I began my motherhood career absolutely in favor of exclusive breastfeeding. In fact, I nursed our biological daughter until she was over a year old. However, since becoming a foster and adoptive mother, my opinion has changed.
It may be that I am ultra-sensitive to this topic as I am currently up to my eyeballs in the newborn world again, but it seems to me that the issue of breast vs. bottle is everywhere. Because I have a different perspective than most, I feel the need to share.
There is only one question I believe we should be concerned about when it comes to the way we feed our babies:
Are you feeding your child?
The end. Period. Nothing else matters.
Yes, healthy food is important. I absolutely believe in whole foods and lots of fruits and veggies. But much more important, I believe in the absence of neglect.
Our family has seen the trauma of neglect in infants as young as 5 months old. Our most emotionally draining foster placement was a little boy I’ll call D. D came to us when he was 5 months old—a darling but distant little guy. He had been left in his crib, unattended and ignored, for most of his young life. His cries for food had gone unheard for so long that he had lost the ability to communicate that he was hungry. Not only were his physical needs unmet, but he was deprived the important bonding time feeding presents. He seemed unable to connect to those who cared for him.
Our first weeks caring for D were extremely difficult. He had no reason to trust that his needs would be met; he was taken from the only environment he’d ever known, and he didn’t know how to express himself. He cried like a wild animal for hours at a time. I had never heard anything like the sound he made. It was haunting and heartbreaking.
But after a few days of a regular feeding schedule (we went by the clock at first because he had lost his hunger cues and would not signal that he needed to eat), D began to change. As I held him to feed him a bottle, he began to look me in the eye. Instead of arching his back away from me, he would lean in to snuggle. Slowly, he began to share his dimpled smile.
After just a couple of weeks, he was a completely different child. He laughed uproariously and played with Ellie. He started to whine when he felt hungry. His turnaround was the most miraculous we’ve seen so far.
Meeting his physical and emotional need for nourishment changed him.
Another placement, a 3-year-old girl I’ll call A, also struggled with hunger. She was extremely articulate, as well as tiny and fragile. It took me a couple of days to recognize that she was bingeing at each meal.
When she first arrived at our home, she ate, and ate, and ate. I assumed she was just exceptionally hungry because she had had a long and difficult day (again, being removed from the only home she’d ever known). But after we’d shared several meals, I was sure she was purposely stuffing herself. We had a chat about her eating habits that went something like this:
Me: What is your favorite food to eat?
A: I don’t have a favorite. I just like every food!
Me: I can see that!
A: But I don’t like cat food. That’s yucky, but I eat it sometimes.
Me: Why do you eat cat food if it’s yucky?
A: I just do when I’m really hungry. We don’t have a lot of food at my house.
Again, it took time. But as A became more comfortable in our home, we had more talks about food. We talked in depth about eating just until “your tummy feels happy.” It took several days of regular meals and healthy snacks upon request for her to believe my claims that she would not go hungry in our house. She would not have to eat cat food. A had felt the effects of neglect for so long that she may always struggle with food-related anxieties. But we helped her begin to heal.
Can you see why, given my background and experiences, I think the breast vs. bottle debate is ridiculous?
Are you feeding your baby when she is hungry?
Are you holding him close and bonding during those quiet feeding moments?
Almost all of us are doing our absolute best as parents. Why do we waste time and energy worrying about this topic? Instead, why don’t we focus on supporting each other and building each other up to face the challenges that parenthood presents?
Relax. Enjoy those beautiful, slow moments. Breathe your baby in, listen to those adorable grunts he makes while he drinks. No matter what kind of milk you feed her, before you know it your tiny person won’t be so tiny anymore.
These moments are fleeting. Let’s ditch the guilt and just enjoy them.
QUESTION: Have you ever felt judged by others for your deliberate parenting choices? How did you overcome the guilt inflicted upon you?
CHALLENGE: If there are parenting areas in which you find yourself too prone to judge other parents, find ways to be more supportive and less critical.
Edited by Sarah Monson & Amanda Lewis.
Images provided by Heidi Hillman.
Graphic by Julie Finlayson / Shutterstock.
This is a beautiful article. God bless you for the love you are giving these children.
Thank you, Claire! Being a foster family has been the most amazingly rewarding and excruciatingly difficult thing we’ve ever done.
Heidi! AMEN! This article was FANTASTIC!! I have 4 kids and breast fed my first because I thought I had to, but it was difficult and painful and I will admit that I hated every minute of it. I decided with my fourth child NOT to breast feed. You would not believe the comments I received. I had a mother say to me- well, you know kids that are breast fed have higher IQs. SERIOUSLY? My little brother and I were not breast fed. We are both doctors. HMMM- think if my mom breast fed us we would have an even higher IQ? I think not. Mothers need to support each other not criticize as newborn feeding is difficult enough! I think parents need to decide what works for your family! For me to bottle feed my fourth, I could allow my husband to bond with him and feed him while I played with the other kids. The 2 of us took turns nightly with night feedings because WE COULD! Thank you for a great eye opening article. 🙂
I’m so sorry you had to hear such hurtful and untrue comments! I’m glad you had the strength to do what was best for your family. I love that my husband can be up in the night and enjoy bonding time with our bottle-fed babies, too.
There actually are several studies indicating that breastfed babies do develop higher IQs than formula-fed babies. This article below summarizes and references one of the more recent and extensive studies:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/melaniehaiken/2013/07/31/new-evidence-that-breastfeeding-boosts-babies-iq-see-the-video/
However, this doesn’t mean that anyone can or should tell you how to feed your child, or judge the way you choose to do so. It’s not any more acceptable for people to make comments about your choice to formula feed than it is for people to make comments about my choice to breastfeed my children until they are two, or to breastfeed in public, or any other number of comments people feel the need to make about personal child-rearing choices.
I also really appreciated this article. It creates a paradigm shift- we, as a society, don’t need to be focusing on how someone feeds a baby, but rather just that a baby is being fed. It changes our perception from judgement and criticism to support and love. It truly does ‘take a village to raise a child,’ as the saying goes, but not a village of naysayers telling you what you should do; rather a village of people willing to love and support each other through the challenges of parenthood. Thank you, Heidi, for this great reminder.
” It changes our perception from judgement and criticism to support and love. It truly does ‘take a village to raise a child,’ as the saying goes, but not a village of naysayers telling you what you should do; rather a village of people willing to love and support each other through the challenges of parenthood.”
Yes! I LOVE this, Sarah!
Perfect, Heidi. Absolutely perfect.
Thank you! That means so much.
What a great article Heidi! I love that you are involved in the Power of Moms stuff. I have always been a big fan of the Eyre’s and they were my inspiration when I was raising my kids. Go get ’em!
At first I thought this was going to be just another one of those breastfeeding-bashing articles, where the author has some sort of hypersensitive overdramatic hang up on the breast vs/ bottle issue and wants to flatly deny science and REASON, trying to argue that infant milk made in a factory is just as nutritious as what comes from a mother’s breast. Stop staring at the sun and claiming it doesn’t shine. Grab a medical journal and some common sense.
But your article made me do a double take!
What amazing experiences you’ve had. That absolutely broke my heart to read of a baby left alone to cry in his crib, hungry and neglected. I love you for helping him learn that his self-worth again!!
I can definitely understand how you – after what you’ve been through – see these discussions on WHAT we feed our children as trivial, compared to what we take for granted – that they ARE being fed.
Foster parenting is a job for strong women like you!
Thank you Chelsea! I am grateful for your honest opinion, and so glad that sharing my experiences could make you do a double take 🙂
In a perfect world, this debate would be a completely different one. But for the world we live in, I think we all need to extend more love and understaning than judgement and criticism.
I love this article. I try to tell every mom I know that doing what works for you and that specific child is BEST. Bonding with your baby while raising other children is important but how you chose to accomplish that is perfectly ok!!!
We should apply this to the myriad of topics debated in the so-called “Mommy Wars”; homeschooling vs. traditional schooling, co-sleeping vs. baby sleeping in their crib etc. I read so many posts from women declaring their way to be the “right” way and I feel that it often places unnecessary guilt on new or struggling mothers. What we all need is support in being deliberate mothers, even if our methods are different. Thanks for the fantastic article!
Thanks, Esther. I absolutely agree with you. We have such power to offer support and friendship, or to tear people down. Let’s choose to build each other up!
Thank you for an article that really resonated with me. As someone who had every intention of nursing but struggled for a solid 3 months, coupled with what I can now determine was likely postpartum depression, I wish I’d read this back when I was beating myself up about not being the ‘perfect mom’ everyone promised me I was going to be. Most parents are doing the best they can with the tools they have available to them.
Bambi,
My heart goes out to you. I wish I could have helped you through that difficult time. Hopefully you can let go of the guilt you’ve been feeling. I’m sure you are an amazing Mama, formula or no formula!
Great Article! In my case I have an EXTREMELY Picky 6 year old that has been this way since he was 2.Strangely enough he loves veggies! He would eat toast and veggies for every meal if I’d let him. I would like him to eat what we all eat, but I have just basically stopped cooking meals because his 3 year old brother is also picky, but in the opposite way. I’m tired of fighting so my kids basically eat junk (pizza 2+ times a week) or bagels or hot dogs. Do you have the same philosophy when your kids aren’t babies anymore?
Teri,
We have been lucky enough to have non-picky eaters. I haven’t had to worry about making separate meals for my kids as they get older, they just eat what we eat. My 5 year old doesn’t like his foods to touch, but as long as they are separate he eats just about everything on his plate. 🙂
While it’s a big priority for me to eat healthily, I fully support you in what you’re doing and would probably handle it the same way if I were in that situation.
Hugs to you!
Wow thank you for this article. Very eye opening and humbling to read. I have been thinking of being a foster family, but not sure if now is the right time for our family. I have a one and two year old, and know it would be a lot more work for us to take on a foster child, but it hurts my heart to think of those neglected children out there.
Someone just shared this article with me as I struggle the fourth time to make breastfeeding work, and for some reason, it just doesn’t work for me. I read all of the articles about how I’m denying my babies the best they can have. When baby #3 got RSV, I knew it was my fault because everything I’d read said that breastfeeding babies don’t get sick as much. It feels like they condemn my choice to bottle feed assuming that I’m just selfish. I have to simply be grateful that I live in a time where my babies can survive, even if I can’t breastfeed them, and give them as much emotional “feeding” as I can. Thank you for sharing this.