help with the practical positives and negatives of formula feeding

[KnackeredMerrily]

I'm currently breastfeeding my week old but we are struggling with putting weight on and jaundice.

I've been here before with my first son, and the first months of his life with feeding him 20 times a day and expressing top up feeds. The idea of doing it again makes me want to curl up into a ball and weep.

But, I've never gone through the practicalities of formula feeding either. What is it like? How do you make feeds up in advance? Is it a fiddle travelling with bottles and keeping them warm and wondering how much they've had? Is one formula better than another?

I am well aware of the benefits of breastfeeding so I don't need to hear that slant. I'm just wondering what the day to day life is like when FF

Sorry that should be isnt helpful on this thread.

The point is this is not a thread about BF vs FF.

How many times does this have to be said FFS.

Yes it's an open forum but why deliberately derail?

Many women can't bf,it doesn't work for them or their baby.

"The point is this is not a thread about BF vs FF."

No, it isn't. It's about supporting a woman who is feeding her baby. And making sure that she gets good information. On both options.

She doesn't want both options,she has info and an ill baby.Who are you to patronise,lecture and decide when a grown woman should be educated?

I think that sometimes saying you 'couldn't' breastfeed clouds the issue a bit. As has been said repeatedly, the number of women who actually physically 'cannot' breastfeed is very low. Most of the cases involve women/babies who are having trouble with supply/latch/pain/weight loss etc. In these cases breastfeed probably could be successfully established if the mother worked really hard at it, seemed support and really put her mind to doing it.

But in reality when you have just pushed a baby of your vagina/had it wrenched from your abdomen, you are absolutely knackered and still in pain, you are sick with worry because they are not gaining weight, your nipples are shredded and every feed brings more pain than labour, you are adjusting to life with a new human to look after, or you are worrying about your other child/ren and that they are not getting enough of your attention because you are constantly breastfeeding AND there is an alternative to breastmilk right there that your baby will most likely thrive on......

Well then 'working really hard at and really putting your mind to' breastfeeding doesn't always seem like the best option. It's incredibly difficult to see a few weeks into the future where breastfeeding will suddenly click and become really easy, when you are in the midst of all the above feelings.

And I know from experience that all you want is for someone to say 'its ok to crack open the Aptamil' rather than saying 'if you stick at it a little bit longer it will get better, why don't you ring La Leche League or go to his breastfeeding group o Thursday'.

Switching to formula is nothing to be ashamed of. I was very able to breastfeed, I had tonnes of milk, and both my kids gained really well in the first few days/weeks. But there were many other issues going on, particularly with my first baby and I went onto formula quite quickly.

I could tell people that I 'couldn't breastfeed, but I'm not ashamed of my choice and I just say 'yeah, it wasn't for me'. In fact I am incredibly proud of my choice to ff because it has produced two of the worlds most amazing kids

And making sure that she gets good information. On both options.

She specifically said she didn't want 'the breastfeeding slant'. She obvioisly didn't want the thread to just become another FF/BF thread.

Sheesh!

KnackeredMerrily, you're a week in. That's all. Don't worry.

I expressed for 3 months with my DD, but also had formula for her to "top up"and fed her mostly via a bottle but latterly via Supplemental Nursing System. Then I FF. I desperately wanted to BF but it didn't work. The only time we got anywhere was using the SNS, filled with breast milk and formula mixed together, connected to nipple shields, when she was nearly 3 months old - and that way insanity lies. Switching to FF was so much better (for DD and me) and I bitterly regret spending so much emotional energy trying to BF for so long, and find it hard to read any suggestions that FF is the "lazy" option.

However, you've no reason (yet) to think that things won't work out for your littlie, but if you do then FF is dead easy.

Sorry but the facts are out there.

What people choose to do with those facts is a whole other matter.

"She doesn't want both options,she has info and an ill baby.Who are you to patronise,lecture and decide when a grown woman should be educated?"

So when people post crap, potentially dangerous "information" about formula feeding, nobody should say anything? And I have neither patronised not lectured.

KM been there, three times. With ds1 I topped up from 9 days but stayed bfing... it was vaguely nightmarish until solids but lovely after that. With ds2, I was determined to ebf but no way was I doing all that expressing malarkey and did til 20 weeks when he was just plummeting in weight, which I still feel guilt about. With ds3, I had expressed colostrum to refeed and I just went for the expressing route. It was helped greatly by having the colostrum store so I could be ahead of myself and dh could take him away when I just couldn't manage. It was a tough first three weeks but it levelled out fine and I was down to expressing once a day by four weeks and had dumped it entirely by five.

I think it's so personal but for me, bottles were just too much faffing with sterilizing and needing to remember stuff going out etc, I hate having to have extra essential 'things', and most of us enough these days anyway with keys, phones, chargers, nappies, wipes etc. I never even did powder as we used cartons just to cut out that additional step as I was combined feeding. I really hated bottle feeding my first, I was so uptight about it, every bottle felt like an admission of failure. By the time I got to three I was well over those thoughts but in practical terms I really just didn't want to have to be listening to a screaming baby and managing a toddler and a preschooler at the same time and if I'm honest, I wanted to be able to 'have to' be the one with the baby so that my dh would muck in more with the older two and I could get a break. I found bfing quite indulgent in that regard, whereas when combined feeding later on with number 2 dh was inclined to come in and have all the snuggles after I'd spent all day trying to entertain a toddler and do a million things and then I'd have to spend all evening picking up and putting the older one to bed every night. Bfing gave me extra space.

It would have been perfectly possible to correct posters on incorrect facts about formula feeding, without bringing breastfeeding into it.

Crap,dangerous seriously.

Previous poster simply suggested a bigger feed with correct ratios of water,couldn't give a shit re anybody saying one is better than another(hardly dicing with death).

Over dramatising and making issues out of non issues in order to make ffing sound more complicated and a bigger issue than it needs to be is shite.

"Over dramatising and making issues out of non issues in order to make ffing sound more complicated and a bigger issue than it needs to be is shite"

I didn't. How is pointing out that adding an extra scoop of powder to a bottle is wrong making it sound more complicated? Or that you shouldn't add "filler" to bottles, or reject them? .

And I hate the "who said what" stuff, but the first person to launch into a bf v.ff rant was Bulbasaur, who included such gems as ff babies can make better eye contact, and bf will make your breasts a funny shape..........

Reheat, not reject......

No haklyut, the bun fight was well and truly under way by the time Bulbasaur waded in!

I breastfed my first two kids. My first child didn't put on weight to the health visitor's satisfaction, so she was weighed every week, then referred to a pediatrician, and after 6 months we were told she was within the normal range and perfectly healthy.

The second child was easy to feed and everything went incredibly smoothly and it was wonderful.

Everything was different with the third child, for very complicated reasons, and I ended up bottle feeding him. I hated it: it was hard work if I wanted to go anywhere; we went abroad on holiday when he was 6 months old and it felt like I was spending my whole time sterilising bottles. After the convenience of breastfeeding, I really resented the hassle of bottle feeding.

Every woman has to make her own choice about what's best for her and her baby. Obviously breastfeeding is WAY better in terms of nutrition, convenience and protection from illness. But there are other factors that are also important, and I honestly believe the mother's emotional wellbeing trumps just about EVERYTHING else.

The National Childbirth Trust have excellent breastfeeding advisers who can offer practical support. It's really worth making contact with them to make sure the baby's properly latched on etc. But ultimately it has to be your decision.

Good luck!

And making sure that she gets good information. On both options

I'm always a bit surprised at comments that all you need is information to make bf work. 24 years' ago I was tripping over the health visitors/midwives/feeding counsellors pushing bf. It was relentless and I doubt it has eased up now.

And as for "support" this gets mentioned a lot. Never clear what is meant.

Sorcha did you read the thread?

As for the NCT, the counsellor I spoke to was an unsympathetic, poisonous witch whose idea of "support" was parroting breast is best. I still haven't forgiven or forgotten how miserable she made me.

Here's what it's likewhen bf is not working.

• availability: no need to get up or even sit up in the night to feed. Not true

• no need to plan or make any preparations when you go out for a day/holiday- virtually impossible to leave the house as baby constantly feeding so I suppose true, no need to plan.

• barely woke up to feed in the night and went back to sleep immediately (yay for prolactin) so didn't get over tired- no more than 2 hours' sleep at a time for almost 3 months.

• no paranoia about making up a feed wrong and making my baby sick - oddly not a problem, this is just scare mongering

• no need to calculate how much baby is feeding - if you can't see you can't worry about it, as long as baby is putting on weight- except he wasn't, obviously I wasn't trying hard enough

• no cost (I got by without needing feeding clothes, pads or bras)
• can feed anywhere - No. I hated feeding in public.

• less constipation (exclusively breastfed) Not true , or maybe I just imagined the constipation in a state of sleep deprivation.

• no one taking over feeding the baby so you can do stuff which is less enjoyable, like cleaning -Or doing things like sleeping to preserve your sanity.

No constipation - yeah, my breastfed baby used to shit about 12 times a day.So I definitely had to wake up when he wanted a feed during the night. I had to change him afterwards, usually all his clothes.

Look. The OP has a tiny baby. She is struggling with bf. She also struggled with bf her first baby- but she still tried with this second one, so it is reasonable to assume that in an ideal world she would bf. If was not as utterly horrible as it is proving to be. She is asking about ff. She got a lot of conflicting information. Including some which was dangerously wrong. (Which floored me, to be honest- one of the big positives about formula feeding has always seemed to me to be the "follow these instructions and you'll be fine" element). So it seems to me perfectly OK to say "Have you tried X to make bf easier?" in the same post as saying "Don't add an extra scoop or cereal to the bottle, and don't reheat it" The only vociferous, hectoring posts on here seem to me to come from the formula advocates- I honestly don't see why they get so aggressive. There seems to be a lot of projection going on. Personally, all is want so for people to make informed choices. I don't care how people feed their babies, so long as they've made informed choices. And it is perfectly fine to choose not to bf. it It is not perfectly fine not to bf when you want to because you have been given duff information which makes you think you can't.

Sigh - why oh why when the OP specifically asked for this NOT to be a BF vs FF issue it becomes one?

Note the OP hasn't come back to the thread - that's how helpful all this "debate" has been.

OP - if you are still reading (about which I would be surprised) do what's right for you.

FF wasn't any more difficult tbh than BF and tbh DH loved the opportunity to bond and feed DH. As prev posted dual feeding worked fine.

No reason not to FF and BF in a way that works for you. Or switch to FF if that is the best option.

@ the BFP - just stop it please. It's not helpful, unless on threads where someone is specially asking for BF advice.

Just in case the op comes back and to turn it back to the op sort of, this is not exactly a practicality but worth mentioning.

I know a lot of people say that bf helps you get your figure back so whilst it's a very shallow reason it was a factor for me when I kept trying for the short time that I did despite the fact that I was taking on extra calories to try and give myself more energy etc.

When I stopped bf it was hard to give up the extra cals but I still managed to get back to pre pregnancy weight in about 6 weeks with virtually no excercise. And I've battled with my weight my whole life.

phaedra off topic and I don't know how long ago it was but did you complain about the NCT person? That kind of treatment is disgusting and goes totally against their policy and whole reason for training and offering counsellors in the first place - to support mother's decisions. A complaint would be taken very seriously indeed.