Burning my freezer stash
Happy Mother's Day I guess
My daughter is 13 months old, and two weeks ago I stopped breastfeeding1.
I had always planned to stop after a year, yet somehow it was still agonizing to stop pumping and nursing her. I felt like I was doing something wrong, like I should have let it be her choice to stop, not mine. She’s never been demanding about it, and that somehow made it feel worse. My angel daughter, always so sweet and happy to nurse and just as sweet and happy not to.
I have one 3 ounce baggy of breastmilk left in the freezer. Every time I open the freezer and see that lone bag, it’s like a jump scare from a horror movie. I flash back to 6 months ago, pumping overtime trying to have enough milk stashed so that I could go on a work trip to DC for 36 hours.
Breastfeeding started off really well for us. An hour after I woke up from being under, my doula had me initiate nursing. Eve latched right away and nursed for 20 minutes on each side. It was such a relief. She continue to nurse really well while in the hospital and when we got home. The first 12 weeks were mostly a breeze. Those were also the 12 weeks I was on parental leave and I spent all day snacking, nursing, contact napping, and watching Vanderpump Rules. Honestly, it was heaven. I was also in a moms group with a bunch of other new moms that was led by a doula/lactation consultant, and I was still able to do all our early check ups with my midwife. I felt so supported and relaxed.
At the 3 month mark, things took a turn. We were moving from Chicago to Atlanta, and in the week before we were leaving, my milk supply took a huge dip. I would pump religiously and barely eke out 2 ounces a session. Eve would cry whenever we tried to nurse. I knew my supply issues were from stress, but knowing that didn’t help anything. We made it through the move (luckily Eve took bottles fine, so I was able to feed her pumped milk that way). And the week after we arrived in Atlanta, I started back at work. This did not help my supply.
I was really happy to be back at work. I work remotely and my husband was off for another month so I was still able to be with my daughter throughout the day while working. I felt incredibly lucky. But I was still so stressed out. I love my job and I wanted to be able to fully be present with my work, but I also wanted to be fully present with my tiny baby who was still so fresh and new. If I didn’t love my job so much I absolutely would have quit.
After a few weeks of working, pumping, nursing when I had a break, and running around our new house frantically unpacking boxes, things came to a head. My small freezer stash had run out, and I wasn’t producing enough to keep up with how much my daughter wanted to eat. We decide to *gasp* introduce formula. I did not handle this well.
As a former doula and reproductive health advocate, I consider myself very open minded about the way people choose to feed their babies. I believe that the physical, emotional, and mental health of the mother is just as important as the health of the baby. I absolutely advocate for doing what is best for yourself, your baby, and your family. And I have no issue with formula feeding. I think we have been fed a lot of bullshit about the difference between formula feeding and breastfeeding, when the reality is, there is no causal proof that there is a difference when it comes to child health and development.
I knew all of this going into parenthood, and yet, when we decided we needed to add a small amount of formula into my daughter’s diet, I had a full blown meltdown, panic attack on the bathroom floor. I sobbed. My husband did his best to tell me all the things I already knew, but I was not to be consoled. I was a failure as a mother. My body had failed me yet again2. I had a few more meltdowns throughout the formula introduction process, and I felt an intense amount of shame and refused to tell anyone that we were using formula. In hindsight, this feels extremely overdramatic, but in the moment, it seemed completely logical.
All this drama and, I kid you not, we were only adding in 4 ounces of formula a day.
We supplemented formula for a few weeks and then I went back to exclusively breastfeeding until Eve was 6 months old, and then we added in a bottle of formula. We gave her a little more formula as months went on and by the time she was a year old we were at about a 60/40 ratio of formula to breastmilk. We even went back to exclusively breastfeeding for a week after her first birthday birthday because she got the stomach bug and couldn’t keep anything else down.
All this to say, it ended up being no big deal. She is a happy, healthy kid, and I’m confident she will continue to be a happy, healthy kid.
What I am less confident about, is the state of maternal/parental health education. I had all the information, and yet I was still so riddled with guilt and shame about using any amount of formula to feed my kid.
There are certainly a lot of things in play here. For one, I think if I had had longer parental leave and more community support, I wouldn’t have ended up needing to introduce formula. These factors are hugely important, but equally important is addressing the stigma around formula feeding, because it is hurting mothers. Yes, we need longer and more robust parental leave. We need accessible, affordable high quality child care. We need communities that are supportive of parents and children3. But also, we need to empower and support women who choose to formula feed.
We need to stop sending mothers home from the hospital with little pieces of paper about how breastfeeding is what’s best for our baby, and also here’s a chart to keep track of everything, and here’s how to encourage milk supply, but also don’t pump or you’ll have oversupply (I should be so lucky), and here is a list of a hundred breast pumps (all of which you’ll hate), and you need to nurse or pump every three hours (yes, even if your baby is still asleep and it’s 3am4) and when you go back to work you need to pump every 3 hours for 30 minutes, and it’s good to have a freezer stash (but also if you’re worried about having a freezer stash you’re trying too hard), oh and you should exclusively breastfeed until 6 months at least but the good moms are doing it until 18 months, but if you’re still doing it when they’re two then it’s weird (but also you can make Instagram posts about it, being condescending to all the other moms who aren’t breastfeeding their kid when they’re two). Why are you crying?
We need to stop saying “breast is best”. It’s not true (it’s also exclusionary language fwiw). We need to normalize not breastfeeding simply because we don’t want to! I am happy that I nursed my child. There were things about it that I loved (I didn’t get my period back for 9 months, for example). And I will likely breastfeed my next child for as long as I can. But I can’t help but feel like this isn’t really as much of a choice as we act like it is. Let’s be honest. Making milk is hard! And if you don’t want to do it, that’s fine. You’re not a worse mother than someone who decides they do want to do. The same rule applies for climbing Mount Everest and going to law school. Take that with you to your next pediatrician’s appointment.
As usual, mothers are damned if they do, damned if they don’t. And of course this doesn’t just apply to breastfeeding. It applies to daycare and being a working parent5 and how you intro solids and screentime and infant sleep and on and on and on.
It’s too much! We’re being set up to fail. You don’t need my permission, but in case no one has said it yet, you’re allowed to stop breastfeeding. Set down the pump. Hand your partner the baby and a bottle of formula and sit your ass down on the couch. You’re a good mom — it’s society that’s failed.
Something’s gotta give. The mothers are not alright.
I’m using the word breastfeeding/nursing, because it’s what feels true to my experience, but it is just as legitimate to use chestfeeding or bodyfeeding! Use whatever words resonate with you.
I was still carrying a lot of trauma from how our birth had gone and feeling like there was something wrong with my body.
Guess what? Just because you’re child free doesn’t mean you get to openly hate (and discriminate against!) children and parents! We were all children once! Be part of the global community instead of being a fucking asshole.
I did not do this. Do not do this. If your baby sleeps at night do not wake them up. And do not wake yourself up to pump. Go to sleep!!!
I like working. I do not want to be a full-time parent. And that is okay (why do I still feel so guilty saying that)! And the reality of that means that it’s not really feasible to exclusively breastfeed without doing an absurd amount of unpaid labor. To be frank, I don’t really want to try to discreetly pump while I’m in a zoom call. I don’t even want to take 30 minutes off to pump! I just don’t want to f*cking pump!