When my Mom was raising her children, breastfeeding was NOT cool, and her doctor kind of went against common trend in saying she should continue to feed us formula longer and delay the introduction of food to limit allergies and stuff. What I'm getting at is parenting is dissected and contradicted every several years. Think about baby on back, baby on stomach, baby on side, baby in parent's bed, baby absolutely not in parent's bed. Those have all been the absolute mandate at one time or another.

And I think there is a vast difference in what the WHO recommends and what American women need to do. First of all, the water you would mix with the formula could kill your baby in a lot of countries.

Obviously having a special needs child ups the ante with that stuff, but I've seen it ramp up big time because women are waiting later to have kids and they're focused on it in ways that younger mothers aren't necessarily. Becoming a parent, for my circles (educated women who focused on a career for nearly a decade before having a very planned child), is this major PROJECT, way more than it was for our mothers' generations.

It's kind of a luxury to compete with other women over this stuff--I don't see a ton of teen moms pulling this stuff. :rolleyes:

I also think it's sometimes overcompensation. I've noticed many extreme cases of AP where the mother has thought nothing about putting her newborn in the care of strangers so she can quickly resume her career or doesn't think it's necessary to have an involved father in the picture, but God forgive you if you get in the way of her whipping out her boob to nurse her three year old in the middle of Starbucks.

I'm a bit close to this issue at the moment, probably because I was feeding my 5 week old when I pulled up the thread. :) He is exclusively breast fed, and I hope that he will be for a while. But we've had a number of issues in his first 5 weeks, all of which have lead to an incredible amount of pain for me. Breastfeeding him has been the most difficult and painful thing I have ever done in my life. (Note that I had a med-free birth. Yes, I am saying that breastfeeding him has been more painful and difficult than childbirth itself.) Because of my experience I will always do my best to never ever judge a mama who cannot breastfeed her baby. (I will still judge people like an acquaintance of mine who expressly said she wasn't going to breastfeed because it would interfere with her social life, aka her ability to drink as much and as often as she wanted to once her baby was born. But that's a whole other issue.)

I would hope that, in return, I would be given the same courtesy of not being judged if I manage to continue breastfeeding him past an age that others consider appropriate. I doubt we will make it that far, but who knows? Don't judge an AP parent and in the same breath criticize the AP parent for being judgmental. I don't consider myself an AP mama, I think I'm more in the middle. But I definitely see the judgmental attitudes going both ways

Breastfeeding was very painful and difficult for me also and I only lasted a few weeks with each child. It turned out that both were lactose intolerant and felt uncomfortable almost all the time so they screamed for hours on end. They both wanted to nurse every 1.5 hours or so. Because of my size, the only position I could use for nursing wasn't comfortable or bonding to me. I reached a point where I was so exhausted I thought I was going to collapse and I couldn't handle not being able to leave the house at all for weeks on end because I had to be there to feed the baby. Maybe that was selfish and a lot of people tried to make me feel guilty but I bonded much better with my babies when I fed them hypoallergenic formula (yeah, her allergies are why she picked that username..lol) and we all got to sleep for more than an hour at a time. When I could rock with them in the rocking chair while giving them a bottle, I felt closer to them. While nursing, between the pain, the sleep deprivation,the weird position and the inability to do anything but nurse a baby and try to sleep, I was just growing resentful, not bonding. People need to do what is right for them. I have great admiration for women who can do it, but I couldn't do it. Nutramigen and mylicon drops worked wonders for us.

The mom is a model... and forgive me for saying so, but as a whole, models tend to have a pretty healthy dose of self esteem. I can't believe that they had the picture of the boy's face full on and didn't at least have him turn to her so his face wasn't so apparent. I echo that Google is forever and he will not appreciate it when he's older.

I don't have kids, so I don't have a dog in this fight. That being said, I know way too many people that are fans of attachment parenting. Two people I grew up with are doulas. Another sleeps with all 3 of her children (I think the oldest is around 8). Yet another still breastfeeds, and her child is 6. SIX. If they're in first grade, I don't think they still need it.

AnotherKD, holy shit. Do I know these people?


I multi-quoted a bunch of things yesterday, but then decided not to post. I'll just share instead today.

My baby girl is almost 4 months, and we are still breastfeeding! That is huge for us. My older two were unsuccessfully breastfed. I was miserable for a plethora of reasons. They were miserable, too. We started supplementing at 5 or 6 weeks, and completely stopped BFing at 10 weeks. For whatever reason, #3 kicks ass at breastfeeding. We tried formula once, and she screamed her blessed little head off. She has boob when I'm home whenever she wants. I'm pumping more than enough at work to keep up with her demands, too. It's my goal to at least BF until 6 months, possibly one year.

Now... there was nothing more demoralizing with my first two than hearing "it" from other moms when I told them we were not BFing. The LLL types made me feel like shit for quiting. This time though, I've found the LLL website to be a good resource, and I think it's part of why we're doing such a good job. I'm all for BFing a baby as long as possible IF that's what the mother chooses to do. However, once the psychological impact trumps the physical benefit, it's time to stop. (Like this case). I am also more offended by the title of being "Mom Enough." Fuck that shit. Just because her kid is still on the tit at the age of nearly 4, she is not a better mom than I. Just different. I am more than MOM ENOUGH.

FWIW, I was NOT breastfed. Formula for me from the get-go, and I'm a damn genius. ;) That argument is moot. (I was also put on my belly to sleep. I let our baby girl doze off on her belly today during tummy time, and my husband about shit a brick).

Co-sleeping is a different story. Often times, co-sleeping deaths are a result of poor planning or other influences (drug or alcohol impairment). We co-slept with #1 and #2 a little bit during their first few weeks. #2 was a loud sleeper though, so we really didn't get good sleep. I was always very paranoid though and dozed more than really "slept". We had a large, overstuffed, soft pillow top bed, which made me paranoid. #3 co-slept more than the other two because we have a better bed (memory foam, very firm), slept with fewer blankets and pillows, and it was easier for me to just roll over and pop a boob in her mouth when she woke up for those middle of the night feedings. I would doze, she would eat, and she would fall off when she was done. We were happy campers.

This was the only reason we co-slept with either of our kids. Had I not be BFing, I would not have co-slept because I would've had to get out of bed anyway to prepare a bottle.

I don't want to judge either way - I'm amazed that some women want to (and can) BF for so long. I'm also more than understanding of women who only do it for so long. And even more understanding of women who choose not to BF at all. And, if one of the reasons is because she doesn't want to have to either avoid alcohol altogether or pump and dump, so be it. She shared her body for 9 months - I don't see it as unreasonable (and certainly not worthy of judgment) to opt for the bottle.

The woman on the TIME cover, though... it's hard not to judge her simply because of her poor decision to exploit her kid.

I'm Mom Enough.

Medically necessary scheduled c-section? Check.
Baby in nursery at hospital so I could recover? Check.
Formula fed? Check.
Baby in own bed in own room from day one? Check.

I was mom enough to make my own decisions about what was best for our family.

The kicker for me was when a woman online (Catholic and militantly quiverfull) told me she was SURE I could have naturally delivered. Posted all kinds of research about why I could have delivered. Right. And you've examined me and my 97th percentile baby's head how many times compared to my doctor?

Women can be absolutely ridiculous about this stuff. They have WAY too much of their identity wrapped up in these choices.

And I think putting that child on the cover is child abuse, pure and simple. It's appalling. :(

I think it's a disgusting and selfish thing for her to do.

This would be a great name for a band.

But seriously, you hit the nail on the head when you said women have their IDENTITY wrapped up in what they do or don't do as far as parenting is concerned, from gestation all the way through to the kid's grad school and job choices. Any woman who says things like "my life didn't start until I had my child" is a step short of pathological, in my book...or maybe just really lame and stupid.

Ditto x infinity.

@IrishLake, I don't think so...

I work with a woman who adopted a newborn about a year ago. She told me horror stories about women (complete strangers, mind you) berating her about giving her formula. Some people have no common decency.