Anyone who says breastfeeding is cheaper than formula is full of it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
PP who talked about 'hidden costs' here.

No. Breastfeeding is not free if you get mastitis or thrush. I did not pay for prescription drugs to make breastfeeding "more comfortable/better/easier/enjoyable". I did it so that I would not die of a deep bacterial infection and to keep myself and my child healthy.

Furthermore, you can't compare the cost of bf in DC to bf in a traditional society where a LC is free and where if you can't bf your child, it is possible that your sister or another relative may be able to do so. (For more on why we pay for things that are free in traditional societies read "Life Inc" by Douglas Rushkoff - great book).

Give me a fkn break, srsly? The cost of antibiotics used to treat mastitis is nominal, I know I had mastitis myself and had to use them. Not to mention, mastitis is common and a "deep bacterial infection" can happen if left untreated, and believe me, not kill you, overwhelming sepsis will. The short of it is, we have options in this countries and multiple excuses to fail. In fact, we're set up to fail at things like breastfeeding due to things like minimal maternity leave, access to formula, social stigma of breastfeeding, and the myriad of excuses (ie poor latch, not making enough milk, allergies). Don't take it personally if you used formula or choose to breastfeed, no one cares what I ate for dinner, so no one should care what your baby does either.

[Anonymous]

What I don't understand is why should anyone care if the woman next to you needed X, Y, and Z in order to succeed at breastfeeding? People have talked about boppies as uneccessary- sure they're not essential to the actual act of nursing, but no need to denigrate anyone who wanted to use one in order to make themselves more comfortable. Just be glad you didn't need X, Y, and Z and be supportive that the woman who did want/need it was able to bf for as long as she wanted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Haven’t read all the posts, but I wanted to add my personal experience. I have no doubt that breastfeeding / pumping can be super experensive for some, but I’m positive I spent less than if I was formula feeding.

I returned to work FT at 3 months. I Breastfed DS to 13 months. In that time, he received 6 oz of formula (at day care, when I apparently didn’t send enough milk, this came from one of the hospital free samples).

My expenses:
$300 for the Medela Freestyle (ordered online from addalittlelove.com)
$30 for hands free bra (also ordered from addalittlelove.com)
$120 for 3 nursing bras, 3 nursing tanks all from Target (I’m an A/B FWIW)
$30 for extra pump parts (not a necessity, but I kept these at my office in case I forgot parts one day. They only ended up being used 3-4 times, so I’ll use them as replacement parts for #2).
$40 for 6 Avent bottles (DS drank 3 bottles / day at day care, I’d nurse all other times, so 6 was plenty)
$30 for replacement nipples as old nipples aged
$50 for milk storage bags (I froze a lot of milk)
TOTAL: $600
I’m now PG with #2 and all I think I really need are new bottle nipples and milk storage bags.

I spent that the first 3 months of FF (if you count bottles etc.).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I don't understand is why should anyone care if the woman next to you needed X, Y, and Z in order to succeed at breastfeeding? People have talked about boppies as uneccessary- sure they're not essential to the actual act of nursing, but no need to denigrate anyone who wanted to use one in order to make themselves more comfortable. Just be glad you didn't need X, Y, and Z and be supportive that the woman who did want/need it was able to bf for as long as she wanted.

Because, we live in DC. And if you don't feed your child, have your child sleep, or use a car seat - EXACTLY as I do, you are obviously the most subpar of parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I don't understand is why should anyone care if the woman next to you needed X, Y, and Z in order to succeed at breastfeeding? People have talked about boppies as uneccessary- sure they're not essential to the actual act of nursing, but no need to denigrate anyone who wanted to use one in order to make themselves more comfortable. Just be glad you didn't need X, Y, and Z and be supportive that the woman who did want/need it was able to bf for as long as she wanted.

Because, we live in DC. And if you don't feed your child, have your child sleep, or use a car seat - EXACTLY as I do, you are obviously the most subpar of parents.

No, because implying that you HAVE to have 3 pumps, $$$ on LC advice, 2 deep freezers, tons of bottles, etc. etc. etc., is probably scarying the ##@&#$!! out of a bunch of expectant moms here. I don't care what other people do for nursing or not, but expectant first time moms should know that the VAST MAJORITY of people who choose to try and BF do not need anywhere NEAR this amount of gear. Even with the occasional problem or bump along the way, or trouble in the beginning, etc. I think that list of necessary items is very very extreme. But I certainly do not fault this person at all for doing what worked for her and what she needed to do for herself and her family.

[Anonymous]

I'm the EPer, still reading. Didn't realize my post would cause so much controversy.

I read back on my post and didn't see where it said that these were necessary costs or that you needed to have all these items. And yeah, maybe it's a stretch to associate some of them with nursing but if I implied that they were all necessary, than I apologize. But if you remember, I exclusively pumped; I didn't nurse directly so yeah, some of the things I bought with the intention of nursing were wasted, like the nursing pillow. Yes, the hand pump isn't necessary, but I've forgotten pump parts at home before and we've all seen desperate posts from women on DCUM about how they forgot some pump part at home and what could do they.

I only intended to say that for me personally, breastfeeding, or more accurately, providing breast milk has been an expensive undertaking. I fully admit formula is more expensive; as I mentioned, my first child was exclusively formula-fed. Someone said that I should've stopped pumping extra milk so I didn't have to buy the deep freezers (purchased one second-hand so not very expensive). I followed Kellymom's advice of pumping 8-12 times a day for the first 12 weeks to try to establish supply. Even though I had a good supply, which fell dramatically once I went to 3 pumps a day, the thought never would've crossed my mind to throw any of that milk away and I'm surprised that someone would suggest that.

I can talk about the expensive LC visit (and in hindsight, I wish I might've explored more options) but I was desperate, was 4 days post-partum with a child who was jaundiced and newly released from a bilirubin hospital stay, along with a vaginal tear and a jealous and cranky 22 month old to boot. Sure a better and thriftier mom couldn've made it to an LLL meeting, but I couldn't do it. I called and they came out a few hours later, which may be why it was so expensive. I asked at the peds for help and they brought me a staff nurse who'd bf'd all three of her children. She could only really tell me to keep at it, but my problem wasn't as simple as that. I can sit here and justify all those items on my list but in the end, they helped me keep me going way past what I thought I'd last with pumping.

Anyway, just to clear things up- I hope most people will never want or need the items I did. I hope most people are able to have a successful and longlasting breastfeeding relationship with their children and will never have to resort to exclusively pumping or feel the guilt and pressure I allowed myself to. Again, I didn't say anyone who nursed or pumps needs those, but those are the costs to me.

[Anonymous]

I EP'd for 6 months with lots of difficulty and then weaned to Neocate (if you think Nutramigen is expensive, Neocate is about twice as much!) so I know the expense of both, but some of this is ridiculous. The deep freezers are not a cost of breastfeeding or even EP'ing. That's a cost of satisfying your neurosis. Seriously. Pump milk, feed it to your baby. Pump more, feed it to your baby. Put it in the fridge for a day or two. If you have a gazillion ounces, pump less. You don't need to stockpile thousands of ounces in order to feed your baby.

[Anonymous]

You should check out the price of FF. First of all, you're buying bottles for breastmilk, I'm buying bottles for formula. That's a wash. You buy parts that can last for another baby, I buy formula that's gone in 5 days. It's $21-$25 per package. We are easily spending $120 per month on formula alone. I would love to BF to save all this cash!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm the EPer, still reading. Didn't realize my post would cause so much controversy.

I read back on my post and didn't see where it said that these were necessary costs or that you needed to have all these items. And yeah, maybe it's a stretch to associate some of them with nursing but if I implied that they were all necessary, than I apologize. But if you remember, I exclusively pumped; I didn't nurse directly so yeah, some of the things I bought with the intention of nursing were wasted, like the nursing pillow. Yes, the hand pump isn't necessary, but I've forgotten pump parts at home before and we've all seen desperate posts from women on DCUM about how they forgot some pump part at home and what could do they.

I only intended to say that for me personally, breastfeeding, or more accurately, providing breast milk has been an expensive undertaking. I fully admit formula is more expensive; as I mentioned, my first child was exclusively formula-fed. Someone said that I should've stopped pumping extra milk so I didn't have to buy the deep freezers (purchased one second-hand so not very expensive). I followed Kellymom's advice of pumping 8-12 times a day for the first 12 weeks to try to establish supply. Even though I had a good supply, which fell dramatically once I went to 3 pumps a day, the thought never would've crossed my mind to throw any of that milk away and I'm surprised that someone would suggest that.

I can talk about the expensive LC visit (and in hindsight, I wish I might've explored more options) but I was desperate, was 4 days post-partum with a child who was jaundiced and newly released from a bilirubin hospital stay, along with a vaginal tear and a jealous and cranky 22 month old to boot. Sure a better and thriftier mom couldn've made it to an LLL meeting, but I couldn't do it. I called and they came out a few hours later, which may be why it was so expensive. I asked at the peds for help and they brought me a staff nurse who'd bf'd all three of her children. She could only really tell me to keep at it, but my problem wasn't as simple as that. I can sit here and justify all those items on my list but in the end, they helped me keep me going way past what I thought I'd last with pumping.

Anyway, just to clear things up- I hope most people will never want or need the items I did. I hope most people are able to have a successful and longlasting breastfeeding relationship with their children and will never have to resort to exclusively pumping or feel the guilt and pressure I allowed myself to. Again, I didn't say anyone who nursed or pumps needs those, but those are the costs to me.

PP, don't feel like you need to apologize or explain yourself to anyone here. You did something that was very hard and did it well. I get really pissed when I hear people refer to bad latch as an "excuse." People who have never EP'd really have no idea how hard it is. Very few women would choose it over nursing if they had the choice.

I saw 6 different LCs and not one could tell me why my baby refused to latch. They just kept telling me that I needed more skin to skin and to keep trying. Well, after trying 8+ times a day for over three weeks in addition to pumping and bottle feeding and with every attempt leaving both my baby and me in tears, I gave up on nursing and started EPing. And it was expensive, although probably cheaper than formula in the long run.

If all you needed to successfully BF was a Boppy and some nursing bras, hooray for you. Count yourself lucky, but please keep your suggestions that pumpers should dump their extra milk rather than store it to yourselves. And to the EPer who said you should only pump what your baby will drink and not any extra, I hope you realize that babies' appetites increase over time, and it's not that easy to increase your supply with a pump over time. It's much easier to establish a good supply in the beginning with the pump than to try to increase it as your baby's demand increases. Plus, god forbid, a mother might want the convenience of being able to stop pumping a month or two early while still feeding her baby the frozen milk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had lots of bf issues including no latch, delayed/low supply, infections/pain, etc and had multiple visits w lc, tried every herb, every device, pump, bottle, storage system, etc, everything out there...but I'm afraid I have to agree w others that say this doesn't mean that bf is more expensive. it was an expensive process because I insisted on making it work and I have the means to try all this stuff... that doesn't mean bf itself is expensive.

I think that the point is not whether Bf is actually more expensive than FF, but rather that when you have trouble with BF, there are tremendous hidden costs that take you by surprise, and these costs quickly add up. I am not a frivolous person, but I spent over $1000 to BF. Costs included over $150 for the generic version of diflucan b/c I had to be on it for longer than my insurance would cover. It also included a very expensive LC because with my first child I saw multiple less expensive LCs and they just couldn't address my BF pain. If you have copays for office visits and prescriptions, then each bout of mastitis can easily cost $30-50. I'm not talking about buying a recliner or a freezer, I'm talking about the cost of minimal amt of care to make BF work for me.

What I'm saying is that these hidden costs take many of us by surprise, and when you are already struggling with BF and maybe struggling with whether or not you can continue to BF, they can increase the feeling that there is something "wrong" with you b/c so many people told you that BF is so much cheaper than formula. For the PP who posted that if you are "truly indigent" that you don't need all of this expensive stuff, I have to point out what we all know: In this country poor women don't breastfeed, or at least only a very small percentage of them don't. So I think we need to take seriously the cost barriers to BF.

You hit the nail on the head. Anyone who pretends that there are no financial strains associated with breastfeeding does a disservice to those promoting breastfeeding. Maybe if we acknowledged the expenses, we lower-income women would have better luck getting financial assistance. WIC covers a breast pump; does it cover nursing pads and nipple cream? And nursing bras? I had a G cup and my bras were not cheap. A regular underwire bra, for many women, leads to clogged ducts...and mastitis.

From a cost perspective - costco formula for a year is probably cheaper than breastfeeding, unless you have 100% smooth sailing from the beginning.

You think the government should pay for your nipple cream and nursing bras? If you're that broke, the only thing I would support the government paying for is your birth control.

[Anonymous]

I have twins that were born prematurely and were required to have a special formula costing 17.99 per can. We used 1 can a day resulting in an annual cost of $6,895!! I was so happy when they turned a year and were taken off formula.

[Anonymous]

Dear expectant moms reading this mess,
Please don't think that every mom spends this much to BF. There is a big range, and OP is an outlier.
Signed,
BF for 22 mos who spent prob $300

[Anonymous]

Didn't read all the responses, but I'm curious about my own costs now. It's been a few years, but here's what I recall:
2 nursing bras @ $60 each - $120
My Brest Friend pillow - $40
Pads - needed them for 8 months - $40
Lactation consultant - $80
Pump - only had one, kept it at the office - $200
Storage bags - $50?
Nipple cream - $20
Bottles and nipples - $50
TOTAL for 4 months of EBF and another 10 months of partial BF - $600

I supplemented with formula after returning to work. No idea how much that cost.

Lesson: babies are expensive!

[Anonymous]

PP here... forgot to factor in the meds. Co-pays for four prescriptions (2 antibiotics for mastitis, 1 course of diflucan for thrush, 1 round of meds for vasospasms) - another $60.

[Anonymous]

This thread has been really interesting to me because I somehow managed to go almost 30 years without realizing the large number of problems that apparently go along with breastfeeding. I did not know there was a whole industry around products associated with it, from special chairs and pillows to pumps of varying intensity. My mother breastfed all 3 of her children, at a time when it was not common to do that. My entire experience prior to having a child was that breastfeeding is the right thing to do for your baby - I never once heard the caveat "if that is what you choose" or "if you are able to" before moving here. When my friends started having children, they did complain of the difficulties of breastfeeding, but most of those difficulties involved unsupportive doctors, nurses and family members. I never heard of physical difficulties. I do not for a second disbelieve their existence, but it really is surprising to me how many people in this area seem to have physical problems breastfeeding.

I would be really interested to hear to what extent these physical problems existed in earlier times when breastfeeding was the norm and what the solutions for them were then.