"You want the best for your baby, don't you?"
"They need breastmilk, it makes them healthy!"
If you're a mom or a mom-to-be, or really just a woman in general, you've no doubt heard those words before.
It's true, breastmilk is very good for your baby, that's who it is made for after all. And it's great when you mom, grandma, aunts, sisters, cousins, friends, doctors, and random people on the street can get behind you if you're breastfeeding. It's not an easy process, especially at the beginning. It's hard, it hurts, neither you nor the baby know what you're doing, and you need all the support and encouragement you can get.
Now, unless you've been living under a rock for the past year, you know breastfeeding in public has come under fire by the general population of the childless. It's deemed gross, unsanitary, and undesirable. So it's only logical that moms and dads everywhere are fighting back, steamrolling over the haters with their babies at the breast.
I've written an article about it myself, and I whole heartedly agree that woman should be able to feed their children whenever and wherever they please.
But I've recently discovered an unmentioned struggle for moms who are just trying to feed their children: not breastfeeding.
I started to notice my milk was drying up when my son turned 10 months. I asked around and looked online and everything pointed me in the same direction: pump milk and keep nursing and your milk will come back in.
So I trusted all the parenting sites and doctors websites and other moms and kept at it.
Now, nearly a month later, and I'm lucky if I can get a tablespoon of milk in a sitting. My son was becoming lethargic, never sleeping through the night, and coming back to nurse every 20-40 minutes all night, screaming and crying because he was hungry.
It dawned on me that he's starving. He eats regular meals with us, but he was eating far more than is normal in a baby his age and guzzling juice like it was his lifeline. He became dehydrated and finally I was fed up.
I went to the store and did the unthinkable: I bought a can of formula.
He didn't like it the first day, so I quickly became worried that he wouldn't take it, and I have no other way to get him that vital nutrients
So I took to Google, asking the mom forums how they were able to wean and switch.
The first website has a mom saying that she needed to go back to work, and how was the best way to make the switch?
Everyone was saying that she needed to just pump milk and use that instead of formula. And if she has to switch, slowly do it, using the breast milk as a base until the baby got used to the taste.
Okay, no help for someone who has no milk to give. I changed my search words, looking instead for how to switch to formula when your milk has dried up.
Queue my instant shock and disappointment in the mom community.
I was three pages deep on Google, and every single source only gave advice on how to bring your milk back in. Every website gave panic-inducing articles on how your baby will grow up weird and underdeveloped if you do not breastfeed, and formula should never be an option. There was even one that said you were selfish if you didn't breastfeed for as long as the baby wanted to.
I get it, the idea of breastfeeding as long as your baby needs it is comforting to mommy too. I was so sad when I realized I am drying up. But the honest truth is, sometimes you have to use formula.
As much as I love that there is a crusade towards breastfeeding, I hate that there is such a stigma against formula.
Some mothers have no choice, and what of the single fathers? Are we to be left out in the cold, staring in the window while the breastfeeding moms sit around by the fire and feed their perfect little angels while the rest of us give our apparently dying and unloved children bottles?
There are very few resources for switching to formula. I was able to breastfeed for the first 10 months of his life, so I didn't have the doctors and nurses at the hospital could help me. Instead, I'm depending on the vast community of other mommies who have gone before me. And the ones like me are staying quiet.
So here's my voice for all the other moms out there who have had to switch to formula. You are not a lesser mom just because your body isn't producing enough milk. You're doing the best you can, you still love your precious little one, and don't let the judgmental breast only moms tear you down.
It's tough to give up breastfeeding this late in the game. I'm attached to him as much as he is to me, if not more. He's already moved on to the bottle, only three days in. And he has so much more energy, and for the first time in his life, he's been sleeping straight through the night.
Of course it's sad when your milk dries up, you feel inadequate, you miss your sweet little one cuddling against you whenever he's hungry.
But you give him the formula, because you know it's for the best, and you want them to grow strong and healthy, and it's the only way.
And soon you'll be thinking of the freedom this has given you. Now you don't have to worry about nursing bras, or leaky boobs, or biting babies.
It's just one more step towards their independence from mom. It's sad, but beautiful. Every moment they are growing older and that is okay. Each change is just another step towards the amazing person they are growing into.
So don't fret, formula mommies. If you have to switch because you are dry, just keep giving that baby the bottle, because sooner than later they will get the picture and take the bottle. And then they will get all the nutrience they need and you will be able to rest easy (as easy as a mom can) knowing that your little one is going to be okay.
Formula mommies unite!
Cheers! And good luck!
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