There are a lot of incredible movements happening within mom communities lately in an effort to cultivate stronger relationships between moms online and off. One of my favorite movements follows the hashtag #FedIsBest. It’s all about commending moms for feeding their babies – whether that food comes from breast or bottle or both! Because at the end of the day moms are just making the best choices for their babies and mother really does know best. And sometimes, what we really need more than anything, is the affirmation that our choice matters.
When my son was born I was faced with such a choice. As a mom of two, I found myself facing my first battle with severe anxiety and depression. To make matters worse my son would not feed when latched properly and spent hours each day miserably hungry as we tried to get him to eat. We went on like this for weeks as I struggled with the decision to change our “plan.” Finally, my husband offered an observation that I just couldn’t see in the middle of the fog. He said to me
“You know whatever choice you make is going to be the right choice, don’t you?”
Because he knew that the choice I made would always be the best choice for me and for baby.
It’s been 6 months since I made the choice to switch to formula and I haven’t looked back since. I know that for us, it was the right choice. Since then I’ve had to make a million more choices about the care of my children and most of them we do almost unconsciously. They’re easy choices like “No. Popsicles are not for dinner.”
Others require more thought. Like which formula to choose. Did you know that all infant formulas must be compliant with FDA nutritional standards?
But whatever we decide to feed and however we decide to do it, at the end of the day we’re doing the best we can and fed really is best.
I really like this post – as a mum who has both bottlefed and breastfed, I think it’s important for people to realise as long as baby is fed, and mum and baby are happy, it shouldn’t really matter how they are fed.