Reply to Electing not to breastfeed

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I know numerous women who chosen to breast feed for similar reasons, and totally support you in your choice to do so. Formula is really good and there are lots of ways to bond with your baby (including while feeding them formula!). And you are right there are other advantages, like being able to share feeding duties with your partner. And pumping is miserable. I EBF for about a year and while I enjoyed nursing, I hated pumping with the passion of a thousand suns and pretty much always resented having to do it. If your work is not supportive of it, that makes it much worse (mine was a huge pain about it and I worked in an open plan office at the time so I really had to demand accommodations and they made me feel terrible about it.

You should do what you want.[/quote]

Me again. I reread this and realize it sounded super negative! And regarding pumping and work accommodations, I am negative -- that aspect of the experience was not great.

But I do want to say I was surprised by how much I actually enjoyed breastfeeding. I was not expecting to do it for a year, and certainly not exclusively. But it turned out to be one of the things about motherhood that came very naturally to me and it was really nice to have one thing that just clicked. I know many women who struggled with BFing and I definitely feel like you shouldn't feel compelled to do it or like you failed in any way if it doesn't go smoothly. But I should note that I expected to be a formula mom and instead I stuck with BFing for quite a while because it felt good to me to have this one thing that I could always do for my baby. It's why I stuck with pumping even when work was annoying about it and I didn't like it -- it just felt good to me to know I was providing something for her even when we were apart.

But that doesn't mean that's what your experience will be or that it's the only approach. It was just mine. That's why I think people should do what they want -- the point is to feel like you are doing the right thing for your baby and yourself, not to do what someone else thinks the right thing is. [/quote]

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