My "Feeding Story"

I put that in quotes because I kind of hate being the kind of mom on the Internet who uses phrases like "feeding story." It's up there with like, "season of life" and "fellowship" as a verb as far as annoying me goes. However that is literally what this is and I'm just not up for thinking of something super clever right now, so here goes. Of course you can always just skip the words and admire the pictures of Sadie.

Anyway, if you recall from a previous post, my plan had basically been to feed Sadie with formula as soon as we left the hospital. When we got home, this was still my plan. One of the several reasons for this was that I had heard so many horror stories about how difficult, painful, and stressful breastfeeding could be, and with the already difficult situation of having my first baby in another country, I didn't want to add to that.

Sadie trying to give Oma a kiss!

The first thing I did when we got home was to take a shower since I hadn't had one at the hospital while Hunter got ready to give Sadie a bottle of formula. When I got out, he asked if I could feed her one last time, since we didn't have a thermometer to measure the temperature of the formula (yeah I know you can just test it on your wrist or whatever but at that point we were being super anal about everything). So I breastfed her "one last time" while he went out to find a thermometer. We gave her a few more bottles after that, which always seemed to take forever to prepare, what with boiling the water and waiting for it to cool and everything (we did eventually streamline this process also).

She gets into the goofiest poses. And yes that is Candy Crush open on the phone.

Then, we decided that at three in the morning, it just wasn't practical to prepare a bottle. I am aware that some people make them ahead and store them in the fridge, but we have read that you really aren't supposed to do that. I know my parents did it with me and obviously I'm fine, but I just feel like there's no sense in risking it if you don't have to. So at that point, we decided that we would give her formula during the day, but for night feedings I would breastfeed her. The midwife told me if I did this, the milk would be a little less every day, but I was ok with that, thinking that once it ran out we could just use the more expensive, pre-mixed formula to feed her at night. Plus eventually she'd be sleeping through the night, ideally.

My camera can do effects!

Anyway, there eventually came a moment when she was very hungry, crying probably the most she had up to that point, and we just didn't want to go through the hassle of making a bottle. It was at that point that I decided to just go ahead and breastfeed. It really wasn't that difficult or painful, and it was a lot more convenient. We are still using bottles from time to time. When we left Sadie with my parents, they could easily just whip one up, Hunter fed her one so I could go grocery shopping, and I'm guessing they will be more convenient for travel. I was just very surprised because I had seen so many people on the Internet saying that people who use formula are "lazy" or "taking the easy way out" and that was not my experience at all. Not only does it take time to prepare the bottles, but you have to make sure they are clean all the time and everything. I know a lot of people have struggles with breastfeeding, and if I did I probably wouldn't stick with it very long, because I have enough other things to deal with right now. But since it's what's working best for our family, I am happy to do it, even though it wasn't part of my original plan.

I was able to catch her in a smile and ridiculous pose.