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.
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.
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!
So please, continue to let new moms know that breastfeeding is absolutely amazing. That is unbelievably the best thing for a baby. Share with them tips and support. But stop making the non-breastfeeders feel like failures.
I did not fail my three babies.
I DID NOT fail my three babies.
I am not a bad mom.
If you are pregnant or are a new mom, I encourage you to breastfeed. Try. Talk to lactation consultants. Not just one. Ask a friend. But ultimately, do what is best for you and your baby.
You are not a failure. You did not fail your baby! You are not a bad mom!
Ah, breastfeeding and formula. It seems like forever since we’ve been able to talk about infant feeding without immediately getting sidetracked into the explosive meta discussion about how we should talk about it, or, more often, how we shouldn’t.
The ability to discern between truth-telling and guilt-tripping seems to get a little hazy to all involved sometimes. In the interest of lancing the boil I present the following cheatsheet on how not to become a breastfeeding Nazi—and how not to see them where they are not.
It can be really stressful for parents when their babies are crying. Parenting coach Dr. Carrie Contey explains the connection between baby crying and guilt.
“So many devoted moms think that no matter what they do for their children, it’s not enough — and our culture plays into that insecurity,” says Susan Douglas, Ph.D., coauthor of The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women. But you can end the self-flagellation. Here, the top reasons that new moms feel guilty, and what you can do to get beyond it.
In the end, it’s not about how a baby is fed. It’s about how a baby is loved.
For mothers who simply can’t make it work, the guilt can be overwhelming. They desperately want to nurse their babies, but aren’t having success. They’ve read books, sought help from lactation professionals, struggled and persevered. In some cases, they’re sacrificing their own health and sanity in the attempt. Women whose multiples are the result of treatment for infertility may feel like their body is betraying them yet again. They feel dysfunctional. They feel like a failure.
Guilt about breastfeeding isn’t productive. It doesn’t help the lactation process and it doesn’t generate any benefit for mothers or babies. If you’re feeling guilty about not breastfeeding your twins or multiples, release it.
