Breastfeeding is Best, but is Bottlefeeding Your Baby Worse?

I became a mother in 2001. Like many others, I had the grand visions of breastfeeding, and doing everything “just right” for my child. I had just spent 9 full months making sure I avoided EVERYTHING that could even remotely be bad for me so he would turn out just perfect. And he was…perfect. He was the most perfect thing I had ever seen. Since everything else had turned out so well, I envisioned being able to go home and breastfeed right from the beginning, just like so many others I had known. “It’s easy”, they tell you. “It will come naturally”. Little did I know, it was not that easy.

From the start, I fought latching problems, a serious case of mastitis (that included a fever of 105), and the fact that he was just so big he couldn’t get enough to eat. Read that again. I was not able to provide enough food for my child. Can you possibly understand how heartbreaking that realization is? I fought my best for a month determined not to give in and have a formula-fed baby, but I lost the battle. In the end, formula won.

At first, I felt like I was robbing my son of the best thing for him. I had worked so hard to prepare for his arrival and now I had failed to provide the most basic necessity for my child�food. I felt like a horrible mother, a complete failure and (outside of my immediate family) everywhere I turned, those feelings were validated. Breastfeeding is the only choice. If you choose otherwise, you are wrong, no matter the circumstances.

What I didn’t realize, until 5 years later with the birth of my third child, was that I was giving my children so much more. I gave their father the ability to hold them and feed them. He would not have been able to do that if I had been exclusively breastfeeding. I still got to cuddle with my babies while they ate and to stare lovingly into their eyes. Those eyes that smiled right back at me. I was giving them everything that I could.

Now, does that make me a bad mother? Unfortunately, some would still say yes. To those nay-sayers, I offer my 3 children…my 5 year old, my 3 year old, and my 2 month old. Each one is incredibly smart, healthy, strong, and none the worse because of my choice.

Sometimes a mother is not able to breastfeed her children. Some have latch issues, some have production issues, some just have personal reasons why they choose formula. Whatever the reason, their choice does not make them bad mothers. We do the best we can for our children. Those who say otherwise have never had to make the choice. I have. And to those individuals I offer one piece of advice. Spend a day walking in my shoes before you judge me, because�

I am a Good Mother.