*Image not Lola

Lola is officially weened and on formula. I feel horrible about it. The main reason was because in a few weeks BD and I are taking a trip to Berlin. We are going alone. My parents insisted that they would watch the kids and we should go. So we grabbed the opportunity and booked the trip. It’s something we’d been talking about since way before I got pregnant. While I’m very excited to have some much needed alone time with BD and visit a new city but I’m also having tremendous guilt about leaving the kids. That’s another topic all together. I’ll get to that this week.

The point of this post is formula. What’s best for baby? I posted last night on Twitter this same question and got a few responses. I thought that this would be a better venue for a convo about the topic. Also I’m specifically interested if anyone is using Earth’s Best Organic Formula. I spontaneously switched from Similac Advanced to Earth’s Best when I saw it on the shelf at Babies R Us. I figured that an organic product would be better choice for baby. I’d used Earth’s Best jar food with Fritz and felt that they made good products. But I feel really bad because since switching about four or five days ago she’s taken about two poops. Lola seems perfectly happy but when is she going to get acclimated to the new formula?

Another question is how do you prepare bottles, warm them and wash/sterilize? Let’s talk formula feeding!

Ok, I have to admit, I may be having a change of heart towards breast feeding. I’m finding it to be rather sweet when Lola lays her tiny paw on my big engorged tit. Sometimes she even grabs on to my shirt, the material all balled up in her tiny fist. I look down at her and it sort of makes me feel good. Shocking, I know. Or maybe it’s that I know deep down inside this will most likely be the last experience I’ll have feeding a child this way. Maybe it’s the rain, the snow, the fact that I hardly find myself caught out there having to feed in public places. Whatever it is I’m feeling a bit differently than the way I felt about it the first time. Am I going to go for a year or six months? I doubt it, but who knows. I also realize that giving a bottle is actually more of a pain in that ass than breast feeding. It seems that in the evening she’s wanting more than I can provide so I’ve given her a bottle the last few nights and it takes a bit longer and you really can’t do anything while giving a bottle. I can usually read or play on my phone while breast feeding; that’s a plus. So here I am, coming around to feeding my little girl the old fashioned way. Really, I’m just going with the flow. I feel absolutely no pressure but had to say that gazing down at my little girl on my breast has made my heart swell and well, the boobs, they’re nice too.

It’s not surprising that there are breast feeding fetishists out there, but ewwwwww.

Read all about it in the article A to Z Of Sexual History: Lactation at Viceland.com

Lola is six weeks old and I’m still going strong on the breast feeding. Just as I had presumed, taking into consideration my first go at it, I’m still really not that into it. Granted it’s free, and easy access, I still feel pinned down. Just about every two hours I have to sit quietly and wear my baby like eight pound broach stuck to the front of my chest. My nips hurt. Every once in a while I sneak in a formula bottle…she never knows the difference. If you fear that by feeding your baby a bottle now and then will cause nipple confusion, you’re buggin, these little guys will suck milk out of what ever vessel is put in front of them. Sometimes, I pump a bottle so I can sit back and enjoy not one, but two glasses of vino, worry free. But I always feel silly when I end up being the one that feeds it to her, sort of defeats the point in a weird way.

You know what gives me the willies? When people refer to feeding the baby as ‘nursing’. As in ‘Do you want to use the spare bedroom to nurse?’ I don’t know why but it feels awfully old fashioned and out dated. I’m usually all like ‘Where can I feed this little beeotch? Gotta get her on the teet asap!’ Then there’s the public feeding deal. I hate it. I don’t know why but it makes me feel vulnerable. Typically I feel like a tough street-wise type of girl until I’m in the food court at the Queens Plaza mall with a sheet (see Bebe Au Lait) over the front of my chest with my baby suckling away underneath as I scarf a burger. I’m just not feeling it. I know it’s as natural as can be but I feel for some bizarre reason I want to be in private when I feed my baby.

I’m going to hold out as long as I can. I want Lola to get all the yummy nutrients I can provide her with, but I’m not going to beat myself up about making the switch. I’ll go at least three months, maybe more. We’ll just have to wait and see…

To all the girls who had babies recently, or not so recently, how long did you make it?

Image via ReasInternational

Seriously folks, I’m all for multi-tasking but for christ sakes I’d like to keep my dignity intact while I do so. I actually pumped a bit with Fritz and it is a total drag. It’s pretty time consuming considering the results. If I remember correctly, it takes about twenty to thirty minutes of pumping to yield about a half to three quarters of a small bottle. Stock up if your engorged. But if you ask me it’s worth it to get a little respite. Can’t a girl get two glasses of wine? When I would pump I’d just let the thing rest on my knee or whatever, it was casual, nothing like this device. I think these pumping contraptions may be made for women in offices who need to hurry the f*ck up and get back to work and bring home the milk and the bacon. This is about the power pump. When I first saw this product at Buy Buy Baby while stocking up on some supplies with my mom we both had a giggle. But now looking at it, I think damn, women have to deal with some pretty crazy shit from Brazilian Bikini waxes to having our periods every month to this! I don’t think men will ever understand the half of it. Am I right, or am I right ladies?

Ok let me touch on breast feeding for a sec then I’ll talk about the ridiculous item pictured above. Well, my thoughts on breast feeding are this, it sucks, haha, no but seriously folks, I was not a fan. After 9 months of having my bod taken hostage, and I mean that in the nicest way possible, I really just wanted to not be attached in that way anymore. Breast feeding is super demanding and kinda a pain in the ass, but that being said, it is also great for the babe and free! Going into it the first time around I told myself I’d do it as long as I could. That ended up being about 3 months. Fritz was fine, a big baby and no ear infections.

There are a whole spectrum of thoughts on the subject but mine is simply: I’ll give it a go and see how long I can last. It’s funny, I’m not a modest person, I’ve always been into showing off my body and not being shy but whipping out my tit in public totally put me off. I would do it discreetly with a blanket over my shoulder or even prepare ahead of time and pump a bottle. Other women feel it’s the most natural thing in the world to expose their breast and let the baby suckle away…and it is really but there is also something that is slightly personal about it which can sometimes make it shocking.

Yea so anyway I’m all for discretion but making your infant don a ginormous wide brimmed hat is absurd. So what are you guys thoughts on breast feeding? Girls, the one’s who just had babies, how you doing with that?