Category: Parent Talk
Good grief, now a supermodel/actress is in on it, Gisele Bundchen, saying all moms should be required to breast feed for the first six months. ?!?! Whose going to enforce that one? Could some of the unemployed be rounded up to be "booby police"? It wouldn't take much training.
But seriously, is there nothing more to infant and child health than breast or bottle? This lady tried to correct herself in saying she didn't mean to judge, but could anyone really feed such little ones so much chemicals? If she checked her facts she'd find the first formula came out in the 19th Century, by a man named Henri Nestle, so that a woman who couldn't nurse in a Swiss canton could have an alternative to feed her child. Now I know in the remote parts of Mr Sponge's native Algeria, women who can't nurse get a wet nurse, as the nearest big city may be hours away so you don't just hop in the car & go to the supermarket & pick up Enfamil, but I wouldn't know about Switzerland. Mr. Nestle found a way for this baby to avoid another chemical process called starvation.
Mimi didn't want to nurse but a few months. It was the beginning of summer, maybe she didn't require as much body heat, I don't know, but in the beginning I was tired & she was always hungry, so I supplemented her diet with formula. I wasn't going to force her to nurse if she didn't want to & pumps may or may not yield much. We aren't obese. We don't have food allergies. She hasn't even been asked to submit to one food allergy test, and in my line of work I get a lot of requests for food allergy testing on both adults and children. We are of average IQ, some folks are even saying IQ can be lowered a few points if mothers don't nurse their infants. I say bah humbug there has to be more to maternal & child health than that. Nursing can be good, can even help mother form a bond with her baby, but it isn't the alpha and omega of child health.
I don't think it should be made a law, but I do believe that women should breast feed whenever possible. Of course, there are some exceptions when she can't, including adoption, and in those cases, I feel that if formula is used, it should be natural and not full of chemicals. They may even make one like that. In your case, I would've simply put my own milk in a bottle and would've done it that way. If the baby can drink formula that way, breast milk shouldn't be a problem.
I feel the same way on post two. I don't think it should be a law, but I feel women should do it, but (there's always 2 sides to everything) if the woman can't do it then she can't. So I wouldn't try and make it a law. Secondly/thirdly she needs to go back to South America, last time I checked we were American...
When Chloe was born, I breast fed her for about a month and a half. I dried up because of stress for one, and for two, I couldn't get her to latch right. She also had thresh, or however that's pronounced. Anyway, I pumped it for her, when I couldn't get her to latch, so as i said, she got breast milk for a month and a half there abouts. But, every situation is different, a mother will do what she feels she needs to. So, if it's breast milk, wonderful. If not, then there are other alternatives, and there are lots of different formulas. I had to put Chloe on a certain one though, due to her having cholic.
I'm a total advocate for nursing because I feel it's "the best" thing you can do for your baby. Now, aside from that, I feel that if you cannot nurse due to a serious disease, then you'd be doing baby more harm than good. However, I think that if you've just had a baby and have not had proper education or resources on nursing, and especially if you're on public assistance, you should be STRONGLY encouraged to nurse. To me, if you can supply something FOR FREE, and you're healthy and producing milk, why in the world would you want to use what precious little you do get to feed your infant when YOU can provide that baby food FOR FREE. I think too many women think it's nasty or hard or embarrassing and don't want to even try. When I had my son, I was NOT taught properly partly because the Lactation consultant wasn't available in the hospital. I had to go to her office a week after I had him to get help and she was clearly not intelectually equipped to think outside the box to help me. She basically told me that #1, she'd never seen a blind person have a child and didn't know how I'd do it, and #2, she'd never heard of one nursing a baby and felt that formula (particularly the pre-packaged kind) was best. UNBELIEVABLE! When I had my daughter, I had excellent, attentive, caring staff around-the-clock to come and help me if she wasn't latching right and having a hard time. Needless to say, I had so many medical issues after my son, added to the fact that I just couldn't "get" the nursing thing down, I only nursed him for a month. I am still nursing my daughter and she eats solids most of the time but she nurses at night and when she "needs mommy."It has saved my family SO MUCH money, even though I do buy formula to suplement because I'm trying to go back to school full-time and work and Daddy can feed her when I can't. I did have a pump, but I can never make as much with it as I can with her nursing. A lot of the reasons for poor milk supply and baby constantly wanting to nurse is due to improper latching. If the baby is pinching your nipple, S/he is on worong. If she's pulling, then it's right. Soreness is NORMAL for the first couple weeks and in that case, I used an all-natural gel when I felt raw and chafed and that helped TREMENDOUSLY. I was given the proper techniques and resources with my 2nd baby and I feel like I really had to fight for that because being able to nurse my baby was important to me. I also have cerebral palsy so being able to do the many tasks that require balance, coordination, stamina, etcetera to take care of my baby, was hard for me. So, the ONE thing I could totally do independently and easily was breastfeed. You do what's important to you.
I would advocate for breastfeeding as well, however, there are a lot of women who just can't produce enough milk to feed their baby so it makes them sort of discouraged because they either have to completely go to formula or supplement with formula. I've been breastfeeding my baby ever since he was born which granted isn't that long but nonetheless I've come to find out I'm waking up to feed him about every 2 to 3 hours to feed him when I hear formula fed babies can go without eating as much as 5 hours. I find as much as I love that bonding experience I get with my baby when I breastfeed him it does take a lot of energy out of me, and not to mention the cut down drastically on caffeine rule kinda bugs me, but other than that I very much enjoy the experience I get with my baby when nursing. My baby's almost 2 weeks old now and I just started giving him formula as well as breast milk since I wanted daddy to be able to feed him as well and pumping seems to not always work for me. They say you should at least wait 2 weeks before pumping and at least a month before bottle feeding him but honestly I think that also depends on mother and baby, and if you have breastfeeding bottles they help majorly as well. true, breastfeeding does save tons of money in comparison to formula feeding but I also don't think it should be a law, not all women can do it, and some just plain don't feel comfortable doing it and would much prefer the formula. My thoughts, hey if they have the money to spend on all that formula, let 'em if that's what they want, no one but you should have the say on how you choose to feed your newborn.
ultimately I think it's none of anyone else's god damn business.
think women should be given as much support as is necessary to breastfeed if that is what they want. But ultimately it should be down to personal circumstance.
I go on enough parenting forums where women are judged for the feeding choices they make, and ultimately we don't know what goes on in other peoples' lives and what may make them chose to formula feed.
But I don't equate nestle with healthy choices sorry - just google nestle boycott and all will become clear..
I agree, women shouldn't be forced to do that, however I do think if they're going to feed their baby bottled milk, they should probably take a lot of care with what they feed it, be aware of what's in it and so on.
as for the first post, Switzerland used to be as remote as some parts of africa, given the number of small alpine villages, so it's no surprise that women might have had trouble getting wet nurses at times.
I can believe it about the parenting sites. My wife went to one La Leche league meeting and they were basically, as I've said on other issues, in love with the *idea* rather than what's really happening.
It does seem women have an incredible proclivity to be consumed with what others, particularly authoritative types or fellow women, think. Or at least what they think those people are thinking. So parenting becomes a competition of outer mambranous construction: let's all look like x.
In the words of 1984, "We have always been at war with Eurasia,"
The Eurasia in their case is whoever you're supposed to not be like. Rather whatever work of fiction you're not supposed to be like, and what work of fiction you're supposed to assume. And I used to think cult leaders always went for the girls because they thought they could get a piece. Nah, maybe that, but it's women's attraction to this insane shadow-boxing competition that they use. If you all ever overcome that, or rather when you do, you'll be positively unbeatable.
LeoGuardian, believe it or not Mr. Spongebob is quite a bit more competitive as far as what other parents and their children are doing than I am. I have zero friends where we live, and being that way I could care less that M's granddaughter learned to walk at 9 months while Mimi took longer, or that the couple next door's nephew speaks three languages, while she understands when I speak to her in French, but doesn't yet converse in it. I believe each child has their own strenghths and weaknesses and progresses at their own pace, and Mr Sponge is quite status conscious and competitive. In many ways you would think we switched roles and I am the man and he is the woman, but I'm positive I'm female, but I do see what you're saying about women competing with each other. A woman I know who had a daughter with learning disabilities lost friends over remarks like, "But my Brittney was quite a bit younger when she learned to feed herself with a spoon." Well, this lady was dealing with a child who had learning disabilities little Brittney wasn't.
That said, forget breast feeding for six months if it isn't possible to do. What creeps me out all the more is the number of women I've heard of breast feeding 3 and even 4 year olds. Gag...I heard one of these stories from an elderly woman who once did day care from her home, of preschoolers spending the day thirsty & once mom came having her lift her shirt and breast feeding 'em. Ugh, I think I need a shower.
I know that some women get like this but I've never understood it. I mean, sure, in conversation, if you want to talk about your child's accomplishments, that's fine. But who cares if one learns faster than another or can do gymnastics or sings better while another is learning more basic things? I thought the idea of children is to love them, to give your all to them no matter what, not to compete with other parent's children. As for breastfeeding at three or four, I too find that disgusting, unless there's some kind of very serious medical reason.