February 2012
52 posts
12 tags
"Bottle-Feeding Made Me a Better Mum to My Boys." →
It’s about time we stopped beating up bottle feeding mothers. Far from making me a bad mother, as the pro-breastfeeding lobby would have me believe, I am quite sure that choosing to bottle feed made me a better mum to all my sons.
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Avoid Bottle-Feeding Guilt. →
While the reasons for doing it may be varied, the condemnation many bottlefeeding mums feel seems to be universal, and today an increasingly vocal breastfeeding lobby leaves many bottlefeeding mums cringing with guilt.
This horrifies Dr Heather Wittenberg, a parenting psychologist who runs the website BabyShrink. “For some reason, people – especially other mums – feel entitled to criticise...
9 tags
Why Vilify Mothers Who Bottle-Feed? →
Rather, I think — and let me not mince words here — that bullying women into breast-feeding and vilifying those who don’t is disgusting. It is, I believe, profoundly wrong to make mothers feel that because they bottle-feed or bottle-fed their babies — from birth, as a supplement or after a return to work — they are unnatural, negligent, selfish idiots.
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Reasons for Bottle Feeding. →
That’s what I wish would go through other people’s heads when they’re watching me feed my girl. No, that formula isn’t full of all the incredible goodness of mother’s milk, but the whole time Isabel drinks a bottle, we are looking at each other and she is tapping her fingers on mine and she is curling into me while I’m rocking her gently. It’s very, very sweet and intimate. It’s...
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Support for Moms Who Bottle Feed. →
Most moms know that breastfeeding is best for baby and for the moms that decide to breastfeed (it is a choice) there are a lot of great support groups online. Breastfeeding.com provides an online community that helps support moms and Baby Center has many articles for new mothers to help them learn the benefits of breastfeeding and the how-to’s to help moms problem solve. The support and...
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Why, Why, Why? →
If a baby is starving because of neglect then judge away, get outraged beyond comprehension. But if a mother is doing everything she can to make sure her child is happy, healthy and fed, don’t you dare judge her for it.
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Vindication for Mothers Who Don't Want to... →
Bottle-feeding mums are, says Dr Lee, assailed by a gamut of emotions.
‘Some are angry or guilty. I’ve spoken to women who feel that for the first time in their adult lives they’ve been treated like children, just because they’re unable or unwilling to breastfeed.
18 tags
Because It Could Be My Baby... →
This was an article from The Leaky Boob that Lucas’ donor milk mom shared with me recently. As she put it: “[This is] why I donate… this article pretty much sums it up. I am so glad that I am able to help my ‘milk baby’ grow and get the nutrition he needs!”
Every human baby deserves to have the normal nutrition for a human infant: human breastmilk. To every...
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Speaking Up for Those Who Can't. →
This is a story about a woman who had something negative said to her about breastfeeding in public; however, I believe it can apply to any parenting situation!
We’ve all had those moments when someone said something hurtful or insensitive, or downright rude that just shocks you to your core, and you’re stunned in to silence. If you’re at all like me, afterwards you go home...
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Why I Used to Hide the Formula Box. →
Life didn’t go as planned. I came home from the hospital feeling as though every other mother was looking at me and judging me. Those who were not yet mothers made comments that made me feel as though I were weak. Older mothers didn’t understand why I couldn’t just “deal” with his colic and move on. And mothers who were my peers who had never struggled with...
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Mama Bashing. →
Mama-bashing is like a playground fight. The sides gather, drawn by a controversial opinion – often genuine, sometimes trollish. If our children were involved in such vicious behaviour, we would not find it acceptable.
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Breastfeeding Support: It Really Does Take a... →
You’ve heard that it takes a village to raise a child …we certainly have come to believe that it also takes a village to breastfeed a child!
In the past (and still in some countries and cultures of the world) a woman would always have her mother, friends, sisters, and other female relatives to help her when it came to the sometimes surprisingly difficult task of breastfeeding her baby.
...
20 tags
5 Ways to Eliminate Judge/Be Judged Mentality. →
Breastfeed or formula feed? Epidural or au-naturel? Organic or conventional? Vaccines or no vaccines? Re-usable or disposable diapers? Time-outs or Time-ins? Crib or Co-sleeping? School, homeschool or unschool? The questions seem so simple on the surface but most parents know, the choices, the possibilities are endless and these questions have started wars in the parenting world.
16 tags
Bottle Feeding with Love. →
Having planned to breastfeed, I didn’t have much knowledge about bottle feeding, and a lot of what I did find didn’t seem helpful or a good fit for my parenting style. Ultimately, we acted on much of the advice given to breastfeeding moms together with a good dose of instinct.
I’ve been wanting to pass on some of what we’ve learned for awhile as a resource for those who may have found...
15 tags
Enlightenment and Healing. →
The loss that I felt as a result of not breastfeeding took me by surprise. No one tells you that you will experience grief. No one tells you that it hurts. No one tells you the sense of regret you will experience when you think back to those early days of your child’s life and you question the “what ifs” that might have made things different.
But this is not a story of grief and sadness;...
9 tags
No, You Don't Have to Breastfeed. →
The most recent data show that nearly 74 percent of women try breast-feeding, a rise of 50 percent since 1973. This is great. Breast-feeding is great. The problem is, breast-feeding advocates have become so anti-formula that they are alienating moms who don’t, or often can’t, do it. And as a result, the bottom line — the fact that we’re all trying to raise healthy babies —...
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How to Respond Respectfully to Unwanted Parenting... →
Parenting can bring out the most interesting advice and remarks from people who we may not even know and of course, those close to us as well. Sometimes we don’t want this advice. Sometimes we resist it with every fiber of our being. There are many reasons for this, some of which we will explore. I would also like to offer some alternatives to reacting in such situations and instead...
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Is Bottle-Feeding a Mark of Bad Motherhood? →
These research findings suggest that a process of cultural transmission has turned provision of health information about the benefits of breastfeeding into a campaign against formula use. The effects of this upon women, babies, and health professionals, are very problematic. The main recommendation that can be made on the basis of our research is that use of formula milk needs to be...
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Promotion of Breastfeeding Goes Too Far. →
Nursing is simply a good method of feeding your newborn, but it is not the only safe or best way for all. The word is choice, and it is a big mistake to force one method for everyone. When some children fail to thrive on breast milk, there is, and should always be, an alternative feeding method, and it does not include the guilt be placed on these equally caring parents. Formula, despite...
