Today I bought my first-ever can of baby formula. I never had to with Henry; I just had plenty of milk and I was always around him enough to nurse or leave a bottle now and then. Agatha is also doing fine with nursing, but for some reason I find it harder to pump this time around; maybe I'm just busier. But the big spur is this 4-day business trip I have coming up at the end of the month. (I'm dreading leaving the kids, especially Aggie, for that long, but that's another post!) I haven't been able to stockpile enough milk to last that long, so I need to try out and get her used to formula so that can supplement the milk while I'm gone.
I don't consider myself militant about breastfeeding; of course breast is best, but I've seen friends and their babies suffer when it wasn't going well and torture themselves over it instead of just switching to formula, which I always thought was too bad. Formula is perfectly fine. And yet, I kept going to the store, looking at the formula, and putting it back on the shelf! It was really hard for me to buy it. It feels like a relief to have it as back-up and supplement, but also a little bit like a defeat.
What's up with that?
2 comments:
Amelia, I'm glad you made that decision! It was one of my concerns so now I can just not even think about that. Agatha will do well on formula and breast milk. And of course she is now starting to eat foods so that will help too.
Beware, after breast milk the formula smells funny. It's a bit off-putting. We made it to 8 months, and very quickly after we started supplementing, the nursing stopped. Everyone seemed much happier then.
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