunt cooked for her family and ours. My dad did all the housework after work. My other aunt helped with folding cloth diapers. Relatives donated disposable diapers for nighttime use and asked how they could help. I am the only grandchild on both sides that is a preemie. My younger brother was a full term baby and while my aunt still cooked for us, the other relatives think that a normal baby isn’t much work so no one offered to help. My mom had two months maternity leave and she could quit nursing and not worry about getting hired later.
My in-laws came for a vacation in the name of seeing their grandson when DS16 was born. Luckily they only stayed a month because I became severely underweight from exhaustion. My mom came to help after they left and then my dad (teacher) came over to help during school holidays. Among the H1/H4 visa community here, so many have grandparents flying over to help on the six months visitor pass. The grandparents tag team so each side stays for 6 months and the mother gets year round help.  
A friend rented the hospital grade pump just to get enough supply. Her insurance paid after the high end retail grade wasn’t good enough.

Edited June 2, 2022 by Arcadia
Typo

[Paige]

16 hours ago, Farrar said:

I agree that was the goal. And with your larger point there.

But also, I felt that some of the monetary calculations were a bit silly. Much of this level of cost is borne no matter how you choose to feed. And some of the framing seemed to subtly undermine or discourage breastfeeding or make it seem more elitist, like the whole special tea thing. No matter what choices you make, babies are expensive and time consuming. This seemed to imply that bf'ing is exponentially more so and I don't fully buy that. Bf'ing precludes handing off a large portion of that labor, but the labor doesn't vanish. And both poor and wealthy women and everyone in between choose to bf. Circumstances are individual, but also... bf'ing is not elite. Formula is not impoverished. Lots of women choose both at all sorts of levels of income. Because again, babies are just a series of expensive choices. And sometimes bf'ing turns out to be extra expensive because it involves a lot of specialists and difficulty and giving up high salaries. And sometimes formula turns out to be expensive with a baby who has special needs or allergies. It's just... individual.

Breastfeeding puts the cost entirely on one person's chest, however. Formula feeding lets the burden be distributed upon multiple people- partners, grandparents, childcare workers. The costs may be about about the same, but the individual burden is not.

I am lucky that breastfeeding was easy for me and I had the privilege to keep it easy. I've never been more exhausted in my life, however, than when I had preemie twins who we were trying to switch from being exclusively bottle fed expressed milk (in NICU) to exclusively breastfed. My DH could do none of that work. He couldn't pump, and he couldn't breastfeed. Even when he did bottles, I still nursed immediately before or after, and sometimes used the SNS so he couldn't be involved at all. He claims he was tired but he didn't know tired. I remember waking after falling asleep upright in a chair, attached to the pump with it still attached and running, and being absolutely soaked from breastmilk on my lap and puddles on the floor. I was devastated about all that lost milk and sore. I remember being so tired that I quit cleaning up the spit up on the floor and thought we could just rip the carpet out later because it was too much work. It was exhausting, it was my choice, but it would 100% have been easier for me if I'd let someone else take some of the feeding responsibilities. 

[Terabith]

I had boobs that were L cups, so I could never put a baby in a sling and nurse or sleep while nursing.  It always involved either carefully sitting in a certain position or baby lying in a certain position and me holding my boob with both hands, in order to compress it into a size to fit into baby's mouth and the other hand to make sure I wasn't suffocating baby.  This was an issue even into toddlerhood.  

Nursing was much more time consuming for me than bottle feeding formula.  I had to do it much more often; I could never pass it on to anyone else, and I couldn't really multi task while doing it.  I eventually got to where I could READ things on the internet and use one hand to scroll every so often, once baby was big enough to survive a couple of seconds with only one hand on boob.  But positioning was hard.  Baby who nursed also comfort nursed ALL THE TIME, versus baby who was fed from a bottle, who drank a bottle every few hours and was done in ten minutes or so.  So yes, needed feeding MUCH less often.  

I never propped a bottle, but I certainly know people who did.  (I chewed them out, but I know it went nowhere.). The preschool where I worked did not ever prop a bottle for a baby, and we did deal with bottles of breastmilk, but after baby was about seven months old or so, they strongly wanted to hold their own bottle and often did.  So in contrast with nursing being hands on until almost age four, baby with bottle was independent MUCH earlier.  

[Matryoshka]

57 minutes ago, Terabith said:

I had boobs that were L cups, so I could never put a baby in a sling and nurse or sleep while nursing.  It always involved either carefully sitting in a certain position or baby lying in a certain position and me holding my boob with both hands, in order to compress it into a size to fit into baby's mouth and the other hand to make sure I wasn't suffocating baby.  This was an issue even into toddlerhood.  

I had humongo-boobs too.  This is I think the reason why, other than that one time in the woods, I never nursed in the sling.  Boob too big, might suffocate baby.  While hiking, boob may have just gotten whipped out as I literally could not stop to feed (in any manner) as there were three toddlers to chase.  That was a crazy day!  Sleeping while nursing, though, that was awesome.  One baby on each side, I'd rotate.  If I hadn't been able to do that, I would likely have done bottles at night, at least part of the time.

I also never figured out nursing both at once, as many twin moms do.  Way too overstimulating, and positioning issues.  I did buy a wardrobe of nursing clothes, as I couldn't discreetly lift up a shirt to nurse.  But with the clothes, I nursed right out in public all the time, and I'm pretty sure no one was the wiser, as I never got hassled about it once.  Of course, the clothes also cost $.

[Kassia]

7 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

 

I also never figured out nursing both at once, as many twin moms do.  

The only way I could do it was using a U-shaped nursing pillow.  I couldn't do it without that and used it all the time.  

[Matryoshka]

1 minute ago, Kassia said:

The only way I could do it was using a U-shaped nursing pillow.  I couldn't do it without that and used it all the time.  

I had the U-shaped pillow.  Still never figured it out properly, but it was partly just an overstimulation thing, like going to jump through the ceiling.   

So much is dependent on individual baby, individual anatomy, and all kinds of other factors.  So please no one read anything I wrote as "I did that so everyon can/should".  Not at all.  It's all trial and error and what works best for you and your baby(ies).

I did plan to nurse them at the same time (and bought the special pillow), did not plan to nurse at night or have them in bed with me.  But then I changed based on what worked for our particular mom/baby combo.  I am glad I persisted through the first beyond-challenging 3 months, though, because I also have executive functioning issues and I think having to manage all those bottles and cleaning would have been ... a lot.  What is easy for one person is hard for another, and of course that goes both ways.

[Danae]

18 minutes ago, Kassia said:

The only way I could do it was using a U-shaped nursing pillow.  I couldn't do it without that and used it all the time.  

I didn’t have twins, but I did tandem nurse a toddler and an infant, sometimes at the same time.  I really wish now I hadn’t banned anyone from taking photos when we were nursing, because I would love to look back at some of the weird ways we stacked. 
 

Also nursed sleeping and using  a sling, with a cup size near the middle of the alphabet.  

[Paige]

3 hours ago, Matryoshka said:

I had humongo-boobs too.  This is I think the reason why, other than that one time in the woods, I never nursed in the sling.  Boob too big, might suffocate baby.  While hiking, boob may have just gotten whipped out as I literally could not stop to feed (in any manner) as there were three toddlers to chase.  That was a crazy day!  Sleeping while nursing, though, that was awesome.  One baby on each side, I'd rotate.  If I hadn't been able to do that, I would likely have done bottles at night, at least part of the time.

I also never figured out nursing both at once, as many twin moms do.  Way too overstimulating, and positioning issues.  I did buy a wardrobe of nursing clothes, as I couldn't discreetly lift up a shirt to nurse.  But with the clothes, I nursed right out in public all the time, and I'm pretty sure no one was the wiser, as I never got hassled about it once.  Of course, the clothes also cost $.

I never figured out tandem nursing either. I could do it if I had to- I mean they could latch, but nobody was comfortable and then I really felt like a cow who couldn't move. They took turns. I may have done it more if they had been my first, but I knew what comfortable nursing felt like.

[ktgrok]

Nursing with no bottles takes less time/energy than mixing bottles and feeding formula. 
 

but pumping and bottle feeding takes more time and energy than either of the above, basically double just nursing since you are first feeding the pump (which is often less efficient than a baby) and then feed the baby. Plus has the clean up time. 
 

and of course even though formula feeding takes more time than nursing, it can be delegated to others. And once baby can hold a bottle many don’t continue to hold the baby while feeding and let baby feed themselves. 

[maize]

I'm jealous of those women who can sleep while nursing! That is one thing I never managed to accomplish.

I actually found nursing somewhat physically irritating. I had to have something like a book to read to take my mind off of it.

I did tandem nurse for many months, never with twins but with a toddler and an infant.

[TravelingChris]

I decided with the first one to formula feed since we were moving within a week almost across the country.  Of course, he ended up having both spitting up and diarrhea in the Utah desert  and we managed to find a bottle of pedialyte to substitute.  Then a day and a half later, we were in Santa Fe at a pediatrician's office for his two week visit and after I described his symptoms and that both dh and I were allergic to milk based formula, he had us switch to soy formula.    By number 2, I was fairly certain I had an autoimmune issues and would need to go back on medication as soon after she was born.  She also needed soy after a short while.  Number 3 was definitely getting soy formula right from the start.  IO had been diagnosed with my first diagnosis and had both a high risk pregnancy and been told I would get a bad flare after giving birth.  I did and was so very happy for formula.  Not only could my dh feed at times, so could my over 7.5 year old son.  And it was a very wise decision with both 3 and 4 that I did n;t breast feed because I needed to go on medications that weren't okay w breastfeeding (or at lest that was the thought- I think it may have changed in 25 years)

[MercyA]

2 hours ago, ktgrok said:

Nursing with no bottles takes less time/energy than mixing bottles and feeding formula. 

I honestly think this depends on the person and on the baby. Formula feeding was so much more efficient for me. DD could finish a bottle in--IRRC--about 10 minutes. Breast feeding took much longer, even minus bottle washing (in the dishwasher), mixing (with a mixing pitcher, usually with DH's help), and warming (with a steamer).

[dirty ethel rackham]

On 6/1/2022 at 6:46 PM, MercyA said:

I didn't read the article as anti-breastfeeding. Is anyone really anti-breast feeding? Honest question. I know some people are anti-public breastfeeding. And I know decades ago it was something that many women just didn't do. But do people actively and publicly discourage it as a practice now? What are their reasons? 

I found the article a welcome dose of realism in a world that says that breastfeeding is easy and cheap. 

I had lots of people criticize me for breastfeeding.  Up to 6 weeks was OK, but only if you hid yourself away while doing so, but then I was criticized for being "too tied to my then 3-week old baby" who had to learn to be "separate from me."  Yeah, not supportive. Family all made fun of me for "being a cow."  And I was wasting my education by tying myself down to my baby (ummm - that education helped me research and problem solve when faced with obstacles with little support.)  I had a neighbor drop by while I was outside with my kids letting the older ones play on the swing set while I nursed my then 1 month old baby.  She, who came into MY yard, criticized me for being an exhibitionist .  Ummm no, I was feeding my baby in my own back yard and parenting my kids - trying NOT to be tied down.  I had doctors who blamed every single normal infant issue on breastfeeding and told me that problem x, y, or z would be fixed if I switched to formula (all while wearing a "Breast is Best" pin on her lapel.)  As a result of all this opposition, I became somewhat of a lactivist - someone who advocated for removing barriers to breastfeeding.  I got lots of flak for that, got called a nursing nazi, was called judgy.  But none of my motivations were about judging other people, but about leveling the playing field for feeding choices when formula had corporate $$$ behind them while breastfeeding had lots of educational, cultural, social, and logistical barriers.  

Dh, on the other hand was very supportive.  With my first, I had a complicated delivery and had trouble doing much but feed the baby.  For the first couple weeks, he took care of most of the household stuff and me (with help from my mom.)  He also did much of the non-feeding tasks with the baby while I was healing. He felt that my job was to recover and feed the baby.  

22 hours ago, Murphy101 said:

 

And many daycares here won’t take babies that have breast milk bottles.  Because they can’t promise to keep it the right temp. But powered formula can be mixed up in a few minutes and never goes bad.  And the daycares are set up on the timing of formula, and breast milk fed babies often need fed more often.

<snip>

In countries with more breastfeeding and a lot less formula pushing - they tend to have better social policies for new mothers. Even in really awful in most otherwise ways countries. 

So, if a daycare can't manage to keep breastmilk at the right temperature, how on earth can they manage to keep any other food at the right temperature?!?!  That is the stupidest argument I have ever heard.  Breastmilk can sit out at room temperature a lot longer than formula without spoiling.  

[Brittany1116]

Since this has turned a bit into story time and I am feeling nostalgic here a month post-womb-removal...

My first was full term but in NICU 10 days. I could not hold him for 24 hours so he had formula and whatever colostrum I could get. Milk came in day 4 or 5 and I went home with coolers of it. But it was skim milk no matter what LC or pump or schedule or herb I tried. He seemed to nurse well but didn't gain weight for months. He also projectile vomited after every feed, and got severe eczema at 8 weeks. I did elimination diet and it calmed down. I went back to work PT at 12 weeks, and at 14 weeks, my thyroid plummeted and I lost my milk virtually overnight. I put him on ready to feed formula and he GREW. He would drink 60+ ounces a day. 

Second baby, 2.5 weeks early and healthy as could be. He was a slow nurser and I could sit for over an hour before he'd seem satisfied. His ties had to be addressed twice. Still no gain. Then he had screaming fits after nursing that we traced to acidic foods. (I had been on a pineapple, citrus, and fresh salsa kick.) One LC got invested and we realized he had a partially paralyzed facial nerve. So we went to OT for feeding. I started pumping to keep up supply until I could get him to nurse. I had a TON of milk, this time even fatty milk. Eventually, he did nurse... only at night, in the bed, on a specific side, with the fan on and lights off and me patting his butt and massaging his jaw, just before he fell asleep. I continued to EP until 7 months, when I started supplementing with formula. He then had 75/25 breastmilk to formula until 11 months. Kid got so enamored with formula that he ended up drinking Enfagrow until 16 or 17 months.

Both kids are brilliant and healthy and strong. I'd do it all again. FF was the easiest but a kid who could latch and feed and grow would have been easier still. I didn't begrudge being the one whose job it was biologically; I loved it. 

[gardenmom5]

On 6/1/2022 at 2:35 PM, Katy said:

 . My mom was a la leche nazi and I think she still doesn’t believe that jaundice can kill a baby.  Her harassment left me an emotional wreck. O 

I'm sorry you had to go through that.  My sister pumped for two months for her preemie while she was in the NICU. - and now she is pretty intolerant of anyone who doesn't nurse because of it.

 

I was so glad I didn't know my grandfather lost a baby sister (and a cousin) to jaundice - at three, and four days respectively - until after dudeling was out of the hospital. 

He spent 6 1/2 days under as many as four different lights at a time.  His bili was at 22 and climbing fast at 69 hours when he was readmitted.  The drs did talk about at what point they'd start transfusing. (Fortunately - his numbers dropped back into the teens fairly quickly)  After I got him home, I had the luxury of doing what I needed to do to teach him to nurse- and boy was it a major production for a solid two months.  (he's significantly younger than my olders, and dh was working from home so could take up slack.)  He wouldn't take a bottle any better than he would me - so it really didn't make a difference for him. He just had very poor latch. And he didn't' recognize hunger - for years.

I later learned - jaundice can play a role in autism . . . 

[HomeAgain]

One of mine was formula fed, one was nursed.  They both got what they needed based on what I could give at the time, and working 12 hour days or being away for months wasn't conducive to nursing but traveling with an infant was terrible while formula feeding.  However, I am equally biased towards "it all sucks" because I hated cleaning bottles/the smell of formula and I wasn't the biggest fan of nursing.  Dh swears if I had been born 20 years later I would have been diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder or something similar.  The entire 2 years I nursed that kid it was hard to let anyone or anything else touch me because I was so, so touched out every day.  We actually put 'formula money' aside in a separate account so it wouldn't feel like a hit to the budget if I stopped.  We did the same with 'disposable diaper money', so if we stopped using cloth we still had it all budgeted in.  The one good thing that came about was that as soon as ds was fully potty trained we took the funds and went to Disneyland with it.