Less Than 99.99% Mommy

After breastfeeding exclusive for 5.5 months, CC had formula for the first time. He usually takes 4-oz of breast milk only at any given feeding from the bottle during the day. So now, I changed the content to 1-oz formula, 3-oz breast milk (25% formula). Surprisingly, for someone who is always super picky, he took it well. However, he seems to stop at 3-oz, instead of finishing the whole 4-oz. Needless to say, I felt cheated! “Could’ve just given you the 3-oz of breast milk instead of wasting .75-oz of breast milk and .25-oz of formula!” I think he would’ve taken all 4-oz of breast milk, if it were all BM.


And yes, when you’ve been hauling a bag of contraptions day-in and day-out to work, and pump diligently only to get 9-oz daily, you do nickel and dime the baby.


Part of me was really happy he took formula so easily (trust me, it smelled gross!) Part of me felt slightly guilty of depriving him 25% of his god-given rights to natural nutrients.
The societal pressure on Moms to breastfeed is acting up subconsciously, even for someone with strong self-will like me.


Coincidentally, I was reading an article on Golden Gate Mother’s Group magazine, about why we think breastfeeding should be easy, and what Moms wished someone had told them before they started the whole process. One of the most common sentiment was, “I wish someone has told me, while breastfeeding is invaluable, it is NOT at any cost.”


Note the key words here, “Not at any cost.”


I have mommy friends who stressed over breastfeeding for weeks until they finally gave up, full of guilt. I also have mommy friends who are so desperate they were willing to buy other people’s breast milk! To think feeding your baby someone’s bodily fluid! Yuck! Why do we think it’s better than formulated nutrients?


It is absolutely scary.


What people don’t tell you is, the journey of breastfeeding is tough. Exclusively breastfeeding makes it even worse. Our society has always given parents a lot of pressure in every possible way. But this one, breastfeeding, it’s all Moms’. We feel, short of allowing the baby to eat us away for 6 months 100%, we are being bad mothers.


Motherhood is NOT measured by how much you breastfed.


I know the WHO and AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) promote exclusively breastfed up till 6 months, and continues to breast feed until 1.5 years. In a perfect world, that would be everyone’s dream. But I have a feeling that these guidelines are written by people who are either non-Moms, Moms who don’t work, or Moms who just had an easy time breastfeeding.


Let me start from the top.


Your “suffering” starts at day 1. After the work of labor or c-section, you are immediately told to hold and feed your baby. And most importantly, “Make sure he has a good latch and make sure he’s swallowing!” What does that suppose to mean? If you think 3 hours of breastfeeding class can teach you how to do it perfectly, you are WRONG! We were lucky to have stayed in the hospital for 4 days, and therefore had numerous nurses teaching us the correct latching method. But not everyone has that “luxury”.


Then comes day 3-4, when your milk really starts to “come in”. “What? You mean the baby wasn’t drinking milk in the last couple days?” No, it was colostrum, aka liquid gold. But now when your milk really starts to come in, you will feel the engorgement. Best way to describe it is having two lead-feel-alike half balls bolted on your chest, making it hard even to breath. Yah, it was that good.


Then you go home, and the hard work has just started. You feed around the clock, every 2 hours. You feed for 15 minutes each side, diligently writing the feeding time down, and then burp for another 10 minutes, diaper him afterwards because most likely he’s soiled during the feeding, put him to sleep, and repeat after another hour or so. Good times.


Then at 3 weeks, you were told to introduce bottles and start pumping. But of course you have no idea how often to pump and when to pump. So now instead of just feeding him and getting it done in 30 minutes, you now have to pump while he’s a sleep. And let’s not forget bottle/nipple washing and sterilization. Your life revolve around your little man’s oral intake.


Then you say, “Oh, I’m not going back to work yet, so I’ll just do bottles once a week. At most twice.” Well…at 6 weeks post-partum, halfway through your maternity leave, you realized your baby now completely refuse bottles. Who was it that told you they’ll have nipple confusion and will prefer bottle instead of you?!!!


So you stress over the bottle feeding, have him throw fits when someone else tries to feed him, and have him looking at you with those big puppy eyes, pleading to have you instead of the bottle. Meanwhile, your pumping schedule is now all wrong, your milk ducts start to clog up, when you’re not feeding him you are trying to get the clogs out. Your life now is full of hot showers, hand-expression, cabbage leaves, peppermint, and lots and lots of PAIN. So much pain you almost wish to just stop breastfeeding altogether.


But he is still not taking the bottle, so that will mean he will starve…You now wish you never started breastfeeding and just went straight to formula.


Then, finally, you had to go back to work. He goes to daycare/nanny, it took him few days to learn to eat from the bottle, and he lost some weight in the meanwhile. It pains you to part with him every morning, it pains you even more to see him at the evening, looking much thinner. All the while, every day you carry an extra bag to work, just so you can pump at work. And hopefully your work place has a fridge to keep those precious yummies.


In a few weeks, your little man is now happily eating from the bottle. In fact, he’s eating A LOT from the bottles. More than you can pump at work. You start to dip into the freezer stash, and wished you had pump more during when you had over-supply problem. Every day your little man is eating more than you can pump. Every day you try to count calories but this time you want to hit 3000 Cal/day. Every day you see the digits on the scale goes down when you’re on it, but not necessary go up when your little man’s on it. Where did it all go???


Now at 2 weeks short of 6 months, you gave in. Yes that was me. I marched into BabiesRUs, spending money on food for CC for the first time. And for the first time in his life, he is no longer 99.99% Mommy.


Again, this journey was very very very challenging.


At any given time, I always tell myself, “Just one more day.” And the one more day has come to be 5.5 months. It probably will continue to go on for a few more days, weeks, or (do I dare to say it?!!) months. But now I have the comfort of knowing, even if I just vanished tomorrow, CC will not starve. He may not be 99.99% Mommy any longer physically, he will always be 100% the love of my life.


And that, is priceless, even more so than a few ounces of liquid gold.


=========================================================
P.S. For all the Moms-to-be, I beg of you, PLEASE do not stress yourself over breastfeeding. Do what you can, go one day at a time. And remember, it is perfectly okay to do formula!!