Would you give your daughter a bottle for her doll? - Page 2

[BCFD]

I gotta be real honest and say that I'm shocked that so many adoptive moms have such issues with bottles. I'm wondering if adoptive moms with NO bio children are saying "no way to bottles" or if the majority is bio moms who have also adopted and have nursed their bio child (and obviously didn't have to go through the nightmare of inducing)?

I don't think that bottle feeding promotes a "bottle nation/cultural norm" for the next generation of daughters. I was raised by my bio mom, fed formula with a bottle, yet grew up to adopt and induce lactation and use a Lact-Aid (until I came to terms with the fact that how I feed my child has NO bearing on how I am as a mother and switched back to bottles).

[Momily]

Theresa's comment about the g-tube really hit home for me. My son (now 7, adopted at birth) was bottle fed until 9 months and then g-tube fed until almost 3. As a toddler he would bottle feed, g-tube feed and nurse his baby dolls, he certainly knew that all of them were different ways to feed a baby, even though he didn't remember the bottle and never took the breast.

At 7 he understands that the breast is the first choice to feed a baby, but that sometimes circumstances mean that babies are fed another way. The fact that he was g-tube fed and g-tube fed his baby dolls doesn't make him feel like g-tube feeding is a "first choice" for any kids he has in the future.

Another thing is that certainly by 2 or 3 he knew that nursing was something that Mom's do, and while he didn't mind pretending to be a mom, sometimes he wanted to pretend to be a dad, or his favorite (male) daycare teacher, or a grandma etc . . . In those cases bottle feeding the doll might have fit the role better.

[Laurel]

I think there were only a couple of us on this thread who said no toy bottles.

I don't have issues with bottles as far as other people. Just for me personally. Part of it is that I am currently nursing through induced lactation with a lact-aid. My dd gets 1-2 bottles a day and I am still in the phase where I haven't really accepted emotionally that this is OK. I hate the fact that she has to get them because it represents to me that this experience isn't going as "perfectly" as I wanted it to and that I am different than other nursing moms. I feel very protective of the experience for my dd and I want her to strongly identify with having been breastfed. I still worry that she will come to prefer the bottle and wean early. (She is 7 months old.)

As I mentioned before, I just don't plan on buying the kind of dolls for my kids that come with bottles (the plastic discount-store kind). And I can't see myself actively going out and buying a toy bottle to purposely expose my kids to them. The only way they would get a toy bottle would be if grandma bought them a doll that came with a bottle. At that point I'd have to see how I felt about it, but I can't see myself making an effort to keep it from getting lost. It wouldn't bother me if they played with bottles in other settings, like playdates or preschool.

We talk about bottles. My ds knows that he drank from a bottle after nursing didn't work out (though I also try to make sure that he knows he did nurse for a time). We share cute stories about bottles. When ds was a toddler, he called his binky his "bee" and he called his bottle his "bah", and it kind of morphed into "beebah", as in "I want beebah!" It was extremely cute, and I don't hesitate to tell about it...I even scrapbooked about it because it was darling. Also, he would say, "Ah wee a bee" (I want a binky), and that was adorable too.

[BCFD]

Laurel, I was in the same place as you are right now. I thought that I was a FAILURE as a mother because not only could my body not sustain a pregnancy, but I couldn't nourish a child at my breast. I know why I felt like this. I joined an AP mom's group and they beat into my head that if you didn't BF you weren't a good mon (as they WATCHED me bottle feed my adopted daughter). I became depressed and even tried to start nursing my DD when she was 8 months old (who would scream bloody hell when my boob got anywhere near her). She did actually comfort nurse for about 5 seconds when she was drifting off to sleep, but that would be it. I'd rock her and cry my eyes out because I felt it wasn't fair that she did not come out of *MY* body and I couldn't nurse her.

When my 2nd DD came to us, I got permission from my SW (our daughter was being "fast tracked" and TPR happened very quickly, so this wasn't an issue. She was also a preemie and everybody agreed that breastmilk would be best for her), so I embarked on the advanced protocol of ABF. We nursed for 6 months exclusively and I was so proud of myself, but it was SUCH a hassle dealing with nursing her with the LA in public, but I did it.....because I thought it made me a "better mom". I grew to despise the Lact-Aid because it was so fumbly and I *STILL* couldn't just lift my shirt and let my baby eat. I still had to prepare the thing just as if I were preparing a bottle.

I finally got away from those women in that AP group, stopped reading Mothering Mag, and stopped pretending that I was "bonding deeply through nursing". I simply wasn't. My 2nd DD had very bad medical issues in the first 3 months of her life all due to SEVERE reflux and it was very, very difficult being a loving mother to a refluxing baby who we didn't even have in our home for the first few weeks due to her being in the PICU on a cpap machine. I was guarded at first and thought nursing her was going to be "the key". It wasn't and I have always said that I debunked the myth that nursing bonds you closer than bottle nursing.

My first daughter made me a mother and there is a very special place in my heart for her. I bonded with her so deeply....on a level that I can't even describe....and she was bottle fed.

Anyway, fast forward to DD#3 who we are hoping to adopt and I haven't even blinked at giving her a bottle. Last night I sat with her after a shower, skin to skin (me with no shirt and her only in her diaper) and I fed her with a bottle. She was staring up at me and I mean our eyes were LOCKED....and it was a beautiful moment. I stroked her pudgy little arm and kept telling her how much I was in love with her and that her angels were going to keep her with us. I literally sat there for 20 minutes with tears in my eyes because it was such a beautiful, loving moment.

So, I will never EVER be convinced again that nursing has an advantage and that you bond more with a breastfed baby (obviously breastMILK is superior to formula, but I don't sweat that either because my kids are perfect and healthy in every single way). And my children will have as many play bottles as they want because I want them to have the same bottlefeeding, teary eyed experiences that I had with them (edited to add: that is if they choose to bottlefeed their children. I would totally advocate breastfeeding a bio child, but there is no guarantee in life that my grandchildren will be their biological babies either!).

p.s. Not to say that I feel that anybody opinions are wrong....I just wanted to share my story and feelings with Laurel and everybody else who struggles because society makes us feel like we are not "good mothers" if we don't nurse our children.

[dharmamama]

The title of this thread is "Would you give your daughter a bottle for her doll?" No, I would not. I have never stopped my kids from playing with bottles that they encountered, but I have not and would not give them a bottle to play with, and I have to admit that I don't like it when people give them dolls that come with bottles.

I think that bottlefeeding is pushed as the norm in our society, and I want my kids to think of breastfeeding as the norm. I do not know whether my son was ever breastfed, but I do know that he spent most of his young life bottlefed (he was in an orphanage). I know that the daughter I adopted was breastfed, and my bio child was breastfed.

I don't want my son to feel bad that he was bottlefed (and honestly, I don't think he's the type who would ever think about it or care), and I don't think that bottlefeeding itself is a bad thing. I want my kids to know that most women's bodies have the capability to breastfeed a bio child and that breastmilk is the healthiest option for a baby. I also want them to know that in some circumstances, bottlefeeding is necessary. I don't want them to equate breastfeeding with better bonding because I don't feel that it was any sort of huge factor in bonding with my bio child.

It seems hypocritical to me that, as the mother of two adopted kids, I wouldn't give my kids bottles to play with. I'd honestly never really thought of it from the adoption standpoint before (because I guess I have always been of the opinion, "Well of course a lot of adopted kids are bottlefed.") and it's something I will have to give more thought to. I guess because *I* was not the one who bottlefed my son, it wasn't something I thought about, but all my kids say that they want to adopt kids, so I'd imagine that at least some of those kids will be bottlefed.

Namaste!

[Laurel]

Originally Posted by BCFD

Laurel, I was in the same place as you are right now. I thought that I was a FAILURE as a mother because not only could my body not sustain a pregnancy, but I couldn't nourish a child at my breast.

Oh, I don't feel like a failure as a mother. I also don't believe that bf'ing is the be-all, end-all of a mother/child relationship...mine or anybody else's. It's just one tool in the bag. But it is something that has been important to me--something that I've really wanted to experience. My adoptive nursing experience is actually going quite well, but there is always that process of redefining success. That has needed to come about as I haven't made as much milk as I'd hoped for. I'm not feeling hugely devastated about having to give a couple of bottles a day...just more irked than anything. I technically could nurse full time, but the reality of using a lact-aid has made it that I just need a break sometimes (my dd takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r to nurse). I guess that's where any feelings of failure come in--feeling that if I were more motivated I could do more. But there again, it's not devastating. It's just me having to realign my expectations and tell myself that what I"m doing is pretty incredible as it is, and that knowing my limits is OK. It's been a process for me to be able to define this experience for myself and figure out what it all means to me. I'm still in that process.

I enjoy nursing, even though it is a lot of work for me. My dd also really enjoys it. I do have challenging feelings about it at times, but they are nothing overwhelming. I have no desire or reason to stop.

Now I can relate to having a baby with reflux, because my ds had it and that is what spelled the downfall of nursing for us. I did a lot of grieving over that, but it is also what taught me that you can be just as bonded to a child over a bottle.

I guess bringing bottles into my children's play would seem like making a statement (because I would have to make such a proactive effort to go out and buy bottles for playing), and it's just not a statement I feel the need to make. I don't feel that drive to do that. It wouldn't be just a natural extension of their own experiences. Ds was mostly bottlefed, but nursing is what he relates to most now because that is what he is seeing dd do. He doesn't remember when he was a baby. Plus, he is not interested in dolls anyway. I bought him a little sling awhile back for his stuffed animals, and he couldn't care less about it. Dd does get bottles, but nursing is her primary experience. I would have to go to such a conscious effort to seek out bottles for them to play with, and when I'm buying toys, there are generally so many other priorities on my list.

However, I understand why others feel so strongly about having bottles be part of their children's experience in play just as they are in real life. I totally respect that.

Editted to add: There are a couple of questions at play here for me.

1) On a scale from 0 to 10, how much effort/energy would I expend to make sure that my children were exposed to bottles/bottlefeeding in their play?

2) On a scale from 0 to 10, how much effort/energy would I expend to keep my children from being exposed to bottles/bottlefeeding in their play?

The answer to the first question would be 0.
The answer to the second question would be probably around 2.

Really, there's minimal energy being directed either way for me.