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With the subject line in view, I'm going to talk about a decision that has caused my internal guilt monitor to spike off the charts.
Since I started work again and Keiki began going to nursery two and a half months ago, the nursery staff have been attempting to bottle-feed him twice a day. It has been a mostly unsuccessful endeavour. He vigorously rejected bottles with teats. He relented toward sippy cups for a while, though he was still not enthusiastic about taking breast milk or formula from either. When I started overnighting once a week in London (my usual full-time routine) in September, he would occasionally drink 100 mL (3.5 ounces) on the second day I was away. But he seems to have figured out that I return on the evening of the second day, and he's quite happy to go on milk strike until the warm fleshy milk-production unit comes back.
He rejected his two daily nursery bottle feeds for two weeks in a row, so this week we chose to stop asking the nursery to give them to him. The reason for the guilt? He's ten months old, and according to The Literature, he's still supposed to be getting 500 mL of milk (breast or formula) a day until he's one. I estimate, from when I'm away and have to pump to keep the boobs from 'sploding, that he gets at most 100 mL per feed from me. Even with one feed in the morning, one at bedtime and one or two at night, that's still not 500 mL, and obviously he doesn't get anywhere near that when I'm away for a day and a half.
He eats all the solid food that's offered to him, and even some that's not. Yesterday he stole his sister's half-eaten cupcake. Last week, Keiki's key worker was highly amused when they set out biscuits for the babies to decorate with icing and chocolate buttons. They turned their backs for a few seconds. When they turned round again, four babies were sitting nicely with two undecorated biscuits apiece in front of them. One baby had half a biscuit clutched in his hand and a lot of crumbs around his mouth. (You get one guess which baby that was.) This was right after lunch. So I don't think there's anything wrong with his appetite, and he certainly seems to be getting enough to eat. I really shouldn't be worried, but what with all the unconsciously absorbed socially imposed guilt surrounding being a working mother and being away from my little ones and that annoying mystically calculated 500 mL amount that we're not achieving, I have to expend a considerable amount of emotional energy talking myself into remaining calm.
He's fine. He's fine! He's a happy, healthy baby. He just prefers boob or food to anything that comes out of a bottle. I should stop stressing, y/y?
Since I started work again and Keiki began going to nursery two and a half months ago, the nursery staff have been attempting to bottle-feed him twice a day. It has been a mostly unsuccessful endeavour. He vigorously rejected bottles with teats. He relented toward sippy cups for a while, though he was still not enthusiastic about taking breast milk or formula from either. When I started overnighting once a week in London (my usual full-time routine) in September, he would occasionally drink 100 mL (3.5 ounces) on the second day I was away. But he seems to have figured out that I return on the evening of the second day, and he's quite happy to go on milk strike until the warm fleshy milk-production unit comes back.
He rejected his two daily nursery bottle feeds for two weeks in a row, so this week we chose to stop asking the nursery to give them to him. The reason for the guilt? He's ten months old, and according to The Literature, he's still supposed to be getting 500 mL of milk (breast or formula) a day until he's one. I estimate, from when I'm away and have to pump to keep the boobs from 'sploding, that he gets at most 100 mL per feed from me. Even with one feed in the morning, one at bedtime and one or two at night, that's still not 500 mL, and obviously he doesn't get anywhere near that when I'm away for a day and a half.
He eats all the solid food that's offered to him, and even some that's not. Yesterday he stole his sister's half-eaten cupcake. Last week, Keiki's key worker was highly amused when they set out biscuits for the babies to decorate with icing and chocolate buttons. They turned their backs for a few seconds. When they turned round again, four babies were sitting nicely with two undecorated biscuits apiece in front of them. One baby had half a biscuit clutched in his hand and a lot of crumbs around his mouth. (You get one guess which baby that was.) This was right after lunch. So I don't think there's anything wrong with his appetite, and he certainly seems to be getting enough to eat. I really shouldn't be worried, but what with all the unconsciously absorbed socially imposed guilt surrounding being a working mother and being away from my little ones and that annoying mystically calculated 500 mL amount that we're not achieving, I have to expend a considerable amount of emotional energy talking myself into remaining calm.
He's fine. He's fine! He's a happy, healthy baby. He just prefers boob or food to anything that comes out of a bottle. I should stop stressing, y/y?
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Who are these 'experts' anyway?
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I have a huge dislike of one size fits all policies!
As you say, he's a happy, healthy baby.........
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Anyway, thank you for the reminder, and I'll get some of the liquid stuff next time I'm at the shops.
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=;o}
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With my second pregnancy, however, HA. I had a toddler to run after and a full-time job to do, and I wasn't getting any sleep. So yeah, there was a LOT MORE CAFFEINE.
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Official health bodies write advice with a particular person in mind - to whit, a young parent of baseline education with no support network, no experience with babies, and very basic income. Everyone MAY turn to Official Advice for help, but those are the people who have no other CHOICE. And it's written with as much redundancy as possible, with the aim of the healthiest baby possible, assuming that that young, under-educated solo parent is going to have to end up cutting a corner or two just because of Life.
(nb: my mother, in her Medical Director range roles, helps set up some of these official publications, so. When I once asked her about it because I found the tone of the official literature so . . . odd, she very bluntly said, "These aren't for you. You have a vast network of relatives with children, several of whom are healthcare professionals, all of whom care deeply, and all of whom will answer calls in the middle of the night, plus you know HOW to access adequate paediatric care. This is for the seventeen year old who has none of that." As she said, they're still quite USEFUL, but they're aimed at the absolute beginner, and the beginner with very low resources to boot.)
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Because you can't assume that, but if you insist everybody boils them for ten minutes on a regular basis, it doesn't matter if the cleaning isn't Perfect, because the relevant microbes have been killed off anyway. Same with the other stuff.
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with my researchers hat on: what you get when pumping, and what the baby takes can be quite different. Very little is known about why the ratio of at the breast vs at the pump varies, and one of the researchers I work with is trying to work out what can be done better with pumps to improve.
with my parent hat on: at seven months, middle child flat out refused to take any liquid from a bottle. So, feed at daycare before I went off to work, feed at daycare when I collected zer, bedtime, however many night feeds. There were no negative effects. This child (now teen) would eat pretty much anything anywhere. And zie was a happy child.
tl; dr - yes, you should stop stressing. Baby is getting enough, or would be complaining.
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[it has gone on the list of things that we might get around to doing, one of these days. I'll put it on my list of possible work place projects....]
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One thing though - we've been looking at perceptions of inadequate production, and what we've seen in our most recent cohort is that people who reported concerns about production, and test weighed for every feed over 24 hours (+ 1 feed) - something like a 1/3 of these have really good milk productions (I'll have to look up the study, and send you the link, if you are interested).
And yes - we would love to know more about what works and what doesn't for milk supply. There are not enough researchers in the field, and bugger all funding. Which is frustrating for something that has long term health ramifications, and as a result is really expensive at the aggregate level.
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So yes, you should stop stressing.
Though it if is of any help, does he like yoghurts? or those baby fromage frais things? or cheese? - all ways to sneak extra dairy into his diet under the guise of solid food.
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ETA: and happening at nursery because he may rank it as
1) breast milk (not least for the connection with you)
2) Food
3) Bottle
If breast milk isn't on offer but food is available, why bother with the bottle?
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Mine refused milk in any receptacle at nursery and stubbornly held out until it was provided in its proper form, i.e. me, mostly all night. The nursery gave them water in sippy cups and biscuit/rusk things with vitamins in, apples, bananas, yoghurts...
And advice changes. With my first, she wasn't supposed to be on solids until 4 months but with my second the advice was 6 months. However he grabbed a gingerbread man off the table on Christmas Eve and sucked its head off aged 4 months and four days so we decided to start feeding in the baby rice from then on.
Tldr: Don't worry.
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It wasn't just you ...
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I like this strategy. I shall adopt it.
Leaking like mad when babies cry on trains: not just you. Especially when I'm on my way home after my London days...!
Keiki is presently waking up only once a night, but he has a massive feed (both sides) when he does.
Humuhumu started solids at four months, mostly because she was grabbing things off our plates. Keiki, curiously, waited until six but now there's no stopping him!
(The decapitated gingerbread man story brings to mind a fantastic mental image, thank you for that)
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As someone who both fed and pumped, I don't think what you get out pumping is what baby takes feeding, if nothing else based on the way I was usually less hungry after pumping sessions than feeds.
(also also I got really fed up of pumping, especially second time around, and was really pleased to be able to arrange things so as to minimise it; so part of my reaction is yay! less pumping! go you!)
That is a cracking story about the biscuits. Go Keiki!
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I find pumping milk is very boring, especially if I have to do it when I'm not full to bursting, as it were, because it takes aaaaages to get anything more than an ounce out.
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But I feel compelled to note that it kind of amazes me this is even an issue.
Isn't it obvious that (a) all else being equal, breast-feeding ('till the child is weaned and/or weans itself) is better than any sort of formula and (b) that nothing is equal, ever?
For whatever it's worth, I'm told that I, for reasons I no longer recall, made my own mother's life easy by rejecting the breast at around the age of 6 months. And I like to think the lack of the real deal hasn't done me too much harm.
Dare I suggest you follow Dr. Spock's advice (I paraphrase, based on what me old mum remembers of her reading) and follow your own instincts as to what's best in your own circumstances?
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