Personally, my dauighter is getting her first doll for Christmas. It will come with a bottle. I mean, I will buy a bottle for it even if it doesn't have one. And ya know what? Then I'm going to do surgery on her doll! Yep, read it right. I will cut it open and give her baby a super tube just like hers. Because I'm happy when DD associates food as a good thing in anyway. Her dolls now (leftovers from others) all get nursed, or tube fed, and occasionally they get a bottle (one of hers as the originals are probably long lost). JUst like her. And yet I have absolutely no fear that my daughter will not nurse. She comes from a strong line of nursing women, and sees it as being just as normal as getting her milk through her tubey or through a bottle. Her having a toy bottle won't "normalize" anything other than who she is as a child...a tube-fed child with special needs. And yeajh, I am happy to normalize that experience for her. Apparently since shes allergic to food protein through breastmilk I should make her feel ABnormal according to some, but personally, I know I'll go a long ways towards raising an emotionally and physically healthy child with a strong sense of self who is more likely to breastfeed by making her reality as normal as a possible. I don't think excluding one of the ways she (And possibly baby to be if they have her medical issues as well) is fed will change her likelihood to BF or not BF.
post #21 of 37
6/16/08 at 10:57am
if I were in your shoes, I would be doing the same thing for my kiddo - i.e. represent her experience in her play things. you are taking personal offense when people are talking about a societal issue. we want to normalize breastfeeding in a culture that values artificial feeding over breastfeeding. your situation is unique. if everyone on earth had to combo breast, bottle and/or tube feed their kids, then, of course we'd want that available in children's play. however, it's not the case. and AUTOMATICALLY having bottles come with dolls cements the association that babies mean bottles, right off the bat. I know it seems silly or weird to us, but there are people out there who don't even consider nursing their babies. it doesn't occur to them as an option for whatever reason. and, IMO, it's the social conditioning. SO. no, we're not trying to make your daughter feel abnormal and to villianize bottlefeeding. we're just trying to make breastfeeding the go-to cultural norm from which special situations would deviate (e.g. infant adoptions, low supply not from mis-information/management, weaning for medical reasons, severe allergies like your daughter, etc) instead of formula/bottlefeeding being the norm from which us freaky hippies who nurse our kids for more than 6wks deviate. 
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