Skip to main content

Best for baby {feeding newborns with the Honest Company}

 
Sitting down to write a post on feeding newborns, I was surprised at how raw some of those feelings were for me, even years later. Having attempted to breastfeed each of our five children, my experience has taught me that each child is different and that each breastfeeding journey is different. Discovering what worked best for me as the parent and for each of our newborns in regards to feeding-- breastfeeding, bottle feeding, or a combination-- was not always an easy or simple solution and it often was laden with guilt that I wasn't living up to certain standards, worry that I wasn't making the right choice, and frustration when things didn't live up to expectations I had put on myself.

We welcomed our fifth baby to our family this past summer so you could say that I am well-versed in the newborn days. With our first son, I was so nervous about if I was "doing it right." I worried about when I should be nursing him and for how long the sessions should be and it always felt like I somehow was falling short, like there was a standard of motherhood that I wasn't living up to. I remember when he was having a hard time sleeping and I had anxiety over whether or not to put cereal in his bottle; I tried so hard to do everything "correctly." In the end, I nursed him until he was almost 6 months old before we switched to bottles and formula and even some solid foods. He lead this early weaning and I didn't fight it. Honestly, I was glad to have breastfeeding behind us and get in to feeding I could measure more easily.

When our twins came home, I once again struggled with nursing. Our twins couldn't latch and I spent hours crying with the breast pump or struggling through emotionally charged nursing sessions where I felt like a failure twice over. I would try nursing one baby and then have to go through the same thing with the next baby. I made it through 2 months breastfeeding this way before we switched to bottles. I was much happier and could care for our 2-year old and newborn twins better, but the decision was wracked with guilt. I felt like I could have done better. On top of that formula for twins was expensive. Unlike the first time I nursed, there was a growing "normalize breastfeeding" movement and my newsfeeds were flooded with success tales of breastfeeding multiples and how it was worth the effort. It didn't help that one of the common questions from strangers when I went out with our twins was, "Do you breastfeed them?" When I said no, I would often hear back, "Omigosh, I wouldn't breastfeed multiples either!" I did not often follow up with, "I tried." Trying didn't seem to count for much.

With our fourth son, breastfeeding came a bit easier. He latched well and-- with 3 busy older siblings-- I enjoyed the ease and freedom of nursing. I didn't have to load down a diaper bag with bottles and formula for an outing or worry about where I could find room temperature water-- not too hot, not too cold, but at the exact temperature the baby would take the bottle. Unlike nursing our first son, I heard a lot of comments this time around while nursing in public, such as, "It's so good you breastfeed him." I think the comments were largely due to the breastfeeding movement. I appreciated the encouragement and the nursing support, but it also made me feel even guiltier about my previous breastfeeding experiences. I often felt like I needed to confess how nursing hasn't always come easily. I breastfed our fourth son until he was over a year old and by the time I weaned him, I was ready to have nursing behind us. As easy and convenient I found nursing, I was also ready to have my body back. My husband is in the Navy and we had recently moved across country. I felt exhausted unpacking our household, managing our children's feelings regarding the move, and settling in to our new community. After I got the children to bed for the night, I wanted some quiet moments to myself, not to start a nursing session.

I was asked a lot while pregnant with our fifth child if I was going to be breastfeeding or bottle feeding. I like breastfeeding because it is better for our budget and not having to worry about packing bottles or how much formula I will need for each outing is convenient when leaving home with 5 children. However, I wasn't sure what my breastfeeding journey with her would look like and I was nervous about all the emotions surrounding breastfeeding. Once she was born, I surprisingly found it easy to let the negative feelings go. After all the ups and downs of the pregnancy (it was a rough pregnancy) and the awareness that this is our last baby, my attitude changed. Just like each pregnancy, every breastfeeding experience is different. Not just mom to mom, but child to child. My breastfeeding experience with each one of our five children was different-- including our twins and how each one of them nursed. Instead of shame or guilt for "only" breastfeeding each child for however long I nursed them, I realized that my breastfeeding journey has been a labor of love.

I've found myself looking back through old pictures as our fifth and last baby has grown-- comparing the noses on each one of our babies to hers or looking at our children in well-loved hand-me-downs that we no longer need to hold on to. One of the pictures that made me laugh out loud was a picture of my husband washing a sink full of bottles for our twins. They went through a can of formula in one day! It was unbelievable. A picture that brought happy tears to my eyes was my grandmother feeding our oldest pureed peas; my son was her first great-grandchild. He would pull such funny faces eating foods he didn't care for. To this day he pokes at the peas on his plate, though overall he is our most adventurous eater. With our across country move during our fourth's son first year, I delayed starting finger foods since I didn't want to add anything else to my already busy day. When we finally sat him down in the high chair to start finger foods, he was eager to try everything. Our new house has an amazing bakery just down the road and, of course, my husband and his 3 older brothers felt a ginormous donut would be a great starter food for a one-year old.

As siblings close in age (including a set of identical twins), there is much our children have in common. Often they wear the same clothes. They share the same toys. They have many of the same friends. But they are individuals and when I move past the ways they look the same or act the same, I can see that each of them have different rhythms, thoughts, interests. They are actually very unique and learning their different quirks has been one of my favorite parts of parenting, from their mannerisms to their speech cadence to their sleep cycles. Looking through the old pictures and thinking of each breastfeeding journey as something unique to that child-- not an unrelenting standard of measure-- I have been able to accept my own feelings regarding breastfeeding, to give myself grace, the same grace that I so easily give to my friends and sister for their breastfeeding journeys.

What I have appreciated along the way is support from companies like the Honest Company. With their high level of standards, they make it easy for first time moms or fifth time moms to make the right choice when it comes to feeding newborns. They understand that the right choice is the choice that is best for baby and offer products to make feeding time-- no matter how I choose to feed my baby-- easy and enjoyable with products I can trust. Because I trust them when feeding my newborn, I find it easy to trust them with bathing and diapering and more. It has been easy to incorporate the Honest Company in to our family routine. With all of the other hard to make decisions that come from feeding a newborn, I know that I don't have to stress about our Honest Company products.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I love my stroller

Napping while we are out. North Carolina September 2011 I get stopped all the time when I go out. I don't mind that people want to wave at my babies or ask D if he is a "big help" or throw their hands up in mock distress and say, "I don't know how you do it." Sometimes, yes, I would rather run in and out of a store, but, honestly, even if people weren't stopping me, would that really happen heading out with three kids? I've gotten used to the "you have your hands full" conversations, but one thing I never tire of talking about is my stroller. People stop me all the time to comment on my stroller, either to tell me that they wish they had that stroller back when their kids were young or to find out what it is and where to get it. Let me start at the beginning. When D was an infant we had two different Chicco strollers, the travel system and the Chicco $40 umbrella stroller. Neither was that exceptional, but they both served their p...

Supporting yourself during deployment

I recently posted my top 10 ways to help a military spouse through deployment in my blog post " Supporting military spouses through deployment. " It can be really hard to know exactly what to do to help a friend or neighbor or whoever the military spouse in your life is when they are navigating the deployment of their spouse. But how can you, as the military spouse, help yourself through a deployment? Help comes in various ways and sometimes the help you need is abundant and everywhere you look and sometimes you can't catch a break and feel completely on your own. So what are things that you can do to make your life just a liiiiitle bit easier? 1. Deployment pre-planning To quote Monty Python, "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition." Before deployment, before you are navigating the emergency situation on your own, make a list of every phone number you could possibly need. It sounds ludicrous, but when you start making this list and you struggle through th...

Submarine Officer's Basic Course (SOBC)

My husband was picked up STA-21 . I've written several blog posts about our STA-21 journey  and going through the officer pipeline: power school and prototype in South Carolina . It is surreal to me to be writing this post about the last piece of his STA-21 journey, going to SOBC in Connecticut. It doesn't seem that long ago that we received the news that he was picked up STA-21. It was such a whirlwind leaving Hawaii to move to North Carolina for him to get his degree in mechanical engineering; all too soon he graduated college and we were off to South Carolina going through the officer pipeline.It is crazy to me that in a few short weeks we will be back to the fleet. When we left the fleet for the STA-21 program, I felt we had all the time in the world. I tried to remind myself along the way that the time would slip away from us, but it is one thing to know it and another to live it. But I digress. Right now my hubby is at SOBC (Submarine Officer's Basic Course). ...