Huzzah!

Word.

Right – it’s all normal. :)

Not all women DO have all the information necessary to make the best choice for them and their babies. I’m not advocating putting our noses into other people’s business (and I breastfeed in public all the time, but I don’t want someone to come up and “thank” me for doing so – I just want to be left in peace to do what I do), but I do worry about the high number of poor and minority babies who could be getting better nutrition if their mothers were getting the support they needed to breastfeed for as long as possible. It’s not really fair to say that all women who bottle-feed are doing so for the right reasons – millions of women do so because using their breasts for something other than sexual purposes is “icky.” That is something that I think we should all agree needs to change. (Not by nosy strangers, but somehow).

Sigh. I only breastfed for three weeks – that’s it, coupled with a pretty severe case of PPD (wanting to leave my baby and thinking I’d made the worst mistake of my life kind of depression), that’s all I could manage. Do I wish things had been different? Absolutely, but I have to admit, my friends that did BF for most of their kid’s baby stage and wear it like a badge of courage rubs me wrong sometimes. I felt inadequate, on top of everything else I was dealing with at the time – it just plain sucked. Sometimes I wish there was the right answer, it’s such a sensitive topic. Sometimes I wish someone had said to me ‘It’s OK, you did the best you could – thank you for being the best Mom you could be’. Thanks for posting this.

Thank you thank you thank you! Raising a child is difficult enough. Being judged because we either choose to or must do it differently is beyond wrong.

I’m pumping/bottle feeding breastmilk and when I’m in public giving my 5 month old a bottle I want to have a sign on me explaining why. I think people are judging without knowing the circumstances – we had problems getting a proper latch, my mother died 12 days after my daughter was born and so I couldn’t find it in myself to get to a lactation consultant and spend 2 months to figure out how to get the latch right (as I did with my son). People need to mind their own business and not judge. You don’t know what’s in the bottle someone is giving their baby and you don’t know the circumstances.

Amen! I /tried/ to breastfeed after my son was born. Unfortunately the 3 emergency surgeries prevented me from ever doing anything besides eek an ounce out every few hours. Unfortunately 1 month in the hospital, horrible postpartum depression (in part over the breast feeding thing) and 9 incisions in my abdomen was not enough to keep the breastfeeding nazis from calling my hospital room daily to interrupt my morphine induced sleep, find out how many times I was able to pump and dump, and give a heavy dose of guilt if it wasn’t up to their standards.

I try really hard not to assume anything in the vast majority of public parenting situations (save the really obvious ones–verbal abuse, etc.). Especially breast/bottle feeding, since it is such a nuanced and charged topic.

Honestly, it is really hard for me to imagine a bottle feeding mom getting a negative reaction in public (though I know it does happen because I’ve heard the stories), because I almost never see a mom breastfeeding in public. I breastfed both of my kids for a year, often in public, and a couple of times I got negative comments or looks. I ignored the ones from strangers, but I always responded to the ones from people I knew (mostly friends without kids expressing disgust).

It is really difficult to continue to breastfeed publicly in the face of a negative response. I could see that for someone who is struggling with breastfeeding, that doula’s comment could make or break someone’s day. But really, regardless of HOW a woman is feeding her baby, I know that feeling defeated is common, and maybe just a “what a beautiful baby; aren’t you blessed” sort of comment works better all around. It is a tough topic…

I think I read the post on which the comment you referenced was made, and it seems to me that it was about someone getting some shit about breastfeeding for too long. In general, I think that people get a lot more shit for breastfeeding in public than for giving their baby a bottle in public. That said, I don’t know what I would do if someone came up and said *anything* to me about feeding my baby, regardless of how I was doing it. I think I’d think it was none of their damned business how I was feeding my baby and WHY on earth would they thank ME for it? Ha, I think probably the BABY is the only one that should thank the mother for feeding them, but of course they don’t. The selfish bastards. :)

@Marian – GOOD POINT! People have no idea what’s in the bottle and it’s none of their business anyway!

I breastfed my Son and I don’t care how anybody wants to feed their baby. It IS all normal.

“Or maybe I’d just smile and tell her what a beautiful baby she had. Because anything else is really none of my damn business.”

Amen!! I’m out of the baby feeding business (my youngest is 4) and so relieved! The whole FF v. BF debate is insane. As long as a baby is fed, clothed, sheltered and loved the rest is just no one’s business.

I didn’t mean to be anon- my name is Sarah. Anyway, I was agreeing with you that it’s none of anyone’s business, but I was simply disagreeing that most women make the choice to bottle-feed for the best reasons. I just hear too many stories of the “breast-feeding is yucky” variety to believe that all women are making their choices for the right reasons.

Chris, you DID do the best for your baby: you breast-fed for those critically-important first few weeks, when antibodies etc are passed on. And, MOST IMPORTANTLY, you took care of yourself because it does no baby any good to lose her mother to PPD etc. Just because I and your friends were lucky enough (and I know it’s luck) to have more bf-ing time, doesn’t mean we’re better mothers or our babies are better people. Don’t buy the rhetoric on that one.

I breastfed my kids for 20 mos and 18 mos, respectively. I did so because I could and gleefully told anyone who criticized me for doing so in public to go fuck themselves. Not once did I ever criticize anyone for any parenting decision they made whether it was one I agreed with or not. I find myself playing down the breastfeeding I did now that my boys have learned that boobies are fun to look at and maybe, just MAYBE they are for more than just feeding babies. I hope that when they marry and have kids that their wives make the best decision for themselves and their babies.

I think the normal she was referring to was not how people feed their baby, but how people view breasts. It’s socially acceptable to wear skimpy tanks, bikini tops, or even see women in store window ads in only bras, but see a woman FEED HER BABY and people think GROSSSSSS.

So I would read her statement less about how a woman chooses to feed her baby, and more about how woman’s bodies are viewed. Sexy= ok, normal; feeding a baby= gross, obscene.

It’s not a great feeling to need to feed your kid, and at the same time feel like you might be grossing out the entire mall population. But sometimes? I simply didn’t want to go sit in the nicely decorated closet (aka: nursing room). I wanted to feed my baby and have it be ok, just like a bottle feeding mom could do.

And honestly, I don’t care if a woman chooses to bottle or breastfeed. But it takes a certain bravery to nurse in public, and I think THAT was what the author was referring to.

Ditto to the comment left by Chris. Amen to us all doing the best we can for our children and ourselves.

I figure I have as much right to ask or comment about a strangers’ method of feeding her baby as I do to ask if the birth was “natural” or how badly her vagina tore or how many days it took her to poop after her C-section.

I think Juliana’s comment was specifically in reference to feeling comfortable nursing a child anywhere, not about choosing the breast over the bottle.

I know that’s certainly not what my post was about. I’m heart-warmed when I see a woman nursing in public because I’ve bottle fed in public and I’ve breastfed in public and I’ve experienced very different reactions as a result.

It would be a little weird to me if someone mentioned something about me nursing, but I’d be relieved. Even just a small nod or smile to me is really heart-warming, because shit knows I’ve gotten far more dirty looks than smiling acknowledgments when I’ve nursed (discretely) in public.

I can see your perspective and why you felt like responding.

I do think the context is missing that she wasn’t referring to breast or bottle but to feeding a child anywhere. Which is, in my opinion, totally natural. And in many many others’ opinions totally unnatural.

Breastfeeding was so difficult for me, with both my daughters. I so wish people would have been supportive of my choices. Why does anybody care how I feed my baby? In the words of my best friend… “Food does not equal love.”

I’m not a boob-nazi or snob at all, I promise, but…

I think your perception of those comments is whats negative; she was just praising the mother for doing what isn’t socially the norm in our society… Your the one who is taking it the wrong way, IMO. It would be like you working full time to provide the best for your baby, and someone giving you praise on how great of a job you are doing, juggling both mother and work life.. and then me, a stay at home mom, getting offended.

However, if the person (or any person) made a negative comment to a formula feeder, something to the effect that the mom didn’t try hard enough to breastfeed or something, THAT WOULD DEFINITELY BE NOT COOL.

I am all for people being left alone though, like you, but I had to chime in with that comparison.

I wanted to add that I’ve noticed more women online being judgmental about formula feeding than I have in person. When S was young, I had a blog but it wasn’t about parenting and my Internet friends weren’t into kids and I had no idea this crazy world of BabyCenter message boards and mommy blogs existed. So when I went to baby/mom groups I’d say half the women nursed and half whipped out bottles (of formula, breastmilk, pudding, who knows) and no one batted an eye either way. I may have been distracted by other circumstances, since I had to take a long lunch once a week to do it, and I felt like an outsider being the only working mom in a group of 16 women.

I didn’t know the breast/bottle debate existed at all until I got into this community.

It makes me think that levels of acceptance and/or not giving a shit about babyfeeding methods probably vary really heavily from area to area as well as in different groups of women online.

I’m just mulling things over, sorry for the rambling-ass tangent.

But blah. It makes me ache that you or any mom would be made to feel shitty over feeding a baby a bottle in public, at home or anywhere. It bothers me JUST AS MUCH as it bothers me when women are criticized for nursing somewhere other than in a bedroom or under a tent.

I can see where, especially in the way you read it, that comment would make you feel shitty. Or at least make you think. (I’m not trying to paraphrase your reaction.)

The best nourishment part of that comment was a little eye-brow-raisy to me for sure, to be honest. I don’t even think I’d think/say that to a woman in my family. But the part about it being normal to nurse makes sense to me. Only because I’ve gotten so many wackadoodle questions from people about nursing and just enough outright negative reactions to be really defensive/prickly about it.

I wish none of us ever got slowly shoved into a position where our reactions were defensive/pricky or a place where we felt achy about the way we’re raising our kids.

Also I hope people don’t use your honest reaction as a platform to get into the breast/bottle trainwreck. It would be annoying for your expression here to be perceived as a debate or fueling the debate that none of us want to have.

I’m firing myself for leaving a comment this long on your blog. I don’t know why I turn into such a newbie dork over here. Relatedly, you’re really cool.

I’m guessing you’ve seen this article already, but just in case: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/04/the-case-against-breast-feeding/7311/

When I have a baby someday, I hope to be able to breastfeed. But if I can’t, or turn out not to want to, for whatever reason, I’m OK with that too, and this article reminded me of why.

I can’t believe I am chiming in considering I do my best to avoid the BF v. FF debate AT ALL COSTS.

I often feel that many of the comments that are meant to provide encouragement and support to breastfeeding mothers often make me feel defeated or inadequate. Such as the comment you mention at the beginning of your post.

I breastfed my first daughter for four weeks, and my second for three weeks. I had intended on breastfeeding exclusively for six months, but for a myriad of reasons did not. My mother was once our state’s La Leche League president so you can imagine what it is like when everyone in my family remarks on my “healthy and chubby breastfed babies” and I have to correct them.

Speaking only of myself, I know that I often take offense to comments that I feel reflect on the way I choose to parent, even if the person isn’t directing the comment at me all the time. For example, my choice to work part time, or the fact that I used pain medication during my babies’ births. When people make comments about how they did the best for their baby because they did not make those choices, I feel it often implies that I am not doing the best for my baby.

I just wish people would realize that I love my kids so much, and I am doing the best for them by making the best choices for us that I can. Really, should anything else even matter?

I agree with Michelle. For me, commenting (particularly in a negative way) on how someone else is feeding her baby is right there with going up to a stranger and asking how their delivery went. It’s one thing if it’s a close friend, it’s another when it’s a stranger and you don’t know their history.

I don’t understand people’s fascination with how mothers choose to feed their babies. If you breastfeed, fine. If you bottlefeed because you don’t have another choice, fine. If you bottlefeed because breastfeeding isn’t something you want to do, fine. Your body, your baby, your business.

I had a baby at 26 weeks gestation….it was the hardest time of my life.

I had him in November 09 and after 103 days he came out of Neonatal Intensive care. During that whole time I pumped so that i could give him the best chance at life possible (it was stressed to me that my breastmilk is the best thing I could do for my tiny babe as it is easiest for their little bodies to digest while also passing on to all those precious protective antibodies). He was fed my milk through a tiny tube down to his stomach from day 2 of being born and continued to have my milk for the 103 days he was in hospital and a further 2.5 months (my milk dried out)after he came home on 26th Feb 2010.

I have no doubt in my mind that part of his survival and strength through 2 infections, 4 blood transfusions and many breathing episodes was to do with having my milk. But on the flipside there are many prem babies with mothers who couldn’t feed their tiny babies whilst in hospital for many many reasons – post traumatic stress, depression, milk quantity issues due to premature delivery, sore nipples, milk drying-out from the constant expresing for months on end…..and you know what? Most of the prem babies that had the formula did just as well as the breastfed ones!

POint is, i think whatever a mum can manage to do she will do, and whatever she chooses to do is her right also. Having a baby and providing for it is a damn hard thing to do for any woman and some find it really easy but I am not one of them unfortunately (my first 3 yr old child was almost completely formula fed due to having sever post-natal depression).

Now my boy is a lovely 6.5month old (chronilogical) – 14 weeker (corrected age)
and doing well. HIs name is Riley and he is really a super kid! When I see a baby being breastfed out in public I don’t think about it’s feeding habits and what it’s eating, I just think how lucky it is that that mother has a lovely healthy little baby to hold…

I’m going to chime in with what Maria said, in that this is both a) much more prevalent online; and b) way way regional in what’s the norm and what is judged. In Vermont, where I lived anyway, you were expected to breastfeed until the kid was two. Period. It’s the norm, it’s expected, and people nurse their toddlers in public everywhere and no one blinks. Bottles, though? Not so thrilling for people to see, although NO ONE says anything TO the bottle feeder, it’s just the gossip in mom circles and whatnot. And not meanly, just DISCUSSED and EXPECTED.

Here in Massachusetts, it’s by far the norm to bottle feed. BY A LONG SHOT. And the fact that I’m still nursing Sam is VERY SURPRISING to my friends here, many of whom I wasn’t around when Sam was wee. Well, some of them, anyway. Like, SHOCKING almost, since most of them dumped breastfeeding by, say, 14 weeks to six months, at the latest. And yeah, I’m getting a little shit for nursing from some of them–again, not mean, but enough that I sort of cringe a little. Like, isn’t she too OLD for this? What am I THINKING? So I don’t talk about it or do it around them. That kind of sucks.

My point is, it’s all relative, I guess. And having lived two VERY contrasting situations in a relatively short period of time, I can confirm the theory that it’s all relative to varying circumstances.

That being said, I wouldn’t be all that stoked if someone thanked me for nursing in public, but that’s only because I’m a pretty private person and I’d be like, seriously? Please stop watching, creeplor.

I didn’t get a lot of flack for breastfeeding in public, but everyone likes to hear that they’re doing something good, so I probably would have loved to have this woman make one of her comments to me. Even if no one says anything bad, you can’t help but think that some people are thinking it.

This seriously almost made me cry.

Yesterday I bottle (formula) fed my almost 7-week old in public for the first time. As someone who planned on breast feeding, only to be met with serious supply issues that never did improve, it was actually embarrassing for me to pull out the formula and mix up a bottle. I felt like the mother of 2 at the next table was judging me. Probably just my own hangup because I still sometimes do feel like a gigantic failure for not being able to breast feed, but uncomfortable none-the-less.

Thank you for the reminder that not everyone can BF, and that there is nothing wrong with formula, no matter what stubble may be out there saying otherwise. It’s very easy to lose sight of when everyone assumes you will BF and that if you don’t it’s not always a choice not to.

Brava.

Maybe its because I’m a twin mom, but I never felt judgement either way. (I did a mixture breastfeeding, pumping and formula). I think women need to not be quite so sensitive about this issue – I KNOW that is much easier said than done. It is one of the first of MANY things that is up for criticism in the parenting world, and perhaps more personal that other issues. But the bottom line has and always will be: whatever is best for the mom and the situation is what will be best for the baby.

Oh, Sara. Please don’t worry about what other moms are or are not thinking of you! It’s hard enough to have a little baby without worrying about that. FWIW, the only think I have ever thought when I see someone pulling out a bottle to feed their baby is that they are LUCKY. My kids were bad, crazy nursers, and it was hard for me to nurse them in public. I always felt like I had a jackal in my lap. One time a woman said “ewwww!” to me when I was sitting on a bench at the Target, nursing my first baby. It was shocking, because a) WTH? and b) I was being really discreet – she had to stop and look to make sure I was nursing him and not just holding him before she said ewww like that. Anyways, my point is, who effing cares about how we feed our own children? WHO? I understand having an opinion about it on a more global scale, but I do not understand being cruel to someone about their own personal child. I just don’t get it.

I bottle-fed my first and breast-fed my second. I was just going to comment, “A-freaking-men,” because neither is anyone’s business as far as I’m concerned and I’ve taken shit for both. BUT, after reading some of the comments, I do see both sides of the argument. I suppose the original impulse was a nice one — to offer support to another mother.

I just don’t think it’s anyone’s business what others do. Breast feeding may well be the best way to feed your child. But a lot of women can’t for one reason or another, or maybe they just don’t want to for one reason or another, and not necessarily because it’s “yucky”. As long as you snuggle your baby close while you feed him/her, and give them a lot of love, it just doesn’t matter.

But, you know, someone always has some sort of remark, if not about the way you feed them, then how you dress them or whatever. My second child was born with a twisted foot and rather than put her into braces, I was shown how to exercise and stretch her foot while I held her or played with her. And I was told to, under no circumstances, put shoes on her until she was a year old. You can imagine the remarks I got when I took her out in winter, and got inside and took off the blankets and there were her bare pink toes. And some years later that baby and I went to a beach festival with HER baby in a sling, and she got loud criticism for putting him in that “contraption” where he could not be comfortable. It’s a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation, whether it’s feeding, diapering, playing, disciplining, potty training, weaning – everyone in the world knows a better way than the one you’re doing. And the rude ones will tell you all about it.

Agree! I have two beautiful girls and breastfed both of them for many, many, many months. And it was great! And I really enjoyed it… but, quite frankly it wasn’t anyone’s business but mine and the baby’s what I put in their mouth. And mostly mine. I have a friend who just had her first, and tried to breastfeed and it didn’t work. And she guiltily confessed she was bottle feeding and my heart broke for her because it’s NOT WORTH guilt! It’s not worth this “mightier-than-tough” attitude women have. It’s not fair to judge people, full stop. And how you choose to feed your infant is no different. But I think you hit the main point on the head: it’s none of your business.

When I worked at my last job – I saw Moms bottle feeding. I saw Moms breastfeeding.

I did not care.

All I cared about was that their SUV of a stroller was moved out of the way of the elevator or the staircase or that the Dad’s didn’t drag tables over and block the walkway that had to be kept clear by law so everyone in the family reunion could eat at a table that seated 16 in a spot designed for 6.

Breastfeed or Formula Feed. It’s none of my business.

I agree that it really is none of anyone’s business but I also hope that people don’t stop encouraging breastfeeding mothers. Personally, without the encouragement I received from everyone from my sister to a stranger in my son’s pediatrician’s office, I probably would have given up. It was hard for us in the beginning, so yes, I do feel pride in the knowledge that my son is almost two and still nursing. That pride, however, has nothing to do with any other mother and the choices she has made. It’s just me being glad I’ve done the best I could for my son.

That comment from a doula (or anyone) would have been wonderful to me as I struggled to maintain composure while breastfeeding very wiggly (and hungry) babies in public–mostly I got weird looks and sometimes disapproving ones. Maybe it is the area in which I live I live (rural deep south), but support for breastfeeding is sorely needed. Bottle-feeding is the norm. Nothing wrong with bottle-feeding, but it is certainly problematic that breastfeeding a baby makes someone out to be a pariah–a freak. If someone had stepped up to me and congratulated me (in a non-paternalistic way of course!) for it, I’m guessing I would have felt a small victory–especially because breastfeeding was so terribly difficult in those first tender (and scary) months.

If this blog entry had a “Like” button, I would push it. I agree completely. As long as the baby is fed, it’s nobody’s business how or why the mother chose the method of feeding she chose.

I breastfed because I could, my sister didn’t because she couldn’t. Honestly, you can’t tell a difference between our children (mine are 8 & 5 and hers are 10 & 8) — we both have happy, healthy, intelligent kids. So whenever I see someone get hot under the collar about the importance of breastfeeding, I always have to ask myself if it’s such a big deal after all. Whatever a woman chooses, for whatever reason, it’s not anyone’s business but her own. Standard caveats apply.

If someone had came up to me while I was breastfeeding my children and thanked me for doing so… it would have made me very uncomfortable. Really, a smile, a friendly look, that’s enough. I wouldn’t have wanted a stranger to intrude on my & the baby’s personal space, and strident voices of any sort, even if they mean to show support, always irritate me.

This is such a heated topic. I was lucky, I breastfed both my boys fairly easily. One for 10 months who self weaned and went to formula, and one for 15 months who went straight to a cup of milk. My sister was not so lucky, she had a difficult time, and I have friends who were not able to breastfeed and were heartbroken and were still judged negatively. I live in an area where the norm seems to be breastfeeding, but the negative feedback that women get for not being able to breastfeed, makes me VERY uncomfortable. Love is what matters. And nourishment is nourishment, is it really so important how it is delivered? I think not.

Not to come back again, but NMK’s comment made me think: saying something is good, and worthy of pride doesn’t make the OTHER choice less good. It just means what it is — XX is good, yay for you!

I say this because I sometimes find myself feeling defensive for not working full-time. Oh sure, I freelance and I’m not some soap-watching marshmallow, but sometimes when I hear the arguments FOR the working parent, I find myself reading them as being AGAINST the stay-at-home parent, when in fact, that’s not the case.

So yes, that made me think, and made me realize that we can–and should–be more supportive of everyone, and that by being supportive, we are not being UNsupportive of a different choice.

I like your blog and all, but when bloggers write about breastfeeding/bottle feeding, I always wonder if it’s because they want greater hits, or if they feel guilty about whatever decision they made.
I kinda wish you would stop posting about it because it so quickly encites people. Not that you post about it too often, but when you do I just automatically think it’s for stats because it seems out of the blue.

Jonna: I totally agree, and I fully recognize that I can be defensive about certain topics. I also don’t want us all to descend into an overly PC zone where we can’t feel like we can speak up to support each other. So I need to be more careful about how I interpret these kinds of things, I think. After all, *I* know I provided “the best nourishment for my baby that I could”, so what harm does it do to me if someone wants to give that statement as praise to another mother? None.

Oh, Allison. For god’s sake. Sorry I’m not sticking to the topics you want me to.

Women who formula feed aren’t asked to leave restaurants. They aren’t asked to feed their babies in bathrooms or “in private”. They aren’t looked at with open disgust because bottles are still the “norm”. Women who formula feed aren’t embarrassed to feed their children in public, when they’re hungry, because their babies are HUNGRY and that’s kinda when you feed a child.

THAT is why she says that to women she sees breastfeeding. And that’s why I smile and show my support for women who are brave enough to openly breastfeed.

Linda posts about many topics – some are personal, some are witty, some are inspirational, some are heart-wrenching, some are downright hysterical, some are merely observational, but none are designed to INCITE people, and none are posted to increase numbers of hits. I read her for many reasons; mostly because she’s a gifted writer and manages to say and write about things that are relevant to me. Today’s post illustrated why I find her blog to be so relevant — she touches on a topic that affects many, in order to provide a forum for provocative and respectful debate and conversation. I hope she continues posting not just about her family, but about issues exactly like this one.