How are you feeding your baby?

Question

Just for pure curiosity. No shame in how you feed your baby. I just want to know how many people are breastfeeding and bottle feeding. I started off breastfeeding and pumping because my daughter was in the nicu for a couple weeks. I moved to exclusively pumping and just bottle feeding that after 4 weeks and just stopped pumping a couple weeks ago. I'm now feeding her my frozen breastmilk and formula.

Answer

Exclusively breast feeding. No pumping and no formula. I hate washing bottles and pump parts. HATE IT and would rather just lift my shirt up.

Answer

I breastfed for the first 5 weeks exclusively, but I was dealing with painful feedings, almost constantly engorged and painful breasts, clogged ducts, her crying and screaming at both of my breasts (which one was at least a full size bigger than the other, I couldn’t fit into any bras), and painful nipple vasospasms, just to name a few. I cried almost everyday and saw no way out. I hated feeding her and was starting to hate her. I was falling into a deep depression and had to stop. I bottle fed her some breastmilk I had saved one night that my husband told me to stop and it was one of the best feedings we had ever had. I cried tears of joy. I knew I had to stop.
I had met with lactation once when she was a week old and was told her latch looked okay. Due to Covid, it was hard to get in again and I was scared to bring her out. I pumped over the next 2 weeks to transition her to formula, so she got breastmilk for 7 weeks. I wanted to try and keep pumping but I kept getting clogged ducts even with massage, heat, cold, and supplements. Plus it was very hard to try and find time to pump with a husband working 6 days a week and a crying baby. I wish breastfeeding worked out, but it didn’t. I know people judge me for quitting, but I had to stop for my mental health.

Answer

I'm exclusively breastfeeding and absolutely hate every minute of it. 4 months next week. I encountered every single problem you can possibly Google about. I'm even going through PPD most probably because of it. I guess some women are just more naturally capable of doing it while others struggle to please.

Answer

I’m surprised how many people are formula feeding. I’m curious to know, for those of you who are formula feeding, why you chose to feed your baby with formula. Was it due to low breast milk supply, for convenience, something else?

Answer

I was exclusively breastfeeding until I got really sick and I was in the hospital for a week. I didn't respond to the pump at all so my husband had to use formula. I've been home for a week now and we're working our way back to ebf but we're about 90% breast milk

Answer

I EBF on demand just like I did with my first. This time around baby is much pickier about position and I've also had mastitis 5 times (only had it 2 times with my first) and he just turned 3 months. Im sticking to it though and plan to for at least as long as with my first which was 18 months. Still easier than dealing with pump parts, bottles or buying formula.

Answer

We had to supplement with formula the first month or so, just a bottle or two a day, because my milk was slow coming in, and baby was jaundiced. Also my little guy couldn’t figure out the nursing thing. He wouldn’t open his mouth wide enough to latch, and if I could get him to latch he would just fall asleep. We were having to strip him down to his diaper every hour and half to try to feed him, if we could even get him to wake up. It was so much stress on both of us that we decided to exclusively pump. Three months later I’m still barely producing enough, but he is getting mama’s milk and we aren’t having to buy expensive formula. I’ve wanted to quit so many times though, especially while dealing with clogged ducts and mastitis.

Answer

We struggled with her latching even with the nipple shield so I started exclusively pumping. Covid made it hard to see anyone to help us with her latch. Once we hit the 3 month mark she just never seemed to be satisfied with just breast milk she could have 4oz then get upset an hour or so later. We started just adding 2oz of formula to her evening before bed bottle and it has made a world of difference. She now actually goes to sleep and stays asleep for a while. She is definitely not crying off and on for several hours before she goes to sleep.

Answer

I breast feed and do one or two bottles of formula a day. I tried for 6m to express breast milk with my first and never expressed more then 1/4 of an oz or less, so formula it is. Due to covid I had no support other then my husband who was also trying to work full time from home and that was what we decided that was the best way for him to support me as my two older children, would sometimes not settle for him and only wanted me. I’m happy with our decision,it’s been really nice to not be the only one able to feed him.

Answer

I’m BFAR so we do both

How are you feeding your baby?

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