Love Can Come in Bottles, Too.
How can we be all those things?
Well, we believe that breastfeeding our babies is an incredible gift, but that sometimes it simply doesn't happen the way we planned.
We are not here to encourage or discourage any particular choice parents make on how to nourish their babies. We are here to support the ones who struggled or are struggling to breastfeed and are facing the guilt that often comes along with deciding to stop breastfeeding.
We have both experienced this personally, and have gone through all the guilt alone, so we wanted to start this tumblr to post encouragement and to answer your questions and concerns as you make this sometimes difficult and traumatic transition.
We want you to bottle-feed without fear of judgement, and without guilt. You are doing the best that you can do for your baby given your particular circumstances. Be assured that the love and care you take in making this sometimes agonizing decision shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that love can come in bottles, too.
Unhappy? If you’re a mom, a new study published in the Journal of Child and Family Studies may explain why: Intense parenting makes mothers miserable.
According to Science Daily, researchers found that mothers who have an intense parenting philosophy are more likely to be unhappy, and even clinically depressed, than those who don’t. What is intense parenting? If you’re a mom who thinks nothing is more important — not your time or your health or your needs — than your child, you may be in for some serious problems.
More specifically, the study’s authors defined intense parenting as those who believe:
- mothers, not fathers, are the most necessary and capable parent
- parents’ happiness is derived primarily from their children
- parents should always provide their children with stimulating activities that aid in their development
- parenting is more difficult than working
- a parent should always sacrifice their needs for the needs of the child
Being a mom is a hard enough job without people judging you on how you feed, whether you cloth diaper or use disposables, or whether you cosleep or babywear; and I can’t help but wonder if we supported each other instead of judging each other if maybe (just maybe) this mothering thing wouldn’t be as hard.
Even now, almost two years later, I feel a twinge whenever I see a woman whip out her boob at the playground. Why couldn’t that have been me? I briefly fantasize about having another baby (could I maybe get it right the second time around?), before reminding myself that the dream of breastfeeding is possibly the worst reason to have another child. But then I look over at my son, roaring with laughter as he whizzes down a slide or shouting out a new word from the top of the jungle gym. My inability to breastfeed seemed so do-or-die when he was an infant, so all-determining. But I don’t think my strapping son has suffered in the long run, not even a little bit, from what I saw as such a horrendous deprivation at my hands. Breast milk or no breast milk, he couldn’t possibly have turned out any better, and these days that’s the only consolation I need.
many mothers state that they feel guilty because they had to stop breastfeeding for one reason or the other. they say that for those of us out there in the trenches desperately working to promote and normalize breastfeeding, our thought-provoking one liners and quotes of encouragement further cement their guilt.
i’m hear to tell you dear mothers, that what you feel is not guilt.
no, it isn’t.
what you do feel is regret, and that my friends, is a horse of a different color.
I would love to see breastfeeding advocacy (and birth advocacy, and educational advocacy, and others) fit into the context of what I hope is the larger goal: healthier children and strong familial bonds. In that context, lactation professionals and peer counselors can be trained in the benefits of breastfeeding and provide breastfeeding support, but also be watchful for the signs that breastfeeding isn’t an appropriate course of action (severe PPD, medical contra-indications, true insufficient supply) and provide support and guidance (how to combo-feed, information about milk-sharing, and reassurance that formula-feeding a baby is not a “failure”).
Until that is in place, we run the risk of our advocacy having a conflict of interest with compassion, which will always be a detriment to our cause.
If we as a society truly place a high value on nursing — if the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation that mothers breast-feed for 12 months or more (and breast-feed exclusively for six months or more) is meant for all women, not just those with the resources to withstand economic loss — then we need to support breast-feeding by putting in place laws, policies, programs and social structures that make it easier, rather than attempt to gloss over its hidden costs. Breast milk isn’t free. But it’s within our power to make it affordable for all.
Dear Mama,
It’s me, your child. The one who wakes you up at 3 a.m. because my stomach is the size of a golf ball or being held five times tonight isn’t quite enough. The one who finds it hilarious to dump oatmeal all over the floor and your hair if I can manage it. The one whose diapers tempt you to contact your country’s military research department because that smell is a good candidate for the next devastating non-lethal weapon. Put down the Dr. Sears tome, the iPhone on that sanctimommy blog, the e-reader with that book about breastfeeding being a womanly art on screen. Do I have your attention? Good.
Mothers today, she says, are experiencing more pressure, guilt and anxiety than ever before. Motherhood has become a “tyrannical state”, in which women have become “slaves to l’enfant roi” - the child-king. They are pressured to run their pregnancies like dietary boot camps, made to feel guilty unless they insist on natural childbirth, and are filled with anxiety about their ability to breastfeed. They are directed to allow nothing non-organic to pass their baby’s lips or touch its skin, and encouraged to regard external childcare as an unforgivable sin. Any hint of personal choice is lost before the onslaught of directives and rules. “Thirty years ago, we lived our pregnancies with insouciance and lightness,” Badinter has remarked. “Today, to be pregnant seems not far from entering into a religious order.”
Put up a poster promoting breastfeeding, though, and suddenly people complain it is only being done to make those who are artificially feeding feel guilty! Why is this? How can just another health message seem personalised and threatening? The answer might surprise you. There is certainly emotion involved but it is nothing to do with guilt. Guilt is how you feel having committed an offence; remorse caused by feeling responsible for some offence. It is an internally created feeling and can only occur if the culprit recognises they have done the wrong thing. Surely this description would only apply to the smallest number of mothers who have not breastfed? The real emotion felt by the majority of women who resort to premature weaning is regret: feeling sad about the loss or absence of something treasured or valued. Put simply, when these women see promotion of breastfeeding, it reminds them of a time when they experienced sadness. This can lead to feelings of anger, as unresolved emotions come to the surface. What they need is support and understanding of their grief, recognition of their regret. Unfortunately, what they usually get instead is reassurance about the decision to wean and assurance of their baby’s health and wellbeing despite being fed artificially. This failure to acknowledge their true feelings goes a long way to delaying their emotional recovery. Raise the issue of breastfeeding in a group of women at any life stage - those emotions will come flooding out just as fresh in the retirement village as in the new mothers’ group.
According to Dr. Laura Jana pediatrician and co-author of the book, Heading Home with Your Newborn: From Birth to Reality, published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, being a new parent is challenging and can be frustrating. For a mother faced with the additional challenges associated with breastfeeding, sometimes the extra time, effort, appointments/instruction can prove to be too overwhelming. The bottom line: if a mother wants to be able to breastfeed in the face of physical limitations, she should know that there may well be ways to make that happen. However, for the mothers that can’t either physically or emotionally, Dr. Jana feels very strongly that there should be no guilt involved!
