As a new mom, I found feeding to be the most overwhelming and hardest part of those newborn days. Before giving birth, I didn’t have any goals for feeding my baby. My plan was to try and breastfeed and hope for the best. If we made it one day, great! If we made it to one year, fantastic! It was hard to set goals for something I knew so little about. I vowed to stop the minute it got too stressful for either one of us. Well, that isn’t exactly how it went.

I am not writing this post to tell you how to feed your baby or the right way to feed your baby. This post walks through our feeding journey, what worked for us and what didn’t work for us, raw emotions and all.

I don’t intend to write many posts about myself and my family because I need to respect our privacy, but also because the way we did/ do things isn’t the right way, it is just the way that works best for us. I know as a new mom it is easy to fall into the comparison trap. You can read one article or post and all of the sudden you feel like you are doing everything wrong.

Don’t let this post guide YOUR journey. Read it with an open mind and know that if you don’t know what you are doing, you are not alone.

Breastfeeding

I am a firm believer that fed is best. There are so many ways to feed a baby – breastfeeding or bottle feeding, bottles with formula, bottles with breastmilk, bottles with both, bottles with donor milk, and the list goes on. They all accomplish the same goal of nourishing your baby.

Well, let me tell you, because I wish someone had told me – breastfeeding is HARD. Sure, it isn’t a struggle for everyone. But for being the natural option, it certainly doesn’t come naturally for most people. You guys. I didn’t know this. Not only did I not know how big of a learning curve there would be, but I also didn’t know how many people struggled with breastfeeding.

 After Genevieve’s dramatic entrance into the world (story for another time), she was placed on my chest and the nurse asked me if I wanted to try to feed her. I looked her square in the eye and just said “ummmm…. I’m not sure that I can, my boobs don’t feed any different” (LOL), but we got her to latch and it was off to the races.

Tongue Tie

If only it were that easy. Homegirl literally didn’t stop feeding, which left me raw and bleeding. Every latch was accompanied with a small pep talk to myself and toe curling pain. I thought “this cannot be right,” but everyone assured me that I would get used to it. Weeks past and I just kept thinking “I’ll get used to it.”

In the first two months, we saw a lactation consultant SEVEN times. On the 6th visit, they finally agreed to clip Genevieve’s tongue tie, which “shouldn’t be causing a problem,” but it in fact was because as soon as the procedure was complete, all pain with feeding went away immediately.

The other six visits were to help manage an oversupply and overactive letdown. I was constantly engorged (still) and had to hand express before every feed just so that my daughter could latch. Remember when I said I vowed to stop breastfeeding the minute it got too stressful?! HA!

After 8 weeks, I was finally starting to feel like I was getting the hang of breastfeeding. Of course, I still couldn’t feed anywhere other than a perfectly reclined position on my couch, otherwise I’d risk gagging my daughter, spraying milk across the room, or flashing the whole world as I caught my letdown in a towel, but we were doing it!

Dairy Intolerance

Then came the black and bloody stools and the reflux. After a trip to the pediatrician, I was on an elimination diet, starting with dairy. As a cheese lover, this was my worst nightmare, but it worked, so we kept on going, even though we were well beyond the point of “too stressful.”

There I was, a former cheese lover, who was now dairy free, chained to my reclined position on the couch, and following my daughter around all day with a burp cloth, but I was making it work. And then I had to go back to work.

Pumping

In total transparency, as a person with an oversupply, I actually found pumping to be easier, but I HATED pumping and it definitely wasn’t convenient for me. Scheduling meeting around my pumping schedule was not my definition of fun.

To top it off I was in sales, so my “office” was my car. Talk about a very public pumping environment. I pretty much just avoided eye contact with people at red lights and in parking lots, hoping that I would never see them again. (PS if you need any tips and tricks for pumping in the car, I think I officially know them all!)

This was more or less my breaking point. I found myself regularly asking why I was mentally and physically killing myself to provide breastmilk for my baby. Was it because I felt like it was the “right” thing to do? Probably. Society sure makes it feel that way sometimes.

At some point I realized the only reason why I was still torturing myself was because I had never worked so hard at any one single thing in my entire life; I didn’t come this far only to give up. So, I continued to take on the responsibility of being the sole source of nutrition for our daughter, which was beginning to cost me my mental health. And my sanity. 

Then the pandemic hit. Honestly, what mom wasn’t having a rough time during the pandemic? It certainly didn’t do wonders for my [already fragile] mental health. I had to take something off my plate. 7 months in and breastfeeding was still one of my biggest stressors.

Weaning

So, I decided to begin the weaning process. It is crazy to me that I can wrap that up in one short sentence. I could write an entire post on the emotions that come along with deciding to wean. There were so many “what if,” “should I,” “what does this say about me,” “am I making the right choice” and tears.

Breastfeeding was costing me my mental health, which was more expensive to me than formula…. even hypoallergenic formula, which is expensive stuff (did you forget about the dairy allergy?).

Formula

We made the transition super slow. I gave one ounce more of formula and once ounce less of breastmilk every day. It took a little over a month before all of her bottles were fully formula.

I cried when it was over because it felt like our first official chapter of being mother and daughter had closed. I let myself feel the feels and then I started focusing on the positives.

I wasn’t hooked up to a pump, stressing about breastfeeding, or constantly worried about my days revolving around my daughter getting fed. I was more present, I was happier, and I was more in love with our relationship than I had ever been. Ultimately, switching to formula made me a better mom and was something I should have done so much earlier than I did.

This was our journey. I don’t expect yours to be similar what-so-ever. I don’t even expect my experience with future kids to be similar.

What I do hope you take away from this post is that the only people who know what is best for you and your baby is you and your baby. You have to be an advocate for your family. So long as your baby gets fed, there isn’t a wrong or a right way to do it.

But there is a best way. And that might look different for every family. I am giving you permission to trust your gut and do the right thing for YOUR family. Who cares what anyone else has to say, they don’t walk every minute of every day in your shoes.