How can formula get the credit?!?

[AlohaDeb]

I know I'm being overly grouchy and sensitive, but I just don't see what the point of one formula feeding per day is. My very close friends had their baby on July 20th, and bfing is going quite well. The baby is gaining well. They just are having a hard time dealing with the sleeplessness and exhaustion which every new parent faces in my experience.

They continue to give her an oz or two of formula at night after the baby does a mega-nuse in the evenings, from about 7-10pm. They've been doing this since she was born, and quite frankly, it has not made a whit of difference in this baby's sleep pattern. However, they did it last night and the night before and got a couple good stretches of sleep, and lo and behold! They give the credit to the *formula* for "settling her down!"

WHY is it so easy to attribute this "success" to formula?!? They've been doing the same &*% thing on 12 of the 14 days this baby has been around, to no avail. It is ridiculous. How can they be so blind?

Here's the clincher for me -- they've also been trying to get their little one to sleep in the crib at night. Well, finally the last two nights (where the formula supposedly made the difference), they PUT THE BABY IN BED WITH THEM!!!! Hmm, do you think *that* might have made the difference?!?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!

Okay thanks! Just had to vent a little

[Elphaba]

oh honey, quit banging your head! it is frustrating, but some people just don't quite trust their bodies to work right without outside aid, and that's going to apply to babies and nursing as well. nursing requires you to have faith that you can and do make milk, that you make enough milk, that your milk is "good enough," that your baby can get the milk out, etc.
the simple solutions don't get credit because it seems too obvious, KWIM? there has to be something else at work than simple biology, at least that's how i look at it.

[DaryLLL]

Here's a worse one, but similar.

When dd#1 was 5 and in Daisy Scouts, I was talking to one of the other moms who was pg at the time. She said her Daisy dd had had leukemia as a baby/toddler, and was now in remission and had been healthy for a while. Well, she said she bfed that dd, but was afraid to bf this one on the way, in case she somehow gave it leukemia thru the milk! Or some kind of insane reasoning. I told her there was a huge chance the bfing saved her dd's life, and she was all, well, maybe, I don't know...

[Elphaba]

wow. how did your head not explode when she said that? that's like a "Weekly World News" headline: my baby got cancer from my breastmilk!

[AlohaDeb]

OMG, that *is* even worse! It's so crazy and sad that women don't trust their bodies enough when it comes to bfing.

Also, do these people live in some kind of weird vacuum? There has been so much publicity around all the benefits of bfing... how can they not have heard about all the research showing the advantages?

[acystay]

You know, it'll do no good to make a comment to your friend that sleeping w/ her probably made more of a difference.

When dd was about 9 mos old, I sent a link to the extended rear-facing site to a friends whose baby was 5mos old. She told me she would never turn her dd around after reading and seeing it! She even turned the carseat around for her dneice she had in her min-van. Well, when they returned from CA after the winter, their dd was foward facing! And not even a year!! And, she was shocked to see that we had dd still rear-facing at 14mos. I just didn't say anything. You can only do so much, right

[Quirky]

Yeah, a friend of mine started giving her baby formula at night, because he's soooooo huge, doncha know, and she just couldn't produce enough, it helped him sleep through the night, blah blah blah. (Ten lbs. at birth and now at a year about 30 lbs. - I swear his parents act like they should get a 4H blue ribbon for this baby.)

Well, gee, what with the formula at night, and then quitting pumping at work because it was too much trouble (or going downstairs to nurse him at lunch), and then stuffing him with solids day in and day out...he "weaned himself" at 12 months and now gets cow milk in his bottle, "because he's such a big boy, nursing just didn't satisfy him any more."

On Monday he gets tubes in his ears because of his chronic ear infections. I gave them the Mothering article and suggested taking him off dairy, and they looked at me like I was suggesting feeding him rat poison. Hey, if you want to trash your baby's gut with repeated antibiotics and then put him under general anesthesia, whatever.

:

[menudo]

A 35 yo coworker told me she would never breastfeed any kids if she had them b/c her Moms breastmilk went bad and "pisoned" her siblings. really, she said this. But in her case she'd never nurse due to her breast implants and never get pregnant for fear of being fat too...

[mom2tig99Nroo03]

very ver sad

[mama_kass]

It is frustrating and sad. Give your best advice and support and hope to make a differnce. That's all any of us can ever do.

[martiesmom]

Very frusterating!!! Don't bang your head on the wall.

I was told by MIL to give DD rice cereal at night to get her to sleep through the night. I told her no thank you my ped. says not to do it and she told me that sometimes peds. don't know what they are talking about and how all 3 of her kids slept through the night after she (forced) fed them rice cereal when they were 8 days old. Yes and they all have problems with their weight too.

I like to point out that according to Dr. Weissbluth that infants who have feeding tubes wake up just as much as a breastfed baby and eating has no correlation to night waking. Infants just need to wake up to eat when their tummies are so small.

[martiesmom]

Sorry don't know why I posted this twice!!

[village idiot]

When I had dd, my brother told me to give her some cereal with Karo syrup in her bottle and it would make her sleep longer at night. Uuuummm, I bf her! And I know it has been 12 years since I had a baby and all but I do remember not to start solids before 6 months of age. :

A friend of a friend told me that her doctor told her to add cereal to her baby's bottle. I was horrified to hear that doctors still tell there patients to do this!

[veganmamma]

Hey, if you want to trash your baby's gut with repeated antibiotics and then put him under general anesthesia, whatever.

Jane, I wanted to put a laughing smiley under this b/c it was funny, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Too sad.

It is so hard to deal with people who don't want to hear what your are saying!!
Lauren

[manitoba_mommy]

Originally posted by katelyan
A friend of a friend told me that her doctor told her to add cereal to her baby's bottle. I was horrified to hear that doctors still tell there patients to do this!

I heard this a lot more then I ever would have expected when I was on a main stream board just after Samantha was born. I even heard about people being told to stop breast feeding so the kid could get the cereal in the bottle. Wanna know why? Because the kid had reflux : : . Oh and this was not just one extreme case. There were at least a dozen told this who had kids born within a month of Sam.

MM

[gigglesgalore]

Also, do these people live in some kind of weird vacuum? There has been so much publicity around all the benefits of bfing... how can they not have heard about all the research showing the advantages?

Ya know, I wonder this all the time. It seems like there is so much out there about the benefits of BF, yet popular culture still doesn't truly support it. I think it all boils down to the almightly $$$...formula companies are always waiting in the wings for women to fail at BF.

The things you hear are amazing....one pregnant friend told me she wouldn't BF b/c another friend's baby sucked out a milk duct : how can that even be possible??? she did end up BF for a bit, but changed to formula after 6 weeks when she returned to work. A week later, she was complaining b/c dd suddenly developed reflux and they have to buy the most expensive formula out there...

[kofduke]

Well, it probably WAS the sleeping nice and warm and snuggly w/mommy that helped the baby sleep. BUT, if it was the formula, it worked by making large milk curds in the baby's belly, that were too big for him to easily digest...putting him at risk for SIDS, future obesity, etc...and jeopardizing mom's milk supply b/c prolactin levels are highest at night. I'm willing to sacrifice a bit of sleep if formula is the only thing that gets baby to sleep through the night!

[The Lucky One]

Wanna hear what takes the cake?

On another message board I mainly lurk on, there was a post from a girl who said that she 'desparately' wanted to bf, but that she produced blood instead of milk. When I asked her to clarify this, she said that she is just a 'medical mystery' and nobody knows why. Hmmm...

BTW, she was also pro-CIO and c-section for convenience, so who knows how strong her desparation to bf was.

lisa

[mocha09]

There could still be hope for your friend

After my dd was born through a traumatic, unplanned c-section, the grief I was feeling, not to mention the heavy diaretics for eclampsia, inhibited my milk supply (by the way, it didn't come in for 10 days). Baby got jauntice, lost way too much weight, and i was told her doctors to supplement with formula or terrible and evil things would happen .

Feeling, again, like a failure (failing at natural delivery, failing at breastfeeding), and hating every last drop of it, I gave my dd formula at night to cap off her hunger.

Lo and behold, at her 1 month checkup she was off the curve for her weight ,and the doctor told me, "oh my god, you do'nt need to give her formula anymore!" It was one of the best things I ever heard anyone say to me in my life. I almost did a victory lap around the doctors office.

Difference in stories is I grieved inside everytime I gave her some formula, and never imagined it doing her ANY good at all.

But...

Hopefully your friends will get some similar advice and realize that their child is perfectly healthy without it.