Tag: breastfeeding

Breastfeeding or Formula? What to consider.

Breastfeeding or Formula? What to consider.

For a newborn, it is indeed best to breastfeed as far as possible. Breast milk has all the nutrition that a baby needs, and it also has all the antibodies that protect the baby because she doesn’t have a well established immune system in the beginning. There is, however, a dilemma many parents face, where in certain situations it might be prudent to introduce a bit of formula milk into the baby’s diet.

Let me address this dilemma a little bit. Before our baby was born, I hadn’t even considered buying formula milk as part of our shopping list. I had read and understood the importance of breast milk and was pretty confident that formula milk would only be something that we introduce after a few months. However, the day we brought our baby home from the hospital, I found myself arranging for some formula milk at the last minute. And it was because I realized during our stay at the hospital that there could be many situations, even that early, where breastmilk might not suffice for the baby. Because there is a difference between theory and practice.

When a baby is born, it is so exhausted that it barely has any strength for the first 24 hours and even our mid-wife told us that it is common for babies to not feed for that time period. And babies tend to lose a little under 10% of their birth weight due to this. However, when this period is over, it is time for the baby to start feeding and regain the lost weight within the next 2-3 days. But, not all babies are experts at sucking milk properly that early. Sometimes, they try for a few minutes but get tired quickly and fall asleep and need to be waken up frequently to feed. On top of that, the flow of milk from the mother’s breast may not be as good as desired, which might further contribute to tiring the baby out without a proper meal. And, even when it appears as if the baby has been well fed, she might still be hungry. And what if the baby continues to be hungry mealtime after mealtime without the parents realizing it? In those early days, we did face all these situations and we were advised by the mid-wives to give our baby a top-up feed at the end of each breastfeeding session to ensure that the baby really was full. And in case the baby was not getting breastmilk supply, to feed her a small amount from a tiny plastic cup (and not from a milk bottle) so that her attachment to the breast was also not lost, and she continued to get the feed that she needed.

Keeping this factor in mind, I learned that it was not a bad idea to keep some amount of formula milk at home to be used when needed. I – sorry, We – realized that introducing formula milk as a part of feeds for the newborn really did not mean that she would be deprived of breast milk. It was supposed to be used as a supplement to breast milk.

And it is not just about the supply of breast milk that is the only factor. You also need to consider the health and suffering of the mother. New babies need feeding every couple of hours even for weeks after they are born. Add to that the fact that even the most well fed baby has problems with sleeping properly at times. It is not obvious to us men how distressing the whole phase becomes for a mother who is herself in need of being taken care of in order to recover from the trauma of the delivery. I have seen my wife feel miserable at times trying to feed our perfectly healthy baby while exhausted by the irregular sleeping schedules. She cried about how much pain she felt in her back most of the times and how every moment of feeding the baby made her back even worse.

Like I said, it is almost impossible to understand completely what a new mother goes through unless you have been one and, at times, I have made the same mistake and insisted for my wife to try and breastfeed against giving formula milk. And this is where, we need to have an open mind and consider the practicalities of the situation. The baby needs breast milk, but don’t forget, it first needs milk so that it is not hungry and even the mother needs to be relieved of her stress regularly.

Until now, I hadn’t mentioned that pumping breast milk and then using it for top-up feeds as well as complete meals when the mother was resting is a great option, and this reduces the need for formula milk. Before our baby had completed her first week, I had already been compelled by the situations described above to buy a motorized electric breast pump. And, to be honest, it turned out to be a fantastic investment as we did use it a lot. However, one needs to understand that even a breast pump can be of little use if the milk supply from the breast is too slow, or the mother is very tired. Moreover, the electric pumps can be quite expensive and not everyone may be able to afford them, and the more affordable manual pumps take too much effort to pump. And if you run out of pumped milk at odd hours, it may not be feasible to set up and start pumping again while your baby is crying bloody murder and the mother is already exhausted. Having some formula milk handy can really be a life saver.

So, for new parents, the first few weeks are almost certainly a tough time and they are also a time to overcome challenges. While the importance of breast milk cannot be overstated, it is also important to remember that timely feeding of the baby is also very important as is ensuring that the mother is not subjected to undue stress in some situations.

How has your experience been? Do you think there is more to this debate than what I have written? Do share with me by posting in the comments below.

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Weaning: How we stopped breastfeeding

Have you heard stories about the nightmare weaning a baby off breastfeeding can be? Have you  been reading everywhere how important it is to start weaning as early in time as possible in order to prevent it from becoming too difficult later? Yes, we did too and it used to scare the hell out of us. But, it turned out to be far easier than we imagined.

From the time our daughter turned 6 months old, we had started to talk about one day having to wean her off breastfeeding. We knew it was going to be tough because, even though we had slowly started to increase formula in her routine during the day, at night she would only fall asleep while breasfeeding. This was a major point of concern for us because putting her to sleep was already a very painful task, and breastfeeding for so long had been wreaking my wife’s back in the process. Of course, 6 months may sound like too late for most working parents around the world, but here in Sweden we have the law of Parental Leave, which allows the parent to be off for as long as they want (with some pay, but more on that later) without it becoming a threat to their jobs. So, we had decided for my wife to be off for at least 1 year and therefore we had more time to take care of our daughter and wean her.

So, when is the best time to start weaning? I think the answer to this is when you and your baby seem comfortable. One good checkpoint would be when the baby has started eating solid food, so that she doesn’t need so much breastmilk at night to feel full.

One of the most  important lessons of parenting I learned during the first year with our daughter was to focus on the most urgent problem(s) first and worry about the others later. This meant prioritization of problems and not their procrastination. For instance, it became clear to us very early that for our daughter to be able to sleep well at nights was more important than weaning her off at that stage, so we prioritized accordingly. Over the months until her 1st birthday, our daughter’s reliance on breastfeeding only seemed to be strong at night times and we did not have a plan of when and how to break this habit for her. To be honest, we also did not feel strong enough to be able to take up this challenge and wreck our sleep for a few nights. But what we did do more easily was cut off breastfeeding from her routine for the entire day except night times so that when it was finally time to stop completely, it would be less of a hassle.

Two weeks after her first birthday, she and her mom travelled back from Delhi to Stockholm and when she reached, she was visibly very tired and irritated due to the journey. She had breastfed on the plane, in the taxi on the way home as well as shortly again after entering our home because she felt scared to be in a different place after two months of being in Delhi.

When we saw that she was tired and scared to be in a new place, and was clearly not ready to sleep, we turned down the lights in our bedroom, except a small night lamp, got into bed with our daughter in between and cuddled her a bit, patted her head and spoke to her lightly so as to make her feel secure with both her parents right there by her side. Soon, she fell asleep.

That night, the idea came to my mind to try this out the next night as well and since it was a weekend, we did have the possibility to put in some time. So, the next night, we followed a routine of:

  1. Letting our daughter lie in bed for some time and become comfortable, even if it meant showing her some cartoons on the phone,
  2. Turning down the lights in our bedroom
  3. Offering her the milk bottle when she looked comfortable
  4. Playing lullabies (audio only) on my phone
  5. Lying next to her ready for sleep ourselves
  6. Patting her head while she drank her milk and even when she is done

This process of making things cozy for our daughter sometime before trying to put her to sleep made her more comfortable and within minutes of finishing her milk, she turned slightly towards her mom, patted her face lightly and fell asleep.

The first night this worked, we could barely conceal our excitement. But this could easily have been a fluke so we kept repeating this routine night after night and it worked every time. Of course, there were nights when this did not work. Children, after all are also thinking beings and there is a lot going on inside those tiny heads. But the disruptions were rare. Overall, we were astonished that we had managed to cut off breastfeeding from her routine completely and our daughter accepted it without screaming and howling even once.

While this seems all too easy, it really was a culmination of many factors including reducing her breastfeeding gradually over the months to only night-times, as well as the fact that the first time she fell asleep without breastfeeding was when she was utterly tired and scared.

Today, it has been a month and a half since the night we stopped her breastfeeding and she has never had to go back. Though her sleeping routine has recently had a major setback and we are again worried about how to put her off to sleep without wrecking our own sleeps, but that is another story for another day.