How I'd Breast Feed, If I Was a Mom

In Breast Feeding Is Magic, I started talking about breast feeding.  I continue that discussion here:

The most frequent question at my house is, "Why is Clark crying?" The answer is almost always "because he's hungry."  The follow-up question is "is he getting enough milk? He just ate!"

Doctors and nurses have told us the only good indicators of an infant's health are 1) is the baby gaining weight, 2) is the baby pooping enough, 3) is the baby peeing enough (and what color), and finally, 4) no fever.  Well, even with his spitting up, and crying and growth spurts, check, check, check and check.

Clark's putting on weight pretty well (from 8 lbs 4oz to 13 lbs in 7 weeks).  He's pooping and peeing plenty (diaper companies are happy about that I'm sure.) And finally, no fever. So he's doing well. He must be getting enough milk to grow big and strong.

My wife is more of a trooper than I am or would be.  Convinced of the superiority of breast milk over formula, Clark's mom has chosen to breastfeed.  Clark used to eat every two hours.  So Clark's mom could maybe catch 2 hours of continuous sleep once in a while.  Recently, he must of snuck (not a real word, blah blah blah) one of my Men's Health Magazines and read the articles about eating smaller meals to boost metabolism while increasing muscle gain.

Clark now gets hungry pretty much every 60 minutes and the boy is getting big.  That means if his poor mother is trying trying to sleep, she still has to wake up every hour to feed him.  Bless her soul, I couldn't do it.  I try to take him off her hands and let her try to get some sleep, but I can only do that if there is some pumped milk in the fridge.

If I was breast-feeding, I'd just pump and feed the baby from a bottle.  Much like formula, that would free me up to occasionally get a good night's sleep.  All the benefits of breast milk with the flexibility of formula bottle feeding.  However, I understand that a certain bonds develops within the intimacy of breast-feeding between mother and baby.  Not being a milk producer myself, I can only admire that bond.  I do think my wife wouldn't mind trading that bond in temporarily for a few hours of sleep.

     - Clark's Dad

Breast Feeding is Magic

Breast feeding resembles magic, not illusion, slight of hand or misdirection, actual magic.  This is mostly because of the black box that is a woman's breast.  Basically, you can't see what's going on in there.  Milk just appears.  You don't really understand how they work, they just do.  They didn't used to have milk in them, now they do.  One day they won't anymore. Ta-Da!!!

As far as breast-feeding goes, the problem is that there is really important information that is unavailable to you:

How much milk is in there?

How long does it take to refill?

and most important:

How much milk did the baby just drink?

With bottle feeding you get all of this information.

Sometimes Clark cries like he's starving and hasn't been fed all week, when he's just eaten ten minutes ago.  Clark's Mom doesn't know if he just hasn't gotten any milk (is there any milk in there?) or just hungry again, maybe a growth spurt.  It's so frustrating.  Sometimes when this happens, I'll offer him some pumped milk in a bottle.  Sometimes he'll chug it down like a starving baby in the desert, other times, he turns it down (no thanks, I'm not hungry) -  Why are you crying, then?! Why you cryin'?

It would be awesome if mother's breasts were transparent or had gauge like the gas tank in your car.  Unfortunately, they don't.  It's just magic. The milk just comes out and your baby (yes, your baby, not you dad) drinks until he stops.  But did he stop because he was full or because the pump was empty.  Does he need a burping?  Arrrgggghhh!

     - Clark's Dad

Why Don't Young Women Breastfeed?

I took a baby care class with my wife before Clark was born. There were about 10 couples in the class. Nine of the mothers in the class had chosen to breastfeed. Only one mother had chosen to forgo the breastfeeding entirely and go with formula. She was the youngest mother in the class by far (perhaps in her very early twenties at the oldest). I recently stumbled upon an MTV show entitled "16 and Pregnant". The mothers in the episodes I watched all fed their babies formula.

Once you get into prenatal health care and baby classes you are inundated with information on why breast milk is the best thing in the world for your baby. It is this golden serum that remedies everything from orthodontic problems, to allergies and childhood obesity*. Breastfeeding even revs up mothers' ability to lose pregnancy weight sooner and may increase the IQ of the child.

In fact breast milk is so impressive that the labels on containers of baby formula laud its benefits. Have you ever seen another product that declared its zero priced competitor a superior product?

Young mothers tend to be the least financially stable. Why pay for formula (which is far from cheap - @ $100/mo.) My philosophy is "Max Out the Free S#@t First." With this, plus all the benefits already mentioned why do young mother seem to not be on board with breast feeding?

             - Clark's Dad


*Facts from Medela Website (potentially biased, but well referenced and cited.)