hi girls, and hi babieseverywhere
First of all, just to say, no offense taken However, I have to admit I felt almost a bit tearful when reading your post, babieseverywhere (although it was clear to me it was meant well)... After all these months of feeding my boy through the night whenever he wanted- which on good nights would be at 7, 11, 1, 4, 7 (or so) and at bad nights even more, I'm pretty sure that I have been feeding him on demand according to any logical definition I can understand & can relate to.
As to your particular points. I will stand by my belief that I fed completely on demand, but perhaps we have different definitions about what 'on demand' means. It doesn't really matter, I'm sure there's no manual of what 'on demand' means or doesn't mean, and the bf police aren't going to come out to get me , so here's what 'on demand' meant for me. Or in any case, here's what actually happened, just for the record (for anyone interested, and really sorry to hijack the thread!)
So: Some of what you wrote is true. We gave one cup of formula at hospital, when my DS couldn't latch on for 2 nights. We then gave one bottle of formula at home, when my milk hadn't come in for 3 days or so. After that, no formula at all, and no EBM either until after 6 weeks. We definitely NEVER gave a daily bottle of anything, not EBM and definitely not formula. We were simply too lazy, I found expressing boring & would do it usually once a week when I went out for 2 hours- sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less. It never seemed to affect my boy's ability to feed (luckily).
About the formula: I can count on the fingers of one hand the times we gave formula until he was 4 and a half months (quite recently really). Even during his awful nursing strike, I expressed all the time & gave very very little formula, probably once or twice just to fill up bottles because I was panicking I wasn't expressing enough & I didn't want DS to go hungry when he was refusing to nurse. As for introducing bottles of formula at 12 weeks, I really don't know where you got that, it's simply untrue. Not that I have anything against formula on principle, it's just that my expressed milk was mostly enough, & we didn't feel we needed formula. After his nursing strike, DS actually went through a phase of 3-4 weeks where he actually refused ANY bottle at all, so his moods change as you can see!
Through all this, yes, he has been using a dummy. This was to get him 'unstuck' from my breasts, because for the first 6 weeks or so he was using me as a human dummy. Using a dummy has created all sorts of other issues, and I've bitterly regretted introducing it, but not sure what I could have done given my completely inability to sleep or even MOVE with DS needing to suckle constantly in order to go to sleep and stay asleep. That was keeping both him & me awake, so the dummy came as a godsend at the time.
Through all this, the one constant thing was the bf-ing at night. All night, many times a night etc. At 4 & a half months we got some advice & decided to change a few things, simply due to exhaustion. I started giving one bottle of formula (or EBM sometimes) at 11. I'm not exactly happy with that choice, but it has helped in establishing better sleep. Also, I started encouraging feeds in the day (DS never really demanded to feed much in the day). Finally, I started expressing more again to 'up' my supply in the day.
I suppose when reading your post, even though as I said I didn't find it offensive, what hurt more & made me a bit tearful is your description of what I did as 'mixed feeding'. Again, I have to stress I have no problem with mixed feeding per se (and I suppose that's what I'm doing know, with my one bottle of formula most nights). But all these months I struggled & struggled just because bf-ing was important to me, and I never considered that I was mix feeding. I never felt I had a great supply, also, my DS eats very fussily & quickly, & so I've been constantly worried my DS is going hungry, although he's growing very well.
Anyway. That's the sorry tale! I apologize again for hijacking the thread. Just wanted to explain things, because it feels important to me (for some strange reason) to do so... Even perhaps because I want to write things down for me to read, to clarify in my own mind what has been happening. Breastfeeding has never come easily to me- and I still find it hard. But I'm glad I've persevered, because it's been, at the same time, a wonderful experience. I don't even want to think about stopping now, and I hope to continue for much longer.