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by Monica Beyer
Elizabeth Weiss McGolerick is a freelance writer and editor who contributes regularly to SheKnows, MintLife, AOL, iVillage and other sites. In her articles, Elizabeth covers a variety of subjects including relationships, pregnancy, paren...
Is there a way to make peace with the bottle if nursing exclusively isn’t in the cards?
Time constraints, physical issues or a demanding toddler can leave mothers wondering if exclusively breastfeeding your second child is truly possible. Suzanne Barston experienced her own unique nursing guilt and bottle woes. And then she wrote a book about it — Bottled Up: How the Way We Feed Babies Has Come to Define Motherhood, and Why It Shouldn’t — to help other mothers assuage their guilt and worry.
Suzanne Barston: Food is not love. It's food. Choosing formula over breast milk does not mean you love your child any less — it means that, for whatever reason, you feel you can be a better parent if you don't breastfeed. Your parenting will be slightly different with each of your kids. Just because breastfeeding felt right the first time doesn't mean you won't feel differently the second time around.
I've spoken with moms who hated breastfeeding the first time and loved it with subsequent kids, and moms who decided not to breastfeed second or third kids and felt there were a lot of great aspects to bottle feeding they hadn't realized before.
Plus, for those who had to struggle to make breastfeeding work, it's understandable that the thought of going through difficulties with a second child is daunting. You have two children to think about now so, as hard as it is, you have to make some choices more holistically, considering how your options will affect the entire family, including your mental health, your ability to care for two kids, etc.
SB: I'm known in the online world as the Fearless Formula Feeder. I'm in the process of developing a bottle feeding curriculum which I hope can be offered at hospitals, in Mommy & Me classes and support groups. It might seem like a no-brainer to mix a bottle of formula, but parents — especially sleep-deprived, overwhelmed parents — often make mistakes which can actually affect a newborn's health to a pretty significant degree.
I get emails daily from parents who feel confused about which formula to choose; who wonder if their children might be showing signs of food allergies; who have no idea how much they should be feeding a newborn, or if they should still go by hunger cues as they learned in their breastfeeding classes. Doctors don't always know the answers, and I think many of them feel that it's breastfeeding moms who need the help. The truth is, we all need help.
SB: Moms have many reasons that they choose bottle over breast; all are personal, valid and nobody's business but hers. We do our best in our given circumstances, and formula — while certainly not the incredible, live substance that breast milk is — gives us options. It is still a healthy way to feed a child, even if it isn't the healthiest. And actually, I'd argue that if the choice is between giving formula or breastfeeding but having to let everything else in your life go to hell in a hand basket, formula feeding may end up being the "healthier" choice because having a depressed, exhausted mom who can't care for her other kids because she's hooked up to a pump isn't good for anyone. Only you can decide what will work for your family.
SB: No mother should feel guilty, whether she breastfed one child and formula fed another, or is formula feeding her firstborn. As long as you do your research and make an informed choice, you are making the best choice for you. There is so much more to being a mom than what we feed our babies in the first year. The very fact that a mom is agonizing over this choice proves that the choice is not being made lightly.
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