I just told my husband this morning, “I feel a blog coming on…”
While checking my Google Alerts this morning, I found a link to an article about adoptive breastfeeding and pressure from breastfeeding advocates. I went to check it out because I have a lovely friend, Alyssa Schnell, who specializes in adoptive breastfeeding, and I wanted to see if the article might be interesting. I always want to know more about this subject myself, and Alyssa might want me to send the article to her.
Before we start, though, apparently there is a new term out there for those of us who support and promote breastfeeding. We apply “bressure”. Get it, breastfeeding + pressure? I don’t think this is a compliment. I am sure someone from a formula company made it up to help promote negative images of breastfeeding advocates—a very common tactic for them.
Anyway, let’s return to the blog I read.
“From the start, with the assumption we would be bottle-feeding, we were on our own. Not once did any of the social care or health professionals around us offer advice on bottle-feeding. It sounds like it should be easy, right? Just pick up a bottle and feed the baby?”
This is so true! I often feel I am the only one who cares how bottle-fed babies are being fed! Properly developing, human babies, up to a year of age, only EVER need about 25 oz! I love my breastfeeding babies, don’t get me wrong. But I also love, love, all the bottle-feeding babies too. No matter what is in the bottle. And I want them to be properly fed, too. Overfeeding bottle-fed babies seems to be the norm, and no one seems to care.
When I had my firstborn son almost 20 years ago, we left the hospital completely formula-fed. I had intended to breastfeed, but so many things got in the way. (Side note: Thank you to my stepmother, Pat Lennington, who called and got help for me! With the help of La Leche League, we turned breastfeeding around and nursed for several years. Look at me now! Don’t lose hope! Call and get help if you are struggling with breastfeeding!)
Back to bottle feeding. So, we left the hospital with CASES of ready-made formula. All the nurses felt sorry for me because of our horrible start! But no one showed me how to bottle-feed. No one told me how much to bottle-feed. I was feeding my five-day-old baby about 40 oz per day! 40 oz for a five-day-old! Mind you, he spit up a lot! He also gained weight VERY quickly. No one asked about my bottle feeding at the doctor’s office, even though he was gaining well over 2 oz per day. Was this detrimental to his health? Hard to know. He is almost 20 years old, tall and lean right now. But he overeats frequently. It might not catch up to him until his metabolism slows down. Time will tell.
Why do I believe this? Because his tiny tummy was stretched to the maximum as soon as we were in charge of feeding him. Instead of having frequent, slow, small feeds, about 15 cc to 45ish cc on day five, we were giving him 90-150 cc in about 10 minutes! He was gassy and fussy. Duh. He also had no control over how much he was eating. We were basically waterboarding him with formula. That may sound harsh, but I was recently watching a crime show and saw what waterboarding was. This is so much like what we do to our babies. Put them on their backs, put a very fast, flowing bottle in their mouth, and don’t give them breaks. They have to keep swallowing, or else they will choke. No wonder they “finish the bottle”.
I feel this lack of bottle-feeding guidance is criminal. There are very simple, general calculations you can do to figure out how much food to feed your baby, and ways to bottle-feed more respectfully. You do need to watch your baby’s feeding cues and weight gain. (Please get in touch with your health care provider about any specific feeding questions you have about your baby.)
Let’s break it down.
Days 1-3: Little bits. 5-15 cc per feed. Why do those ready-made bottles in the hospital come in 2 oz? This implies that it is how much a newborn baby should eat. I read another blog a few months ago about a woman who had chosen not to breastfeed, and it said, “I gazed at my husband blissfully (something like this) bottle-feeding our two-hour-old 2 oz bottle.” Fine, choose to formula feed, but please, not 2 oz in the first days! But we do—all the time. And the hospital staff doesn’t stop us. The pediatricians don’t stop us.
Days 3-10ish get dicey. Gradually increase the babies’ feeds until they hit 2.5 oz per pound of body weight per 24 hours, until they reach about 10 lbs. Easy!
Day 10 and beyond: Babies keep eating a bit more as they gain weight. Until they hit 25-28 oz. Once they reach that volume (about 25 oz per 24 hours), no more! Caveat: Unless the baby is gaining about 0.5 oz per day! See your doctor if this is happening. Babies gain about 1 oz per 24 hours on average. Some gain a bit more, some a bit less.
Once you know about how much your baby should consume in 24 hours, count up about how many times the baby eats and divide the total number of oz your baby should be consuming by the number of times your baby eats to get how much should be in each bottle.
I have talked in the past about how to bottle feed all babies. Pacing the bottle feed is so important. Putting a baby on its back and basically
Waterboarding liquid down their throat is not an appropriate way to feed anyone, especially a newborn.
Let’s talk about how we bottle-feed; they deserve to be fed with respect and in a way that supports their future health, no matter what is in the bottle.
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