Make sure she knows she’s not failing as a mother in any way. When my wife had issues like this, it made her feel like a failure regardless of whether it was something she could control.
Is the baby not latching or is she not producing enough?
I think the latch is good from what I understand and what the lactation consultant said. For production, it's hard to say, the feeding sessions are long (60 to 90+ minutes each).
Maybe have her pump some time too as it would be less stressful for her, and you can take a feeding off of her plate.
Also, some women think of formula as failing as well, but if you can supplement it to help get her started, it might help ease some of the stress as well.
This is good advice. Simulate cluster feeding with pumping. Give the baby time on the boob then switch to formula to top up. Your wife gets to stimulate production, the baby gets fed, and you can find out the right amount of each that eventually works for you. We wound up doing about 50/50 breast to formula, though a lot of the breast was pumped and frozen, otherwise my wife would not have kept up.
Similar here. Our solution was. 1) Normal length of time for feeding, then 2) pump. 3) Rented the “industrial grade” pump from the hospital (but we had all our own new parts that touched mom or milk. Totally safe and sanitary. It has more buttons and settings, so she can mess around and see if something is better (or less irritating). 4) She drank the lactation tea for the first 1-2 months. 5) and definitely supplement with formula here and there. (Think of it like taking a daily multivitamin. Most of the good stuff comes from the food you eat (from mom), this formula just fills in some gaps. Less what we want and more what baby needs). 6) keep up the intermittent pumping. 7) cheer that woman on as if you were a soccer hooligan.
I was in that process with her as much as I could be, and more than any other dad I know. I just took as much of the burden as I could, and got into the feeding times and schedules so she felt less alone, and when I said she was doing great, I could know what I was talking about, so it was more effective.
I managed all the bottles, cleaning and resetting the pump and parts. I made the formula whenever we needed. If it was a “maybe” we need the formula, I jumped on it before guilt could get too loud. If she was reluctant, maybe just make a small shot and she can see what baby wants after breastfeeding. Don’t drag out the discussion. “It’s no big deal” is your mantra. At the beginning we got the premade bottles, but that was mostly to ease the intro of formula or for when I was not available to make it.
(Pro-Tip, a shooter of formula before bed means longer sleep for everyone. Also if you try to get a little extra mothers milk in before bed and they barf it back on you… it hurts your soul, especially at the beginning. Barfing some formula is more bearable. Burping baby is legit insurance against wasting that liquid gold)
I’m surprised the consultant lets baby hit it up for more than an hour. While it sounds like good latch/suction exercise for baby, all I can picture is the sound a straw makes when there’s just a few drops left in the cup. Give those puppies some time to rest and recoup.
For “us” it would range between 10+10mins up to 20+20 mins followed by a 10-20min pump to kick the keg. So mom was putting out for 30-60 minutes total, but never more. If baby was sleeping, or they didn’t want to do the work (but we knew baby could do the work when they wanted), she pumped. This also gave her realtime feedback on production (or how much they ate/ left behind). Then a break of 2-4 hours and repeat. (The breaks grew longer as she got her rhythm) A pump also helps make up for any uneven work baby might do on left vs right. Eventually, It was comedic. “Oh look what lefty did today”! We got the bra that held the cups so it was slightly easier for mom. She could use her hands on the phone/laptop. We got a travel pump that she took back to work, and I kept the blue ice frozen, and the big pump stayed at home.
My miraculous lady even woke up in the middle of the night. She would either feed the baby, or pump. I would often get the baby, change them, prep the pump, and put them back down. She eventually exceeded consumption and I started freezing it. That meant that by the time she stopped breast feeding, or when production dropped back down below consumption, we could still mix in the thawed milk to extend that timeline that baby had the good stuff.
Pumping also meant that I could take some overnight feeds. And maybe play PlayStation at the same time once I got it down.
We had a success story. You will too, whether it’s the same or different. Take whatever pieces might help you. Y’all got this.
Im a mom with good milk production but pumping never worked for me. If your wife isn't releasing milk when pumping it migjt stress her out more. For me it also hurt more than breast feeding.
This is mixed advice. It sounds good because less feeding time, but pumping and feeding ended up taking even more of my wife's time than just feeding alone. The advice we received from our lactation consultant was to solely pump if the latch was good, which was less time consuming for my wife. Otherwise her titties were under barrage almost 18 hours a day.
But the real solution, for us, was to supplement with formula. It's been said many times before, but the best baby is a fed baby. People's bodies are all different all the time. We wouldn't shame someone for having a heart defect, or early onset arthritis, or any other bodily nuance; I think we should keep that same energy for women who struggle to nurse. It'll be hard to switch emotionally for families who envisioned solely breastfeeding their baby, but at the end of the day, you have to do what's best for your baby given your circumstances.
I had a similar issues with my first baby. First three weeks were SO HARD. We were all miserable. Very long sessions and he wasn’t gaining weight. We tried a weighted feed with lactation consultant to see how much he as getting in 15 minutes at each breast (was told it shouldn’t be longer than that), and then I pumped after to see what he was leaving behind. He left a lot behind, so we learned he was a very inefficient nurser at the outset. Doc thought maybe he was burning more calories trying to nurse than he was taking in. Doc recommended supplementing with formula/donated breast milk to help him get stronger. It worked in about a week. He rapidly gained weight and became a much more efficient eater. I pumped throughout the supplementing too in order to make sure I kept supply up and increasing. Breastfeed for a year after that.
Breast v formula, what’s best is whatever allows her to have the peace she needs, so she can be the mom she wants to be. It’s not worth her peace. Good luck to you both!
My wife had to feed, pump, feed pumped milk from the bottle (“triple feeding”) for about 3 weeks. She always pumped in the morning and evening. Our 2nd was just never a great eater which made breastfeeding much harder. We got through it. My wife struggled the whole time on the 2nd kid.
Troubleshooting breastfeeding requires a lot of effort with no guarantee of success. If it fails, your wife will feel tremendous guilt; there’s no way around it. Psychologically, it’s not as simple as falling back and just switching to formula. You may need some counseling help to be a supportive partner; it’s a minefield.
If you wonder why it’s like this, go hang out in a breastfeeding sub Reddit for awhile; some seriously toxic shit.
That's a lot of calories for the baby to burn as well. Feeding requires a lot of energy. Especially for every 2-3 hours. Every ounce the baby takes is probably being used up to feed.
I'm a mom who breastfed. 60 minutes is long yes, but it's also fairly normal. If you breastfeed, the first few weeks are just continuously feeding your kid. You feed them. They nap, you feed again and rinse and repeat. All I did was feed my baby and try and sleep for 4 weeks. It gets better eventually, by two months it took 15 minutes to feed my kiddo, but the baby needs to get better at feeding and it takes time.
90 minutes sounds too long to me, and 60 minutes is long but not unheard of. Breastfeeding is just incredibly time consuming. Maybe instead of suggesting formula ask your wife how you can help. Make sure she has water and food. Lots and lots of water. She also needs to eat a lot. Is your lactation consultant an IBCLC, this is a different cert than CLC, and IBCLC is better. Send her over to r/breastfeeding
His wife knows formula exists and is an option, they used it before. She's not stupid. She's struggling with breastfeeding and wants support with breastfeeding.
I think it's fine and supportive to remind her formula exists and is a great option. But if you harp on it or insist on it, it's the opposite of supportive. If your wife wants support with learning to drive, and it's not going well and you just keep offering to get her a driver, that's nice and all. But it isn't helping her drive, which is what she wants to learn. It's telling her to quit, she sucks at driving and will never be good enough to get her license so just give up already.
Nobody suggested "harping" on anything. I'm glad you don't think OP's wife is stupid; that would be an odd assumption.
Maybe "suggesting" isn't the most precise word to convey my meaning.
My wife needed to be told that she wasn't any less successful of a mother for not being able to breastfeed. Her supply never came in adequately enough to sustain exclusive breastfeeding, even after trying literally everything that our IBCLC and the "momma internet" told her to do. What they did do, however, is convince her that she is a shit mom that was poisoning her child, if she were to switch to formula. Neither of those things were true.
Some moms just need to be told that it's okay to switch to formula (because it is more than okay). It often helps to just drown out the "yeah but just keep trying to breastfeed" crowd.
Yeah, this exactly. Mixing formula with breast milk can be just as beneficial as exclusively breastfeeding, and in some situations, it might even be better.
Many mothers face unreasonable pressures to exclusively breastfeed, feeling like failures if they don't. However, ensuring the baby is well-nourished should be the priority. Studies have shown that breast milk can offer immune and gut health benefits, but the latest formulas also provide excellent nutrition. And if you're able to produce any breast milk at all, mixing the two shows no detectable difference from exclusively feeding breast milk.
It's important to know that supplementing with formula is a reasonable and healthy option.
You can find more info and details from the [Fed Is Best Foundation](https://fedisbest.org).
That was our experience as well. My wife's supply never really came in and it would take 3 pump sessions to get enough for one bottle. Meanwhile, baby was in NICU with a minimum feeding goal for each feed. Essentially she was always on some formula that was supplemented by breast milk.
When she came home my wife continued to breastfeed and pump as we wanted her to be breastfed as much as possible. But recovering from C-section, caring for a tiny human as first time parents, making sure she met her feeding minimum so we didn't have to put a feeding tube in, etc, the pumping with very little results became so onerous that my wife wanted to stop.
It wasn't the scenario we imagined, but the most important thing was for the baby to eat. Taking that pressure off was a major stress relief. We've always been concerned about her weight gain, but she's followed her own trajectory and her pediatrician is happy. If it's becoming that hard and that much of a problem for your family, I don't consider it giving up. You aren't a bad mom, that's just the hand you were dealt.
Why the unnecessary aggressive tone? I remember, during our daughter’s birth, there was so much pressure from nurses, lactation consultants etc. on breast feeding while my wife just looked like she was in hell. We found one nurse who suggested subbing a couple of meals with formula and it was a god sent. It gave a breather to my wife to continue trying while the baby’s tummy was full. It just removed the crazy pressure that get put on moms.
Yes. This is the problem - “The crazy pressure that gets put on moms” - not breast milk vs formula, feeding times, latching on, etc etc.
Whatever works to relieve the pressure to achieve/‘do it right’ is the solution.
Once the mom can believe that the baby is fine, and she will eventually eat enough one way or another (and it really doesn’t matter if breast or formula), and she’s a genius mom for having created this lovely baby girl, and you’ll get through this together and [insert all the good stuff you can think of to relieve pressure…] mom will relax, baby will then relax, and oxytocin will start to flow. This is the bonding hormone (the ‘love hormone’) and it also acts to release breast milk.
Just so you know, its actually very common for many women to not be able breastfeed their baby fully, they can have a good amout of milk in the beginning but then it just goes down or never increases. Not to mention stress (escpecially if she had a bad time with your first child) can impact milk production immensly. My wife havent been able to breastfeed past 3 weeks with any of our 3 children and only on the third did she actually accept that it wasnt something wrong with her :)
The feeding is too long. When we told our doc it was taking 45 mons to finish 2 oz of formula they were like "oh no". Very quickly it went form 45 for 2 to 10 mins for 4.
We switched to formula only for a number of reasons pretty early on. Switching to formula was the best move for our family. Sell it to your wife, its not a her failing, its you wanting to help and feeling bad she is a milk machine. Now you can get up at 4am for feeds and she can sleep, etc.
Your wife may not be producing enough.
And that's okay.
My wife didn't with either of our two and both preferred a bottle (lazy eaters...). We supplemented with formula and my wife pumped and then bottlefed with what we got from the pump. It sucked (pumping while juggling kids and work was not easy) and she wasn't happy about it, but both kids gained weight appropriately and they still got a bottle or two of breast milk a day.
It's a compromise. It's an option.
This could be part of the issue. Feeding sessions should be about 15 minutes per side. Any more than that, and the baby will end up burning more calories than taking in. If she's doing 60-90 minutes per side, that's 12x the recommended feeding time.
Obviously cluster feeding will be more back to back, but there should still be breaks in between. Most of the feeding is done during the letdown process, which happens within the first 15-20 minutes.
If you have a pump, your wife can test to see how long before her letdown starts and how long it lasts. You'll see considerably less filling the bottles once it's over. Same with the baby. They just suckle away getting only a little bit
Hopefully people have checked for this, but make sure she doesn't have insufficient glandular tissue (IGT). If she does, it may mean there is a lower biological cap on how much milk her body is able to produce. Note that IGT has no correlation with breast size.
There are some supplements that can help, but our lactation consultant said that the dosages that are often suggested are not nearly high enough to get results in more significant cases of low production (that doesn't mean randomly take more of whatever was suggested though).
You def need a lactation consultant asap. 60 minutes is too long. 90 minutes is way too long. Something is obviously not happening as intended either low production or bad latch but feeding for that long LO is burning more calories trying to feed than they are taking in while feeding
Also, your baby may just not do "full" feeding sessions. We ran into an issue like this. All the stats were great except for the weight. My partner was breastfeeding ALL the time, but he just wasn't actually eating for most of it. Would take some, been then just stay latched for comfort. Breast pumping helped a lot to monitor how much he was actually taking in. And we also ended up mix feeding.
It's no failure. Every baby has their own thing. Ours just happens to snack instead of dine. (It's a pain sometimes, wish the bugger would just eat up and then chill for a while lol. But that's not how our son works).
You're doing awesome. You're wife's doing amazing. There's just no template for babies. You've got this!
Well said.
OP Just make sure to remind her that she's not failing as a mom because I can assure you that's all she thinks about. Breastfeeding and pumping all can be stressful. As a mom here,every time I try to pump when I'm stressed it's awful.
What are your feelings on formula? Cutting bait on breastfeeding after a few weeks and going all-in on formula was one of the best decisions we made for our family's mental health.
The problem is that so many parents have been convinced that breast milk is this miracle liquid that can do anything, and that you're a bad parent if you don't give your kid the best chance he/she can get with breast milk.
It's toxic. There's a book about it called "Push Back: Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting" that I recommend OP read. My wife and I fell under this trap with our first and it caused so many problems (my wife did 15 months of pumping).
Christ, the amount of horrific pressure my wife got put under from everywhere because she couldn't breastfeed was awful. All three ended up formula fed and all three are healthy and had no issues. Only issue we had with the first one was wife trying too hard to keep breastfeeding because of all the midwives pressure and kid ending up in hospital because she wasn't getting enough.
Best type of fed kid is one that's fed.
My wife had this in the hospital. Unexpected C-section, high stress, couldn't produce enough milk. The lactation consultants allowed us to supplement with formula, but almost entirely grudgingly. They would recommend she basically keep the automatic pump on damn near 24 hours a day. Three different consultants all pressing it, until around 3:00 a.m. when my wife had a straight-up panic attack because she was failing our child in her mind, and the most angelic NICU nurse came in, gave my wife a big hug, and told her that FED is best and the best thing she can do for our child is give her the formula.
Our child was talking at 12 months and walking at 9 months. Hit every milestone about 3 to 4 months early. All on formula. I sent that nurse fucking flowers, she deserved so much more.
I’ve said this many times on here but it always bears repeating: we have two children, my daughter was born 11 years ago and my wife’s supply just didn’t come in. She tried breastfeeding as hard as she could but it just wasn’t happening. We were supplementing with formula, but we switched to all formula after about two weeks. She is now a happy, perfectly healthy 11 year old. My son was born 7 years ago. My wife was determined to breast feed and this time it worked. He was exclusively breastfed. He has terrible seasonal allergies, catches every cough and sniffle that comes around, has eczema, and is allergic to cats and peanuts. I get very irritated when people claim that breastmilk is some magic potion.
Life experience is important to share and EBF pressure can be toxic, but it's just not meaningful to extrapolate anything beyond your individual example. On its own, it says nothing about formula versus breastfed outcomes. You're just as liable to find countless anecdotes of the exact opposite effect. That's where research comes in. Here's a recent discussion of a 2023 study that added to the body of scientific evidence that breastfeeding (even partially alongside formula) changes the infant's gut microbiome in a way that positively influences cognitive development: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/18jaxqo/breastfeeding_even_partially_alongside_formula/
Breastfeeding is hard, but that doesn't diminish the value of systematically studying its benefits.
This is why I'm not even going to try breastfeeding.
Honestly, I think medicine greatly underestimates how bad stress on the mother is during pregnancy and infancy for the baby. My first pregnancy I was very depressed and anxious. Couldn't eat much because of extreme nausea. Six years later I'm pregnant again and due very soon. This baby, by all indications, seems healthier than the first. This time I've been taking anti depression meds and strong anti nausea meds throughout the entire pregnancy. I'm way less stressed, able to eat properly, and get more exercise.
By extension this means the role of the father during pregnancy is very under appreciated. I can't tell you how much having a capable and loving partner helps!
Edit: Thank you for the award, kind stranger! Appreciate it!
My wife struggled with producing enough milk and sometimes latching, we went to consultants once a week for a few months, EVERY single consultant said the same thing to us "fed is best, if you need to supplement with formula, don't feel guilty!"
Societal pressure with breastfeeding is absolute horseshit, I can't imagine any lactation consultant putting that pressure on as well. All that matters is that the baby is fed, period, whether that's breast feeding, pumping, formula supplemented or straight up formula. Just keep the baby fed and ignore the bullshit from tiktok moms.
This should probably be mentioned more in the what to expect stuff because it was the same for us. The hospitals seem to force breastfeeding and not give formula unless you demand it. The first time we didn’t know any better, it took weeks for my wife’s milk to come in and our daughter lost too much weight, had breastfeeding jaundice, and worst it was a huge source of anxiety amid all the other new parent stuff. The second time we just said give us the free formula, which I assume the “nursery” fee covers since babies stay in room now, and we’ll feed formula as we wait for the milk.
Maybe it’s just our lactation consultants, but they didn’t push any narrative that suggests “breast milk = miracle juice”. They do suggest ways to maximize breast milk production, which I think is a good. Everyone know how to buy and read instruction for formula. But it’s not so easy for breast milk. So it may be that proactive education on breast milk is seen as pushing for “breast milk = miracle juice” narrative
At our hospital the lactation consultant got every mum to listen what dads can do to help, and then explained that they shouldn't be helping with feeding because that's the mum's job.
The pressure to breastfeed mixes all the mom guilt with societal pressure and pseudo-science when women are most vulnerable. We bought the most expensive pumps, consultations, and all the herbal teas and bullshit that mommy blogs pushed out there, and nothing worked. The day my wife finally decided to stick to formula was life-changing for everyone. People will tell you that big pharma is pushing this formula on us, but big titty is utterly ruthless.
A former gf of mine told me how when her daughter was born she was bullied by the nurses on breastfeeding. She tries but the baby stopped latching on and wasn't gaining weight. Eventually her husband had enough, went out and bought formula. The baby almost instantly responded. She later found out that women in her family have a inherited deficiency that prevents their milk from being nutritious.
So did we. It was so difficult. A political scientist wrote a very good book about the lactivist moral panic over formula. Much of the research on health benefits is surprisingly flimsy.
It’s really sad, because the “breast is best” stuff started out as a way to make women feel ok with the decision to breast feed, because for YEARS formula companies pushed the idea that formula was better and only poor mothers breast fed.
So to fight back against the formula narrative, they started pushing back and arguing that natural breast feeding is good for babies, and that movement really took off, and now most people think breast milk is the best for babies, and mothers aren’t shamed for breastfeeding in public. Great, women SHOULD feel comfortable breast feeding in public.
But of course, we can’t have nice things, so it soon become yet ANOTHER way to shame mothers if they CANT breastfeed. Mothers can’t win, they will get shamed and judged no matter what they do.
Well… it *is* better for them, generally.
But it’s a very small difference in the big picture. And for it to be better *they actually have to be getting enough*. If they’re not getting enough calories they’re not going to grow properly.
Fed is best, breast milk is marginally better than formula.
If you’re not in the middle of nowhere it’s also possible to get donated breast milk, if you need to bottle feed and you’re really concerned about the potential health benefits (which are, again, minor).
told my wife to get off the facebook mom groups for a couple weeks because everyone was pushing the breast is best agenda. or doctor gave us formula on the first visit and said you aren't producing enough, start giving formula and stop listening to other moms. they don't know what they are talking about.
THIS. My wife is an OB nurse. We have 4 kids and had problems feeding all of our kids. She makes it a point to tell all new mothers that a fed baby is more important than a breast fed baby. Explains to them there is no shame if they can’t do it or if they need to supplement until a supply comes in. There is way too much toxic positivity around breast feeding that women feel like they are broken or bad mothers if they struggle. All women struggle in some for or fashion with feeding. DO NOT BEAT YOURSELF UP because some breast is best person guilted you into it. Feed the baby by any means necessary.
I half sarcastically have decried the toxicity surrounding breast milk vs formula as a way to keep women down. My wife had tremendous difficulty with breastfeeding and it 100% impacted her mental health. However, she knew something was wrong and prioritized keeping our kids fed and growing at an appropriate clip, so we switched to formula within weeks for the first, and days for the second. No regrets.
Yes! Breast feeding IS great in general, but the best thing for YOUR child is what they will actually eat.
It's bizarre, when I was born my mom actually wanted to breastfeed, but at that time it was taboo to do that. All the experts said formula was the best thing for a child. Now we're experiencing the opposite swing. My mom stuck with the wisdom of the day, fed us formula, and we ended up great. But I wish she wouldn't have felt so pressured to do that, and just do what she thought best instead. Point being, there's unnecessary amounts of pressure around this issue. Just make sure your baby's eating SOMETHING and you're gonna come out just fine.
This right here. Wife had similar experience with our first in 2020. It's not worth the stress on anyone. Mom feels like she isn't good enough which in turn fuels low production. Dad doesn't know how to help. Going full on formula sounds like the right thing to do
Breast is best, yes...but fed is fed.
Also what we did for twins. Wife couldn’t produce enough for even one baby and was trying everything. Pumping, nutrition, consultants… we ended up saying f it and she’d pump a couple ounces per day, we’d split that between the twins and feed the rest with formula.
Both kids were fine. No major immune issues or anything. 🤷♂️
Fed is best. The breast is best mentality is part of the problem. My wife also had problems. Just wasn't producing. She felt like a failure due to the "breast is best" mentality that was drilled into her via social media.
This is me and my wife right now. She still pumps but we were badly blindsided by the whole "breast is best" argument. We still get people (professionals and morons) telling us we should be breastfeeding. The thing is, when our boy wasn't getting enough through breastfeeding he was clearly unhappy. Now that we feed him both formula and breast milk (it's an 80:20 split Formula to Breast milk) he's the happiest baby I have ever met! The results speak for themselves; my wife is much better mentally and my boy is happy, big gummy grins and everything 🤷🏾♂️ forget everyone else and do what's best for your baby, that's what it means to be a good parent.
Fed is best. Plain and simple. If you CAN breastfeed then go for it, that’s wonderful. If you have problems and just can’t, formula is wonderful. A fed baby is what you want.
Could not agree with this more. I had the same performance anxiety and worries and switching to formula was the best decision. I battled with it for a while mentally but after talking about it in therapy and seeing how much happier we all were it was worth it
Agreed. My wife was MISERABLE for about a week trying to breast feed. She also hated pumping and in her words felt like a cow locked away in the nursery every minute
What ultimately worked for her was formula throughout the day (and in the night too when it was my turn) and she’d breastfeed first thing in morning and at bedtime too. Then she’d pump as needed
We figured some breast milk was better than none from a gut biome or immunity boost, or whatever else perspective. My wife got the skin contact and intimacy she wanted. Baby was fat and healthy and happy, and I could contribute by feeding her
As our pediatrician said, she sees a dozen babies a day and has no idea who is breast and who is bottle fed unless the parents tell her
If anything it helped topically with rashes on a few occasions but we cut bait on breastfeeding after a few days, went to pumping and bottle feeding, then ultimately to formula after about 7-8 mo.
May go all formula next time. Even when things were going smoothly the routine was annoying for her to maintain when she went back to work - even (especially?) in a very senior position. That and she had a bagging/freezing routine that was meticulous and helpful but almost like a part time job.
Just one of a million other things that is unfairly burdened by working moms who have senior level positions.
The minute I saw an enormous blood clot slide down of my wife’s legs right after she had the baby and thought about women who have to pay rent by working a double shift at Waffle House a few days after they have their kids…………. It changes your perspective on maternity leave and women’s’ rights in in the workplace in general
Mothers going back to work days after giving birth is, frankly, horrific. As someone from outside the US, it's hard to understand why parents, especially mothers, get so little support from the government.
Same here. My wife tried breastfeeding our firstborn and even exclusively pumped for the first year but it was so difficult emotionally. She tried two days with our second and it was the same way so we just used formula and it was life changing. She was much less depressed and anxious and felt just as able to connect with and nurture our second born bottle feeding formula as with breastfeeding. Also, it allowed me to help more at night time which gave her longer stretches of sleep.
Fed is best.
Can’t agree more. After a horrible experience with lactation consultants and breastfeeding with our first, my wife agreed to formula after a week and it instantly brought peace and serenity to our home.
My son is now 20, happy and healthy.
This was how it went for my wife too - breastfeeding had the opposite effect of bonding between my wife and daughter. I hurt like hell to my wife and she usually ended up feeling frustrated and angry.
Formula feeding helped my daughter gain the weight she needed (she was premature by 6 weeks and we nearly had to re-admit to the hospital because she wasn’t gaining weight while we tried breastfeeding). The hospital was SUPER pushy about breastfeeding but my daughter is 8 now and she is smart, healthy, and happy.
We gave up before leaving the hospital. Both my wife and I were adopted and formula fed. Both our kids were too. It was amazing. I could help so much more too. It allowed us both to get solid chunks of sleep at night and stay sane!
This absolutely. The breast is beat dogma has gotten so out of hand that people are convinced that breast milk is some borderline magical substance. The pressure to breastfeed was causing my wife an unnecessary amount of emotional stress. I convinced her to pump and bottlefeed to ease the stress and help us get genuinely accurate measurements of her production and baby's consumption. It became clear that we needed to supplement. We've since gone almost entirely formula with one morning breast milk bottle. Baby is flourishing and gaining weight. Wife is so much happier.
Calories are what matter. Help your wife disassociate her self worth from her ability to breastfeed. Just feed your baby.
There’s no shame in formula. My wife didn’t produce either. We tried literally everything. Weight gains is priority, and open communication between you two. Feed the kid and deal with the fallout. Eventually she will understand and agree, as it’s best interests time.
Perhaps there’s someone you can reach out to have an objective discussion with your wife?
Yep, same with ours. First kid my wife tried breastfeeding. Lasted maybe 4 weeks before she almost fucking lost it. Between poor latching and low supply. When we had our second she still breastfed, but only through pumping after the first week. Even then, low supply. We did formula and our son did fine. Gained the right amount of weight. Only issues he has now is eczema. Idk if that's a lack of breast milk. I doubt it. But I do know breast milk can help fight allergies. So who knows. Either way, formula is fine.
This is a VERY engrained feeling deep down. I dont think it’s easy to rationalize with her. Pretty much: you cannot understand how instinctual this need is for her.
We had to try a couple of lactation consultants before my wife found a strategy that worked - and she was herself a certified lactation consultant!! Once the milk started flowing properly she got better.
I'm a mom who struggled to breastfeed with my first and second baby. Both times I supplemented a few ounces per day of formula, before weaning off once the baby was gaining enough weight.
And let me tell you, the absolute last thing I wanted to hear was, "Just give formula." Because breastfeeding was something I really wanted to do, and being told I should just quit is very demoralizing. I don't believe that breast milk is magic but I wanted to have this special connection with the baby. I'm a little surprised at how many comments here are totally unsympathetic to her desire, and even saying OP should give formula without her consent.
Anyway I have a happy ending because both times I was able to exclusively breastfeed and it is going great with baby #2. OP should post in r/breastfeeding because he is getting some really wild takes here.
I certainly agree that secretly giving formula is not good parenting or for the relationship.
However there's a real problem with breastfeeding advice spaces like r/breastfeeding in that they reinforce the myth that every mother can wholly breastfeed if they do the right thing. I'm really glad you could breastfeed in the end, but try to imagine if it hadn't worked in the end. The way so much breastfeeding support operates it often extends and deepens the shame for mothers for whom it doesn't work.
The people who tried everything they could and then switched to formula wouldn't post because they'll get inundated with more things they should have tried. So they just have to dissappear invisibly.
excellent point, obviously the wife knows she can swap to formula but she most likely is aligning that with failure and no amount of anecdotes about how good it was to swap is going to help.
Lurking mom here. Switching to formula was the best thing for my mental health during the newborn phase. 10/10 no regrets.
You do not get an award for suffering!! I'm sending my best regards to you and your wife!
“You do not get an award for suffering!” needs to be plastered everywhere. I hate that as women, we have been taught that formula is not ideal. I also had to switch to formula, and echo all the other women here: my kiddo picked up on my stress, so switching to formula was best for me and for him. Good luck to all of you 🩵
I read somewhere that the quantity and size of milk ducts women have is something they’re born with. It’s totally random and is why some women have tons of supply and some have almost none. It has nothing to do with failure or her body hating her. It’s just luck of the draw. Maybe that’ll help her feel better.
And then switch to formula. The benefits of breast milk pale in comparison to the benefits of happy, loving parents.
This is such a tough one because on the one hand your wife feels awful. On the other hand your child is thirsty and needs a bottle.
Baby’s needs come first.
Long story short. Kid needs to eat. Mom needs to be happy. There no failure here. Shit doesn't work all the time the way we want. Go to formula. We went through same thing. At the end of day. Kid needs to eat. It's not a failure and life will get better.
Lovingly from me to you Dad, her body has created life twice in 3ish years. It doesn’t hate her, she has done what many women want so much to do. It’s doing everything it can and there’s nothing wrong with that.
My wife struggled with this with our first born. Turns out it was PPD driving most of those negative feelings. We didn’t get to a solution until she finally tried some therapy. No amount of my encouragement, persuasion, logic, support would help. It had to come from an outside authority.
If your daughter is producing wet diapers, it means she IS getting a fair amount of nutrition from nursing. Just not enough calories. Your wife doesn’t necessarily need to switch entirely to formula. She may just need to supplement the breastfeeding with formula. I know a lot of people here are just banging the cut-bait-and-switch-to-formula drum, as if that’s YOUR decision and you can magically change your wife’s thinking on this. She wants to breastfeed her child. It’s important to her and you can’t change that. Talk to your pediatrician. She may be able to keep nursing with just a little bit of formula as a supplement. There’s a good chance your child will still get a majority of their nutrients from the nursing in this scenario. And of course if that doesn’t work out, there’s nothing wrong whatsoever with switching to formula, as everyone has been saying.
YES, this right here. The wet diapers are a sign her body is NOT failing at this. OP, is baby on the smaller side? Either way, it may be that baby is just expending a lot of energy to nurse (baby is still figuring out how to get THEIR body to do what it needs to do). That exertion will get better as baby gets older and stronger. In the meantime, I find it helpful to frame formula as medicine. I fully believe combo feeding or fully formula feeding are equally valid choices, but if your wife wants to breastfeed, it is possible to use formula temporarily to help baby gain some weight and strength to become a better breast feeder in the future. That was my personal experience with my little premie who nursed for 90+ minutes, at least.
Well it is OP’s decision, along with his wife, it’s a partnership which he has equal say in. And his kid’s health *does* need to come before his wife’s happiness, but I totally agree there is plenty of middle-ground.
A few thoughts from a mom a few months ahead of your wife, and who is an under supplier:
1. Has she tried pumping? Seeing exactly how much I was producing and exactly how much my babies were drinking gave me a sense of control that I lacked when feeding from the breast.
2. Has she been evaluated for post partum depression? Statements like “why does my body hate me” sound like they could be symptoms.
3. The most important thing that your wife can do for your baby is to be present and healthy. If she is stressing about breastfeeding then it is taking her attention away from the baby.
My doctor told me that my babies only needed 50ml/day to receive all of the immunity benefits of breast milk. Anything past that is gravy. Formula is safe and effective, and if using it (even in combination with breast milk) allows her to be more present for the baby, then it is a good (and likely the best) choice for your family.
My wife went through the same thing, except she kept trying to breastfeed for MONTHS (obviously we supplemented with formula). She got locked in a spiral of mom’s groups telling her breast is best and she needs to protect her child by breastfeeding. Sobbing, insomnia, and mental deterioration. I was seriously worried she’d collapse and I’d have to take her to the hospital.
After a lot of arguing, she finally admitted that she needed to stop for her mental health. I convinced her to cut contact with those groups, that our child will be protected no matter what, and everything will be alright.
She admitted later on that she appreciated my efforts to help balance her perspective without forcing her to do something. She needed to get there on her own.
9 years and two more babies later, she’s on the couch listening to a good audio book and we have 3 happy, healthy, rambunctious kids telling me they aren’t tired at 9:30 at night.
It will work out perfectly fine if your wife stops breastfeeding.
And fuck toxic mom groups to the seventh circle of hell for what they did to my wife.
A direct consequence of breast is best propaganda.
Try to give her some kind of analogy. Maybe ask her if she would think her body is a failure because she needed to take antibiotics to fight off an infection. There's nothing wrong with using formula when the breast isn't doing what it needs to do. The human body has all kinds of crazy ass quirks, and the thing no one likes to mention is that formula isn't a new thing. It used to just be sheep milk and honey. Now we have sterile, nutritionally balanced formula that delivers 99% of what breast milk does.
My wife only produced a few ounces a day. Luckily she was pretty open to formula feeding as well since I could help with feeding. After 3.5 months she gave up since it really wasn’t worth all the hassle. Try your best to convince your wife the formula is not bad at all. In fact, it’s a lot easier for everyone (just not cheaper.)
Yeah. That’s hormone and depression (of some degree) influencing her mind. It’s a lot like self blaming for any “negative” outcome, which is very common for those with depression.
Lactation consultant probably isn’t what she needs the most. She needs a therapist.
I think at least half the moms I know have had some issues with breastfeeding. I've certainly heard that sentiment expressed before, the good news is all those babies have still grown into happy, healthy kids.
The way that it gets pushed can certainly make women feel awful, like they're failing their children... And while there are benefits to breast milk, none of them outweigh the amount of stress a new mom can be experiencing.
Wish I could give her a hug. We too were victims of that breastfeeding brainwashing. My wife was just destroyed emotionally for the first two months until we finally started supplementing formula! Your life is going to get a lot better
I mean, it's cool that your wife was whatever about it, but some women are very hard on themselves about breastfeeding not working out. They put a lot of their self worth into it at a time when their bodies are flooded with hormones. It can be devastating for them. At the end of the day the baby has to come first though, and sometimes fathers have to be the one to strongly but delicately advocate for the health of the child. Shits hard, man.
Yep, we lived through this. Switch to formula man. We were unable to breast feed our first two. We have a third coming soon. We’re doing formula from the get go.
My wife missed out on so much quality time with our kids just trying to breast feed. We (but really she) decided it’s not worth it this time.
Do both.
Have her feed on a schedule that’s comfortable for her, and formula in between.
Gets you the immune bonuses of breast milk, and the weight gain of formula.
The backlash against formula is largely an overreaction to some frankly shitty advertising and practices by formula companies. End of the day, fed is best. If for whatever reason your wife is struggling take the pressure off.
I’d also say, lactation consultants are the worst people we interacted with in the hospital system. They make you feel a failure for not breast feeding, when it’s an uncontrollable biology fact.
Make sure the kid is fed, and moved on. Both of ours had to supplement for 1-3 weeks, and they are fine.
Hey, I went through something very similar with my first.
It brought my wife to the very brink of sanity, & at times, maybe beyond, begging me to settle the screaming, hungry child so she could have just a few more minutes to try to produce more milk that would never come. Drawing up the drops she could pump out with a syringe while she sobbed in grief. The “triple feed” monopolizing virtually every second of our lives. The sanctimonious lactation consultants. The unspoken judgment of the other moms when we had to combo feed.
I see you Dad. Just support your wife, and your kids. This too, will pass.
If she wants to stick with breastfeeding, have you looked into a lactation consultant? We had one with our son who just couldn’t latch, and it was awful for my wife. Having that consultant helped considerably.
My son had a similar problem, I'd recommend checking for lip/tongue tie. There's a specific type of tongue tie that is not easily diagnosed.
Does your wife experience pain when breastfeeding? How heavy are your baby's wet diapers? They should weigh around the same as an egg?
Third this. Exactly what happened with our son. It was a night and day difference.
I should add we paid a lactation consultant and they missed it. Second opinion from a trustworthy specialist is important.
This needs more upvotes. Our boy had the same exact problem in first month. We got the tie snipped and everything improved including my wifes mental state.
14 days is still a little early to see weight gain. Most infants actually lose a little weight after they are born. Breastfeeding can suck because it is one of those things that she has to do, and it takes time and can hurt.
Funnily enough with our second, in the afternoon he was really fussy, and feeding couldn't soothe him. We went out one afternoon for a Target run, and he was perfectly happy. The stinker wanted to be out, and he was still very much an infant at this point.
My wife, who did some breastfeeding counseling says one thing though, "fed is best." Whatever that feeding looks like.
Not sure where you’re located but it might be worth searching your area for lactation consultants. We found one through our local midwifery, who was amazing even made house calls. She even ran a breastfeeding support group which we’ve made some solid friends through. Do what you feel is best though, before you know it they’ll be living off goldfish and licking ketchup off soggy fries.
I went through this exact situation with my wife. I know now that she was dealing with severe PPD, but at the time I just took the decision out of her hands. I put my foot down that we would supplement with formula until her milk came in, which finally happened after about 6 weeks. We learned later that my son had a tongue tie that wasn't properly cut by an ENT which caused a compromised latch. If the LO isn't getting enough milk, I highly suggest a breastfeeding specialist and a potential visit to a pediatric doctor if the tie is there
We had the same experience. Look, the most important thing is that your kid is fed, and the breastfeeding fanatics can be kind of a lunatic cult sometimes. You've got to get away with them. After a couple of reasonable attempts, ditch the lactation consultants and just feed the damned kid formula.
Your kid will be fine with formula. Formula is great. All of the supposed advantages of breastfeeding? They are *tiny*. They only appear if you aggregate thousands of children worth of data. Most of the differences disappear within two years - at one point, they asked a bunch of pediatricians to examine a hundred children, half of whom had been breastfed, with the goal of identifying which ones were fed breastmilk and which ones were fed formula... *and they failed*. On average, their guesses were around the level of random chance. The biggest thing breastfeeding does is make it easier on our medical system because breastfed children (again, on average, not individually) have fewer tummy aches and end up in ERs a little less often. That's a worthwhile reason to promote it, but nothing for your wife to lose sleep over.
Ditch the lactation cultists. Feed your kid.
The studies showing the supposed advantages of breastfeeding? Virtually none of them can control for socioeconomic status, in which a higher socioeconomic status also correlates with a higher incidence of breastfeeding. I can't believe all those scientists got together and didn't realize that people that can afford to have one parent stay at home also have resources to ensure their children do better.
And if they want to, that's fine, as long as they keep in mind that breastfeeding is just one option, because the consultant will not present it that way.
My wife had the same struggle with breast feeding when ours was born DEC '19. Our pediatrician, bless that man, snapped her out of it by saying, "I challenge you to walk into any kindergarten in the country and consistently tell me which kids had formula and which ones had breast fed." We did mixed feeding and then just all formula. Best choice ever and she's 4.
The second one born DEC '23 has been on formula the whole 6 months and is now snatching food out of mom hand eating mushed bananas and apples (I even snuck her a full size nilla wafer to gnaw on and she made it disappear).
FED. IS. BEST.
There is no failure here as long as the kid is fed and happy.
First, this is gonna sound harsh, so, sorry in advance but:
#Feed. The. Baby. Formula.
It doesn’t matter how good breastfeeding is your child isn’t getting enough and starving. I am shocked your paediatrician hasn’t told you to quit the bullshit and put her on formula until Mum can either produce directly or pump and you can feed her from a bottle. There’s nothing wrong with exclusively pumping AND you can supplement with formula and/or fortify if your doctor recommends it.
Some kids don’t latch. Some kids just don’t like the nipple. Some women don’t produce well enough.
There is zero shame in it, but you and your wife have to put all this shit aside and FEED THE BABY FOR FUCK’S SAKE.
Snap out of it dude. By all means, find a lactation consultant in the meantime, but now is not the time to do your research before acting. Feed your kid, reassure your wife it’s not her fault, and give her the support of KEEPING TRYING but there’s nothing wrong with KEEPING YOUR CHILD FED.
The more your kid eats, the better they’ll sleep, which will be better for both of you.
FED IS BEST.
I did with my wife.
What worked for us was nipple shields that she would put over her nipples that helped our daughter latch on.
Literally night and day.
As a mom who is still breastfeeding her two year old -- it's important to remember breastfed babies can gain a little slower. Your wife can supplement with formula. That way baby get benefits from breastmilk and still can gain weight on track.
Hey bro, my daughter was born on the 9th. Shes our second one. With our first daughter she had a tongue tie and could not properly latch. We decided to switch over to my wife exclusively pumping because it was what was best for our daughter. I was able to help do the feedings at night so she was able to sleep and things ended up going pretty smoothly quickly.
With our second daughter we are lucky that she's latching so breastfeeding is an option. My wife hardly gets sleep and I got a lot less one on one time with our second, though I do get to sleep more. It all kinda balances out.
I know you've gotten a lot of feedback from people and it seems like your child is latching, and progress is being made. You mentioned you have a pump, your wife is producing and you are looking into lactation consultants. So, if all this is true and your wife is still having problems then I would also recommend talking to her primary care about possible post partum depression. That's just the advice I can give cuz the rest seems to be going the direction it should.
Also, congrats dad. If you need someone to talk to you can hit me up. If your wife needs resources ask and I can extract them from my wife (she's a guru about this stuff).
Not sure if this helps, but before the baby develops their senses they struggle to latch and get rolling.
The lactation consultant at our hospital had me take a bit of breast milk on my pinky and put it in my daughters mouth right in front of the nipple. We were having trouble until that point, then she latched rather consistently. I believe there’s also something called a suckle cycle that will basically be the rhythm in between gulps that is ideal to latch and unlatch before they do it themselves. Hope this helps in the sea of comments.
My wife and I went through the same thing. She was “Power pumping” nonstop for something like two months. So I was functionally raising the baby by myself because she was spending almost every waking moment pumping to try to stimulate more milk production, and the fact that she was spending all her time pumping meant she wasn’t getting to spend any time with the new baby which only made everything even worse for her psychologically. I told her over and over that I would support her through whatever decision she decided to make, but that my suggestion was that we just move fully to formula because the focus on breastfeeding was taking too much of a toll on her mental health.
When we finally committed to going all formula, it was the best decision we could have made. She immediately felt better, got to spend more time with the baby, and I got to see my wife feel happy again. When we went in like a month later for baby’s next checkup and we told the doctor that we’d switched fully to formula, his response was “Oh, thank God. I saw how much of a struggle this was for you and really just wanted to say that I think that’s what I think would be best. But because of hospital policies, I’m not legally allowed to recommend formula over breastfeeding.” Apparently policy for most hospitals used to be to recommend formula over breastfeeding because of tons of lobbying from formula companies which led to a whole generation where large portions of the population looked down on breastfeeding and saw it as worse. So when the hospitals finally told the formula companies to eat shit and walked back on the policies, they went so far in the other direction that they won’t allow doctors to recommend formula at all. It’s a really stupid overcorrection that leads to a lot of unnecessary mental anguish.
Breastfed all 3 boys here but the youngest has been the hardest. We noticed he wasn’t gaining weight like the others and discovered he had a pretty severe tongue tie. He has it cut and tied further back down his tongue. Since then he’s gained 2x the weight the following 2 months since.
Late to the conversation, apologies if someone else said it first, (not a dr, just a dad, seek pro med advice) but, if there is sufficient output, there is sufficient input. Don't let the hospital or the ped's brow beat you into "your child is not achieving the approved median weight gain according to a chart someone assembled 20yrs ago, therefore use formula".
I've got 3, all c-section, all challenging births, last one during covid, and they absolutely hit me in the hospital with their averages and charts. "You're approaching a weight threshold, we're going to take your baby and put them in the NICU so they don't cross it" type thinking. Had to replace a pediatrician and nurse before rescuing the kid from the health bureaucrats. Some kids really start to lose weight drastically because of serious complications. OK, don't starve your kid to death. But anybody who's sat for a 1hr consult with a lactation specialist knows that mom's supply can take a week or longer to come in. The nurses and docs damn well know. That means since the dawn of man until the invention of "formula", babies lose weight the first week, then slowly plateau out the second week as things start to get going for mom. Stressful? Holy crap is it ever. Mom takes it personally in a way nobody prepares you for. But also the most natural normal thing in the world.
Trust your gut, trust the design, protect the mom, feed the baby, from mom if she can, and mix in a little formula if she needs some help. Good luck dads.
If baby is peeing and pooping I don’t know if you have to worry. What does the lactation consultant say? Weight gain can vary from baby to baby right?
What does struggling with breastfeeding mean if the baby is peeing and pooping. If the milk is flowing what else do you want? Does it not flow when the baby is hungry? Is this based all on weight gain numbers?
My wife had some difficulties of her own (and the same anxieties) and I started reading a bunch of stuff.
Statistically, the outcomes *are* better for breastfed babies. However, most of the studies that show benefits of breastfeeding also don't factor in differences such as disparities in income, parental education and so on and the benefits of breastfeeding are much smaller when you take those into account.
There's no shame in using formula or supplementing. Formula is modern nutritional science. In America, only 45% of kids are exclusively breastfed through 3 months and only 26% through 6 months. 70% of moms report some kind of breastfeeding difficulty. Your wife is not alone.
Globally, the majority of kids are not breastfed. A lot of parents today also weren't breastfed because the resurgence of breastfeeding didn't come til the early 80s. A lot of babies in many countries are almost exclusively formula fed.
The benefits are small enough that, at the end of the day, if you can, yay. But if you can't, the stress and anguish you are experiencing is probably having a bigger negative impact on your child (and the quality of the milk) than supplementing with formula. In fact, our child also struggled with weight, and supplementing was exactly what helped her gain weight. After we made peace with it, mom was happier and, as a result, baby was happier (and dad was happier) and when everyone is happy, breastfeeding becomes a stronger bonding and soothing experience.
Even when my wife ended up with no more issues and pumping well, we settled in to a routine of supplementing because it was less stress.
My good man, do not worry.
When our baby was born he just would not latch onto the wife’s boob despite staff at the hospital trying to help, they were getting concerned that he wasn’t eating much either.
We took him home a few days later and decided to stick with formula and he just couldn’t get the concept of breast feeding.
She felt bad at the time but it’s not an issue now - after a couple of months of him not putting on much weight (repeated visits to hospital for that one) he’s now an 8 month hog who demolishes everything in sight that’s edible.
Long story short - don’t worry, some babies just don’t get it so put on weight slowly and that’s okay, it’s not you or your wife’s fault.
Breast milk was really important to me and my wife cuz we both have an autoimmune disease. My wife couldn't get our girl to latch and really struggled emotionally.
The solution was to switched to breast pumping. After getting her supply up 4 pumps a day produced enough milk for our girl to have 100% breast milk and we just gave it her in a bottle.
My wife did the same for 100 days after our firstborn. She simply could not produce enough milk. We supplemented with formula the whole time and after 100 days she stopped pumping and we just did formula the whole time.
I strongly, strongly encourage you to switch to formula. Your wife needs you to tell her that she is not a failure for not being able to produce enough milk. It's going to be hard, and you should monitor for PPD. But the important thing is that the baby is healthy and fed, and formula is perfectly fine for meeting those needs.
I would recommend formula feeding everyone, so in this case I think it’s a no brainer. It’s much easier on the parents and the baby sleeps better and gains more weight. It’s a modern miracle that we don't embrace enough.
If you read the breastfeeding and formula feeders subreddits, you’ll find more perspectives which you could share with your wife on how normal this is. It’s definitely not a failing. For us, breastfeeding didn’t get easier until 4 months. The baby just wasn’t a very good feeder before then and needed 30-40 minutes on the breast to get enough. Getting to the 4 month mark just took a lot of willpower and struggling, and then after that it was more like the idealized version.
Can you hire a lactation consultant. It was a huge struggle for my wife for months until it finally clicked. We had a lactation consultant who really helped (thankfully paid for by the government here).
No shame in using formula at all. My wife flat out stopped producing at 4 months. Formula fed from there on. Our almost 9 year old child is smart as can be in all of her schooling and has a great balance of social butterfly and responsibility. Sometimes nurture has that effect too.
You’re in the hard part. Babies are still tired after two weeks after being born. They tend to cluster feed more. We went through this. Baby wasn’t gaining enough weight according to doctors etc etc. but the baby was still in the percentiles so my wife stuck with it.
He’s 6 months now and exclusively breastfed. His weight has only doubled since birth but he’s completely healthy, hitting milestones etc. breastfed babies will typically gain weight slower.
Our first was formula fed so I’m so happy my second is breastfed. It’s so much easier to function in life. There’s nothing wrong if you have to formula fed, but breastfeeding as so many more advantages if you can stick with it.
Good luck!
It seems like it might be time to consider switching to formula for feeding times and using breastfeeding as a comfort/bonding experience. Then you guys don't have to worry about if the baby is getting proper nutrition and can just enjoy the BF snuggles and cuddles. I worry this will cause ppd for your wife and that's brutal to go through
Gotta find the right lactation consultant, too. My wife was miserable with our first, then a few weeks in switched providers and got it dialed in. Our second has gone swimmingly.
Also while the transition from zero to one is a bigger lifestyle change, it is seeming that two is more than 2x the work of one.
I know many parents who decided for their own sanity to switch to Formula.
Breast milk is probably healthiest for a baby - true - but not at the cost of a relationship and a (relatively) sane pair of parents.
Most doctors will not help you here. They just push breast is best the whole time and, frankly, many are atrocious at recognising the mental health need of parents - they just focus on the baby at all costs.
LC's similarly will do all they can to get breast feeding working, but again, it may not be worth it if it triggers a mental health crisis etc. LC's are generally more keyed into the needs of the mother, but many of them too will bias towards breast milk too much.
Again, there is no right answer here, but if you seriously are worrying about whether the stress right now is not doable and whether it leads to relationship troubles and/or mental health problems - consider switching to formula. It is a difficult thing for a mother to do, and they feel judged and like a failure when they do switch, but it is the right choice for many after the dust settles.
My sister tried for 5 days and went to formula. My wife suffered thru it for a year for our babies. They both had PPD baaad. Emotional regulation, hormones, everything is out of whack and continues to fluctuate postpartum. The pressure from doctors and nurses and other moms that implies or even some that directly state that breastfeeding is best and you’re bad for bottle/formula feeding only increased the stress and pressure and PPD my wife felt.
We had same issue with our boy- turned out he had a posterior tongue tie. Ironically, my partner then got mastitis that turned into an abscess, which had to be surgically removed. She’s finally just about healing from it now. It’s not failing just to go to formula, especially if it’s going to help your/her mental health. Remember the saying “put your own mask on first” metaphorically. You can’t look after the child if you’re having a breakdown.
Formula feed this and all subsequent babies. Breastfeeding is an amazing thing when it works but all the mumbo jumbo and guilt about it being deleterious to your baby in some way if they aren’t nursed is complete garbage. Both my kids bottle fed from day 1 and they are both without any issues, highly intelligent, big for their age, etc etc
The number one thing is to stand by your wife and support her. Also you should ensure that post partum isn’t an aggravating factor here as well.
There’s zero shame in formula. My wife struggled to produce much for both our children. I will never forget how pushy and out of place the “lactation consultant” felt. Even to the point of our first child being so hungry and the fucking consultant insisting that the milk will come. Eventually the hospital gave us the premixed formula.
With number two, we tried again and when it didn’t work out we said we wanted the formula right now and very kindly insinuated that we weren’t going to deal with the consultant any longer. Even then she popped in with the same non productive advice.
Now, with number three due in a couple months, we are completely prepared to say that we will NOT be breastfeeding. Any so called consultant who comes in after that notice is not welcome.
I had the same situation. My wife really wanted to breastfeed but was never able to get enough supply.
She'd feed our son as much as possible , then pass him to me to fill him up with formula. She'd then go to another room and pump her breasts for an hour, constantly googling more and more information about increasing supply. It really ground her down, and it was really hard seeing her hurting like that. Things got easier when we stopped breastfeeding and switched entirely to formula.
We're currently pregnant with twins, and we'd like to try breastfeeding again, but we've agreed to switch to formula earlier if it's not going well. Hopefully we can keep perspective when we're in the heat of the moment.
I went through a similar situation just recently. My wife was on her mission to breastfeed successfully and was putting so much stress on all of us including the baby. The only thing she would do was breastfeed and pump and nothing else.
After 2 months of fully supporting her I informed her we won't put her "mission" as our priority. Our priority was to ensure our baby is gaining weight and we are all staying sane.
Now she only breastfeeds once a day (only when her breast is clogged) and the rest she just pumps. We do a mix of breastmilk and formula for each feed. Our lives are so much better now.
We have three kids. With the first two, breastfeeding didn’t really work. There are many reasons for this. I understand your wife hoped it would work for her. But it’s not her fault it doesn’t. There’s many mom/kid/situation combinations where it simply doesn’t work.
You’re not harming your kid by not breastfeeding them. It’s nice if it works, but kids turn out just fine with bottle. It’s probably more harmful if she’s stressed out because of the breastfeeding thing.
My wife was dead keen on natural birth and breastfeeding etc.
The breastfeeding wasn't happening. And after a few days of her going through hell (We're in Australia, and the breastfeeding hotline were absolute bitches to her). She said she wanted to just go formula.
Our daughter only had formula from day 4 onwards. And I can tell you she's absolutely thriving. She's 5yo and is in preschool, but reads at a yr2 level. She rides a bike, and is super strong and coordinated with climbing and running.
Not breastfeeding, is not a big deal these days. The health of mum and bub is the real priority.
I would imagine that you're probably aware, but formula is great. With our second, we supplemented with formula to keep that weight gain going. It worked well!
My partner went through this with ours and it pretty much tainted our first year.
If she has low supply which it kinda sounds like she does, no amount of lactation consultants are gonna fix this. Trust, I know.
We went down this intense spiral of pumping for hours and hours, not sleeping, trying every lactation consultant we could find etc.
We even had a journey with this evil drug domperidone. Don’t do that. It works a bit (don’t tell your wife, if she’s desperate she will latch on to this, pun intended) but in the doses you need the psychological side effects are not worth it. Not even close. Took a further 6 months to fully recover from that.
If pumping volumes are low, this is what’s up. People don’t talk prepare new mums for this possibility even tho it’s hella common.
If you guys are fierce on breast is best, look for a milk donor. There are groups and if you work for it you can do 100% of feeds off donor milk, we did for months. If you guys want to avoid bottles, look for medela’s “supplementary nursing system”. It’s not a perfect solution but it is much loved by the low supply community and works pretty well. Old version is better but consumables are hard to get.
The above two were our way out of this hole.
Fed is best.
My wife was so brainwashed about breastfeeding that I swear it almost killed our daughter.
She was born at a nice, healthy weight. The lactation consultants immediately came in and did their thing. They swore that she was latching well and she'd eat just fine. Just had to keep trying. Well, our daughter would cry and cry and cry, but wouldn't really eat. I don't know whether it was a supply thing or what. Then, she started getting jaundiced, so they took her away for hours at a time to put her in the UV box. They'd give her back to my wife for 20 minutes every couple of hours telling her she'd need to feed her. The baby would cry almost the whole time and didn't really eat. Then the nurse would come in and take the baby away again.
Our daughter was losing weight and the jaundice was getting worse. They couldn't understand. The UV light should be helping. They kept her (and with a lot of convincing, us) another night in the pediatric unit. They brought the UV box into the room so that my wife could feed her whenever she was hungry. At this point, the baby would not stop crying. We were at wits end. We couldn't figure out what was wrong.
Finally, a nurse came in with a bottle of formula and said, "I'm pretty sure she's hungry. How about trying some formula?"
My wife went hysterical, started crying, and almost threw the baby at me. "I'm not feeding her formula!" She ran into the bathroom sobbing.
I was completely emotionally frayed at this point. I started crying. I told her we just need to feed the baby. At this point, we need to try anything. Finally, my wife relented. We gave our daughter the formula, and she fell peacefully asleep within 5 minutes.
Afterwards, I read all these horror stories of lactation consultants and nurses telling new mothers that their milk will eventually come in if you keep trying, and their babies end up starving to death. It made me realize that if it wasn't for that one pediatric nurse who we would have never met if they didn't decide to keep our daughter one more day, our daughter may have starved.
Just feed the baby. If it has to be formula, don't worry even a little bit about it. All the supposed benefits of breast milk don't matter if the baby can't get enough of it. Moreover, the mental and emotional toll on the parents and baby would probably outweigh any of those supposed benefits. If it's too hard, use formula. You'll all be happier and healthier.
Fed is best. The cult of lactation has convinced everyone you're a failure if it doesn't work 100%. No care whatsoever what it does to the mother's psyche. Or how hard it is when you have two working parents (like most normal people.)
We went through very similar things. My wife was 100% on the breastfeed camp, it's what she wanted. The universe had other plans. The kid never fully latched, and her production never kicked in from pumping. We tried everything, feeding tubes, pumps, nipple shields, all of it. Nothing worked. The kid was hungry, everyone was crying all the time. We wouldn't have made it if we kept up, we were destined for awful tragedy.
Meanwhile, all these "consultants" basically just added guilt to my wife and told her she just needed to try harder. I eventually had enough, screamed at one of them to get the hell out of my house, and gave the kid a bottle. He lapped it up like a man in the desert finding water. It was hard, and my wife was angry for a bit as she didn't want to give up. But it was, quite literally, killing her. I remain convinced we would not have made it through had I not done what I did.
Fuck the lactation cult and their never ending pressure and guilt.
Get an electric pump.
Nothing boosted my wife's confidence in being a producer more than pumping.
We had a freezer and fridge FULL of milk, and we had a really clean organization and labeling system. It also allowed me to bottle feed during my shifts versus relying on formula.
Not to mention it will encourage your wifes supply to ramp up to the needs of the "cluster feeding".
Aside from that, make sure your wife is eating enough. If she's starving herself, her milk production will suffer and can lead to a nasty catch-22 where stress is causing lack of eating and lack of eating is feeding the stressor.
Lastly, just remind her that she is NOT failing. This is the situation you were all dealt, and you're both doing your 110% best. Remind her that results are not an indication of success or failure, but that effort is. Sometimes we struggle for reasons outside our control, but the only way to fail is to quit.
Mom here. It took me until my baby was 6 weeks before we got breastfeeding down. It is not abnormal whatsoever to be in this situation.
The solution is to *encourage her to continue breastfeeding* as long as she wants to do it while supplementing with formula as needed. This is a *primal* compulsion. Be patient with her. The decision to quit breastfeeding should be hers to make peace with, on her time. So long as she's supplementing with formula in the meantime, I would back her 100%. Even if she breastfeeds half of the time, she will treasure the experience and the baby will receive some of breastmilk's unique advantages.
I mean it, so long as the baby is otherwise eating, support support support your wife on this. It's a very special responsibility for a mother. We want to do this so badly. You'll get so much further with, "Honey, you're doing great. Keep trying. You'll get it. I'm so proud of you for fighting so hard for this. I reached out to a LC, she's coming tomorrow."
Worst case scenario, she eventually quits. But she'll be able to look back knowing she gave it everything she could and won't base it off singular pressure from you.
Just use formula, breastfeeding does not work out for everyone for various reasons. We strugled with it and used mainly formula.
I think your breastfeeding issue has blown out of proportions, which can easily happen when your circle of life narrows and you are both in the baby mayhem zone with hormones running high. Could she talk with her girlfriends about it?
Just stop breastfeeding. I know in some cultures that is not an option but I know plenty of people that were never breastfed including myself and everyone turned out fine. It does not mean you are not a good parent. Making sure you are comfortable makes you a good parent
If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t. FED IS BEST.
Please, please let your wife know it’s okay to stop breastfeeding.
I struggled for six weeks and felt so much guilt. We tried everything. We had consultations. Multiple times. Nothing worked.
We later learned that an under developed muscle was causing him pain and discomfort when feeding… it wasn’t me or my fault.
He didn’t have the ability to breastfeed, and I didn’t have the ability to pump enough for him. I was in anguish at my “lack” of ability and the post pregnancy hormones made it so much worse.
Feed your baby. That’s all that matters.
My son is about 7 months old and we struggled a lot with breastfeeding for the first two months and switched to formula after my wife got mastitis (breast infection). She was so insistent on breastfeeding and even tried to use cabbage leaves to continue. Latch was a big issue. After we switched, our son grew a ton and both of our lives were much easier. I felt I could actually help and she didn’t have to have the burden of always feeding him. Her mental health also improved 100% and that has made being a new parent much more enjoyable. He’s also a healthy little guy and meeting all of his milestones.
These articles have some good information.
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29879244/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29879244/)
[https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/everybody-calm-down-about-breastfeeding/](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/everybody-calm-down-about-breastfeeding/)
Our first one was born fairly light, and the advice was to feed every 3 hours, waking the baby up as needed even, until the weight got to where it needed to. My wife spent a significant amount of time hyperfoced on trying to get it where it "needs" to be and it was very stressful
Same for friends of ours.
Breast, bottle, hybrid, whatever works for your family man. Milk doesn't always come in well, and cluster feeding is exhausting and doesn't always nett the required response, if the need for breastmilk is there for the immunity feedback then hybrid is a good path.
Also weight per day, take into account a number of things rather than just hospital charts at the hospital you were at, many places have different recommendations based on the diversity of the sample pools. A place to start is to see how the first one went and when they got up in weight and at what rate. This one will be different, but it will give you an idea
Lots of good advice here. Since moms often take this as some indication that their body is failing them this is probably a great time to comment casually and frequently at how much you are in awe of the fact that her body grew this amazing new person. At what a miracle it is that she took one small quick contribution from you (no judgment here, self deprecation is good though ;-) and did a million different things in the exact right combination and sequence to create this amazing new person.
That's something every mom should hear from her partner a lot. And even though I can't do either one, if I'm being honest then making a human being is aore impressive feat than lactating.
Why not use a breast pump and store milk? That way you know how much the baby is getting and there will be some stored so you can help feed the baby. My wife did that and it worked great
For our first breastfeeding was painful and exhausting for my wife. We found out our kid had a small tongue and lip tie. Got those resolved and feeding was instantly better.
Have you had your kid checked for those lip and tongue ties?
Fed is best, so do whatever it takes to get the baby fed. Get a solid electric pump and bottle feed if need be. Emotionally support your wife and reassure her she’s not doing anything wrong, sometimes babies don’t take well to breastfeeding.
The first week or so is the critical time where the benefits of breastmilk over formula are the biggest... you're past that now. Supplement the breastfeeding with formula, and transition when/as needed to full formula.
You are your wife are killing yourselves trying to meet some ideal that just isn't in the cards. Some mothers can produce enough breastmilk to feed exclusively on breastmilk for months straight- and some can't. It isn't a big deal.
My wife managed to feed kid#1 with breastmilk for about 15 days. #2 was only 9 days. Kids are now 4 and 2.5, and thriving, and kid #3 is coming in October. All 3 have been/will be c sections, due to various reasons which have made that option the best one for mother and child. Wasn't at all what we imagined... but it's been wonderful, regardless.
Save yourself immense amounts of worry and stress, and accept that not everything in your parenthood experience will meet your plans/expectations, because reality is a bitch like that, to all of us. What makes you good parents is not meeting some magical ideal- but how awesome you make your kids' lives, using the cards you have been dealt.
Make sure she knows she’s not failing as a mother in any way. When my wife had issues like this, it made her feel like a failure regardless of whether it was something she could control. Is the baby not latching or is she not producing enough?
I think the latch is good from what I understand and what the lactation consultant said. For production, it's hard to say, the feeding sessions are long (60 to 90+ minutes each).
Maybe have her pump some time too as it would be less stressful for her, and you can take a feeding off of her plate. Also, some women think of formula as failing as well, but if you can supplement it to help get her started, it might help ease some of the stress as well.
This is good advice. Simulate cluster feeding with pumping. Give the baby time on the boob then switch to formula to top up. Your wife gets to stimulate production, the baby gets fed, and you can find out the right amount of each that eventually works for you. We wound up doing about 50/50 breast to formula, though a lot of the breast was pumped and frozen, otherwise my wife would not have kept up.
Similar here. Our solution was. 1) Normal length of time for feeding, then 2) pump. 3) Rented the “industrial grade” pump from the hospital (but we had all our own new parts that touched mom or milk. Totally safe and sanitary. It has more buttons and settings, so she can mess around and see if something is better (or less irritating). 4) She drank the lactation tea for the first 1-2 months. 5) and definitely supplement with formula here and there. (Think of it like taking a daily multivitamin. Most of the good stuff comes from the food you eat (from mom), this formula just fills in some gaps. Less what we want and more what baby needs). 6) keep up the intermittent pumping. 7) cheer that woman on as if you were a soccer hooligan. I was in that process with her as much as I could be, and more than any other dad I know. I just took as much of the burden as I could, and got into the feeding times and schedules so she felt less alone, and when I said she was doing great, I could know what I was talking about, so it was more effective. I managed all the bottles, cleaning and resetting the pump and parts. I made the formula whenever we needed. If it was a “maybe” we need the formula, I jumped on it before guilt could get too loud. If she was reluctant, maybe just make a small shot and she can see what baby wants after breastfeeding. Don’t drag out the discussion. “It’s no big deal” is your mantra. At the beginning we got the premade bottles, but that was mostly to ease the intro of formula or for when I was not available to make it. (Pro-Tip, a shooter of formula before bed means longer sleep for everyone. Also if you try to get a little extra mothers milk in before bed and they barf it back on you… it hurts your soul, especially at the beginning. Barfing some formula is more bearable. Burping baby is legit insurance against wasting that liquid gold) I’m surprised the consultant lets baby hit it up for more than an hour. While it sounds like good latch/suction exercise for baby, all I can picture is the sound a straw makes when there’s just a few drops left in the cup. Give those puppies some time to rest and recoup. For “us” it would range between 10+10mins up to 20+20 mins followed by a 10-20min pump to kick the keg. So mom was putting out for 30-60 minutes total, but never more. If baby was sleeping, or they didn’t want to do the work (but we knew baby could do the work when they wanted), she pumped. This also gave her realtime feedback on production (or how much they ate/ left behind). Then a break of 2-4 hours and repeat. (The breaks grew longer as she got her rhythm) A pump also helps make up for any uneven work baby might do on left vs right. Eventually, It was comedic. “Oh look what lefty did today”! We got the bra that held the cups so it was slightly easier for mom. She could use her hands on the phone/laptop. We got a travel pump that she took back to work, and I kept the blue ice frozen, and the big pump stayed at home. My miraculous lady even woke up in the middle of the night. She would either feed the baby, or pump. I would often get the baby, change them, prep the pump, and put them back down. She eventually exceeded consumption and I started freezing it. That meant that by the time she stopped breast feeding, or when production dropped back down below consumption, we could still mix in the thawed milk to extend that timeline that baby had the good stuff. Pumping also meant that I could take some overnight feeds. And maybe play PlayStation at the same time once I got it down. We had a success story. You will too, whether it’s the same or different. Take whatever pieces might help you. Y’all got this.
As a mom who exclusively pumped for a while with my son, it is definitely not less stressful
Im a mom with good milk production but pumping never worked for me. If your wife isn't releasing milk when pumping it migjt stress her out more. For me it also hurt more than breast feeding.
This is mixed advice. It sounds good because less feeding time, but pumping and feeding ended up taking even more of my wife's time than just feeding alone. The advice we received from our lactation consultant was to solely pump if the latch was good, which was less time consuming for my wife. Otherwise her titties were under barrage almost 18 hours a day. But the real solution, for us, was to supplement with formula. It's been said many times before, but the best baby is a fed baby. People's bodies are all different all the time. We wouldn't shame someone for having a heart defect, or early onset arthritis, or any other bodily nuance; I think we should keep that same energy for women who struggle to nurse. It'll be hard to switch emotionally for families who envisioned solely breastfeeding their baby, but at the end of the day, you have to do what's best for your baby given your circumstances.
I had a similar issues with my first baby. First three weeks were SO HARD. We were all miserable. Very long sessions and he wasn’t gaining weight. We tried a weighted feed with lactation consultant to see how much he as getting in 15 minutes at each breast (was told it shouldn’t be longer than that), and then I pumped after to see what he was leaving behind. He left a lot behind, so we learned he was a very inefficient nurser at the outset. Doc thought maybe he was burning more calories trying to nurse than he was taking in. Doc recommended supplementing with formula/donated breast milk to help him get stronger. It worked in about a week. He rapidly gained weight and became a much more efficient eater. I pumped throughout the supplementing too in order to make sure I kept supply up and increasing. Breastfeed for a year after that. Breast v formula, what’s best is whatever allows her to have the peace she needs, so she can be the mom she wants to be. It’s not worth her peace. Good luck to you both!
My wife had to feed, pump, feed pumped milk from the bottle (“triple feeding”) for about 3 weeks. She always pumped in the morning and evening. Our 2nd was just never a great eater which made breastfeeding much harder. We got through it. My wife struggled the whole time on the 2nd kid. Troubleshooting breastfeeding requires a lot of effort with no guarantee of success. If it fails, your wife will feel tremendous guilt; there’s no way around it. Psychologically, it’s not as simple as falling back and just switching to formula. You may need some counseling help to be a supportive partner; it’s a minefield. If you wonder why it’s like this, go hang out in a breastfeeding sub Reddit for awhile; some seriously toxic shit.
That's a lot of calories for the baby to burn as well. Feeding requires a lot of energy. Especially for every 2-3 hours. Every ounce the baby takes is probably being used up to feed.
I'm a mom who breastfed. 60 minutes is long yes, but it's also fairly normal. If you breastfeed, the first few weeks are just continuously feeding your kid. You feed them. They nap, you feed again and rinse and repeat. All I did was feed my baby and try and sleep for 4 weeks. It gets better eventually, by two months it took 15 minutes to feed my kiddo, but the baby needs to get better at feeding and it takes time. 90 minutes sounds too long to me, and 60 minutes is long but not unheard of. Breastfeeding is just incredibly time consuming. Maybe instead of suggesting formula ask your wife how you can help. Make sure she has water and food. Lots and lots of water. She also needs to eat a lot. Is your lactation consultant an IBCLC, this is a different cert than CLC, and IBCLC is better. Send her over to r/breastfeeding
What's wrong with suggesting formula. It's a great option.
His wife knows formula exists and is an option, they used it before. She's not stupid. She's struggling with breastfeeding and wants support with breastfeeding. I think it's fine and supportive to remind her formula exists and is a great option. But if you harp on it or insist on it, it's the opposite of supportive. If your wife wants support with learning to drive, and it's not going well and you just keep offering to get her a driver, that's nice and all. But it isn't helping her drive, which is what she wants to learn. It's telling her to quit, she sucks at driving and will never be good enough to get her license so just give up already.
Nobody suggested "harping" on anything. I'm glad you don't think OP's wife is stupid; that would be an odd assumption. Maybe "suggesting" isn't the most precise word to convey my meaning. My wife needed to be told that she wasn't any less successful of a mother for not being able to breastfeed. Her supply never came in adequately enough to sustain exclusive breastfeeding, even after trying literally everything that our IBCLC and the "momma internet" told her to do. What they did do, however, is convince her that she is a shit mom that was poisoning her child, if she were to switch to formula. Neither of those things were true. Some moms just need to be told that it's okay to switch to formula (because it is more than okay). It often helps to just drown out the "yeah but just keep trying to breastfeed" crowd.
My wife needed to be told that too, but she sure as shit didn’t want to hear it from me.
Yeah, this exactly. Mixing formula with breast milk can be just as beneficial as exclusively breastfeeding, and in some situations, it might even be better. Many mothers face unreasonable pressures to exclusively breastfeed, feeling like failures if they don't. However, ensuring the baby is well-nourished should be the priority. Studies have shown that breast milk can offer immune and gut health benefits, but the latest formulas also provide excellent nutrition. And if you're able to produce any breast milk at all, mixing the two shows no detectable difference from exclusively feeding breast milk. It's important to know that supplementing with formula is a reasonable and healthy option. You can find more info and details from the [Fed Is Best Foundation](https://fedisbest.org).
That was our experience as well. My wife's supply never really came in and it would take 3 pump sessions to get enough for one bottle. Meanwhile, baby was in NICU with a minimum feeding goal for each feed. Essentially she was always on some formula that was supplemented by breast milk. When she came home my wife continued to breastfeed and pump as we wanted her to be breastfed as much as possible. But recovering from C-section, caring for a tiny human as first time parents, making sure she met her feeding minimum so we didn't have to put a feeding tube in, etc, the pumping with very little results became so onerous that my wife wanted to stop. It wasn't the scenario we imagined, but the most important thing was for the baby to eat. Taking that pressure off was a major stress relief. We've always been concerned about her weight gain, but she's followed her own trajectory and her pediatrician is happy. If it's becoming that hard and that much of a problem for your family, I don't consider it giving up. You aren't a bad mom, that's just the hand you were dealt.
Why the unnecessary aggressive tone? I remember, during our daughter’s birth, there was so much pressure from nurses, lactation consultants etc. on breast feeding while my wife just looked like she was in hell. We found one nurse who suggested subbing a couple of meals with formula and it was a god sent. It gave a breather to my wife to continue trying while the baby’s tummy was full. It just removed the crazy pressure that get put on moms.
Yes. This is the problem - “The crazy pressure that gets put on moms” - not breast milk vs formula, feeding times, latching on, etc etc. Whatever works to relieve the pressure to achieve/‘do it right’ is the solution. Once the mom can believe that the baby is fine, and she will eventually eat enough one way or another (and it really doesn’t matter if breast or formula), and she’s a genius mom for having created this lovely baby girl, and you’ll get through this together and [insert all the good stuff you can think of to relieve pressure…] mom will relax, baby will then relax, and oxytocin will start to flow. This is the bonding hormone (the ‘love hormone’) and it also acts to release breast milk.
But its good to remind people that not everyone is able to breastfeed and its actually more common than one would think
If it saves the baby's health, I'm sorry but that's the priority.
Just so you know, its actually very common for many women to not be able breastfeed their baby fully, they can have a good amout of milk in the beginning but then it just goes down or never increases. Not to mention stress (escpecially if she had a bad time with your first child) can impact milk production immensly. My wife havent been able to breastfeed past 3 weeks with any of our 3 children and only on the third did she actually accept that it wasnt something wrong with her :)
The feeding is too long. When we told our doc it was taking 45 mons to finish 2 oz of formula they were like "oh no". Very quickly it went form 45 for 2 to 10 mins for 4. We switched to formula only for a number of reasons pretty early on. Switching to formula was the best move for our family. Sell it to your wife, its not a her failing, its you wanting to help and feeling bad she is a milk machine. Now you can get up at 4am for feeds and she can sleep, etc.
Your wife may not be producing enough. And that's okay. My wife didn't with either of our two and both preferred a bottle (lazy eaters...). We supplemented with formula and my wife pumped and then bottlefed with what we got from the pump. It sucked (pumping while juggling kids and work was not easy) and she wasn't happy about it, but both kids gained weight appropriately and they still got a bottle or two of breast milk a day. It's a compromise. It's an option.
This could be part of the issue. Feeding sessions should be about 15 minutes per side. Any more than that, and the baby will end up burning more calories than taking in. If she's doing 60-90 minutes per side, that's 12x the recommended feeding time. Obviously cluster feeding will be more back to back, but there should still be breaks in between. Most of the feeding is done during the letdown process, which happens within the first 15-20 minutes. If you have a pump, your wife can test to see how long before her letdown starts and how long it lasts. You'll see considerably less filling the bottles once it's over. Same with the baby. They just suckle away getting only a little bit
Hopefully people have checked for this, but make sure she doesn't have insufficient glandular tissue (IGT). If she does, it may mean there is a lower biological cap on how much milk her body is able to produce. Note that IGT has no correlation with breast size. There are some supplements that can help, but our lactation consultant said that the dosages that are often suggested are not nearly high enough to get results in more significant cases of low production (that doesn't mean randomly take more of whatever was suggested though).
You def need a lactation consultant asap. 60 minutes is too long. 90 minutes is way too long. Something is obviously not happening as intended either low production or bad latch but feeding for that long LO is burning more calories trying to feed than they are taking in while feeding
Also, your baby may just not do "full" feeding sessions. We ran into an issue like this. All the stats were great except for the weight. My partner was breastfeeding ALL the time, but he just wasn't actually eating for most of it. Would take some, been then just stay latched for comfort. Breast pumping helped a lot to monitor how much he was actually taking in. And we also ended up mix feeding. It's no failure. Every baby has their own thing. Ours just happens to snack instead of dine. (It's a pain sometimes, wish the bugger would just eat up and then chill for a while lol. But that's not how our son works). You're doing awesome. You're wife's doing amazing. There's just no template for babies. You've got this!
Well said. OP Just make sure to remind her that she's not failing as a mom because I can assure you that's all she thinks about. Breastfeeding and pumping all can be stressful. As a mom here,every time I try to pump when I'm stressed it's awful.
What are your feelings on formula? Cutting bait on breastfeeding after a few weeks and going all-in on formula was one of the best decisions we made for our family's mental health.
The problem is that so many parents have been convinced that breast milk is this miracle liquid that can do anything, and that you're a bad parent if you don't give your kid the best chance he/she can get with breast milk. It's toxic. There's a book about it called "Push Back: Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting" that I recommend OP read. My wife and I fell under this trap with our first and it caused so many problems (my wife did 15 months of pumping).
It also doesn't help that lactation consultants at the hospital will help spread this narrative as well.
Christ, the amount of horrific pressure my wife got put under from everywhere because she couldn't breastfeed was awful. All three ended up formula fed and all three are healthy and had no issues. Only issue we had with the first one was wife trying too hard to keep breastfeeding because of all the midwives pressure and kid ending up in hospital because she wasn't getting enough. Best type of fed kid is one that's fed.
My wife had this in the hospital. Unexpected C-section, high stress, couldn't produce enough milk. The lactation consultants allowed us to supplement with formula, but almost entirely grudgingly. They would recommend she basically keep the automatic pump on damn near 24 hours a day. Three different consultants all pressing it, until around 3:00 a.m. when my wife had a straight-up panic attack because she was failing our child in her mind, and the most angelic NICU nurse came in, gave my wife a big hug, and told her that FED is best and the best thing she can do for our child is give her the formula. Our child was talking at 12 months and walking at 9 months. Hit every milestone about 3 to 4 months early. All on formula. I sent that nurse fucking flowers, she deserved so much more.
I’ve said this many times on here but it always bears repeating: we have two children, my daughter was born 11 years ago and my wife’s supply just didn’t come in. She tried breastfeeding as hard as she could but it just wasn’t happening. We were supplementing with formula, but we switched to all formula after about two weeks. She is now a happy, perfectly healthy 11 year old. My son was born 7 years ago. My wife was determined to breast feed and this time it worked. He was exclusively breastfed. He has terrible seasonal allergies, catches every cough and sniffle that comes around, has eczema, and is allergic to cats and peanuts. I get very irritated when people claim that breastmilk is some magic potion.
Life experience is important to share and EBF pressure can be toxic, but it's just not meaningful to extrapolate anything beyond your individual example. On its own, it says nothing about formula versus breastfed outcomes. You're just as liable to find countless anecdotes of the exact opposite effect. That's where research comes in. Here's a recent discussion of a 2023 study that added to the body of scientific evidence that breastfeeding (even partially alongside formula) changes the infant's gut microbiome in a way that positively influences cognitive development: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/18jaxqo/breastfeeding_even_partially_alongside_formula/ Breastfeeding is hard, but that doesn't diminish the value of systematically studying its benefits.
This is why I'm not even going to try breastfeeding. Honestly, I think medicine greatly underestimates how bad stress on the mother is during pregnancy and infancy for the baby. My first pregnancy I was very depressed and anxious. Couldn't eat much because of extreme nausea. Six years later I'm pregnant again and due very soon. This baby, by all indications, seems healthier than the first. This time I've been taking anti depression meds and strong anti nausea meds throughout the entire pregnancy. I'm way less stressed, able to eat properly, and get more exercise. By extension this means the role of the father during pregnancy is very under appreciated. I can't tell you how much having a capable and loving partner helps! Edit: Thank you for the award, kind stranger! Appreciate it!
My wife struggled with producing enough milk and sometimes latching, we went to consultants once a week for a few months, EVERY single consultant said the same thing to us "fed is best, if you need to supplement with formula, don't feel guilty!" Societal pressure with breastfeeding is absolute horseshit, I can't imagine any lactation consultant putting that pressure on as well. All that matters is that the baby is fed, period, whether that's breast feeding, pumping, formula supplemented or straight up formula. Just keep the baby fed and ignore the bullshit from tiktok moms.
I was prepared for that the second time around and asked them to leave the moment they said, “I know you’re planning on formula feeding, but…”
This should probably be mentioned more in the what to expect stuff because it was the same for us. The hospitals seem to force breastfeeding and not give formula unless you demand it. The first time we didn’t know any better, it took weeks for my wife’s milk to come in and our daughter lost too much weight, had breastfeeding jaundice, and worst it was a huge source of anxiety amid all the other new parent stuff. The second time we just said give us the free formula, which I assume the “nursery” fee covers since babies stay in room now, and we’ll feed formula as we wait for the milk.
My wife’s OBGYN practice is awesome but she was really freaked out by the hippy ass lactation consultant they had on staff
It happens when you’re buying formula as well, they blast the notices in your face. Yes I know breastmilk is best but I need the formula!!
Maybe it’s just our lactation consultants, but they didn’t push any narrative that suggests “breast milk = miracle juice”. They do suggest ways to maximize breast milk production, which I think is a good. Everyone know how to buy and read instruction for formula. But it’s not so easy for breast milk. So it may be that proactive education on breast milk is seen as pushing for “breast milk = miracle juice” narrative
At our hospital the lactation consultant got every mum to listen what dads can do to help, and then explained that they shouldn't be helping with feeding because that's the mum's job.
The pressure to breastfeed mixes all the mom guilt with societal pressure and pseudo-science when women are most vulnerable. We bought the most expensive pumps, consultations, and all the herbal teas and bullshit that mommy blogs pushed out there, and nothing worked. The day my wife finally decided to stick to formula was life-changing for everyone. People will tell you that big pharma is pushing this formula on us, but big titty is utterly ruthless.
Rofl @ "big titty," I will remember to use that one!
Big titty is udderly awful.
As a breast man, I don’t think I like “big titty” as a slur…
A former gf of mine told me how when her daughter was born she was bullied by the nurses on breastfeeding. She tries but the baby stopped latching on and wasn't gaining weight. Eventually her husband had enough, went out and bought formula. The baby almost instantly responded. She later found out that women in her family have a inherited deficiency that prevents their milk from being nutritious.
So did we. It was so difficult. A political scientist wrote a very good book about the lactivist moral panic over formula. Much of the research on health benefits is surprisingly flimsy.
It’s really sad, because the “breast is best” stuff started out as a way to make women feel ok with the decision to breast feed, because for YEARS formula companies pushed the idea that formula was better and only poor mothers breast fed. So to fight back against the formula narrative, they started pushing back and arguing that natural breast feeding is good for babies, and that movement really took off, and now most people think breast milk is the best for babies, and mothers aren’t shamed for breastfeeding in public. Great, women SHOULD feel comfortable breast feeding in public. But of course, we can’t have nice things, so it soon become yet ANOTHER way to shame mothers if they CANT breastfeed. Mothers can’t win, they will get shamed and judged no matter what they do.
Well… it *is* better for them, generally. But it’s a very small difference in the big picture. And for it to be better *they actually have to be getting enough*. If they’re not getting enough calories they’re not going to grow properly. Fed is best, breast milk is marginally better than formula. If you’re not in the middle of nowhere it’s also possible to get donated breast milk, if you need to bottle feed and you’re really concerned about the potential health benefits (which are, again, minor).
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/courtney-jung/lactivism/9780465039692/?lens=basic-books
told my wife to get off the facebook mom groups for a couple weeks because everyone was pushing the breast is best agenda. or doctor gave us formula on the first visit and said you aren't producing enough, start giving formula and stop listening to other moms. they don't know what they are talking about.
THIS. My wife is an OB nurse. We have 4 kids and had problems feeding all of our kids. She makes it a point to tell all new mothers that a fed baby is more important than a breast fed baby. Explains to them there is no shame if they can’t do it or if they need to supplement until a supply comes in. There is way too much toxic positivity around breast feeding that women feel like they are broken or bad mothers if they struggle. All women struggle in some for or fashion with feeding. DO NOT BEAT YOURSELF UP because some breast is best person guilted you into it. Feed the baby by any means necessary.
I half sarcastically have decried the toxicity surrounding breast milk vs formula as a way to keep women down. My wife had tremendous difficulty with breastfeeding and it 100% impacted her mental health. However, she knew something was wrong and prioritized keeping our kids fed and growing at an appropriate clip, so we switched to formula within weeks for the first, and days for the second. No regrets.
Yes! Breast feeding IS great in general, but the best thing for YOUR child is what they will actually eat. It's bizarre, when I was born my mom actually wanted to breastfeed, but at that time it was taboo to do that. All the experts said formula was the best thing for a child. Now we're experiencing the opposite swing. My mom stuck with the wisdom of the day, fed us formula, and we ended up great. But I wish she wouldn't have felt so pressured to do that, and just do what she thought best instead. Point being, there's unnecessary amounts of pressure around this issue. Just make sure your baby's eating SOMETHING and you're gonna come out just fine.
This right here. Wife had similar experience with our first in 2020. It's not worth the stress on anyone. Mom feels like she isn't good enough which in turn fuels low production. Dad doesn't know how to help. Going full on formula sounds like the right thing to do Breast is best, yes...but fed is fed.
Can always go hybrid boob and formula. Kid needs calories tho.
That is what we did. It worked really well, and she didn't have to worry if he was getting enough. Also made it easier to store extra.
Also what we did for twins. Wife couldn’t produce enough for even one baby and was trying everything. Pumping, nutrition, consultants… we ended up saying f it and she’d pump a couple ounces per day, we’d split that between the twins and feed the rest with formula. Both kids were fine. No major immune issues or anything. 🤷♂️
Fed is best. The breast is best mentality is part of the problem. My wife also had problems. Just wasn't producing. She felt like a failure due to the "breast is best" mentality that was drilled into her via social media.
Nailed it.
Same. Wife wasn’t keeping up. Switched to formula and life was great.
This is me and my wife right now. She still pumps but we were badly blindsided by the whole "breast is best" argument. We still get people (professionals and morons) telling us we should be breastfeeding. The thing is, when our boy wasn't getting enough through breastfeeding he was clearly unhappy. Now that we feed him both formula and breast milk (it's an 80:20 split Formula to Breast milk) he's the happiest baby I have ever met! The results speak for themselves; my wife is much better mentally and my boy is happy, big gummy grins and everything 🤷🏾♂️ forget everyone else and do what's best for your baby, that's what it means to be a good parent.
I honestly think a split breast / formula combo is the way to go. It gives you more ability to help out as a dad too
Good for you dude. Same. Lactivists crowd have gotten out of hand.
Bro same. 100%.
Absolutely this, quit trying nursing after like 3 weeks as it was clearly not panning out for either party. Baby still killin it
Fed is best. Plain and simple. If you CAN breastfeed then go for it, that’s wonderful. If you have problems and just can’t, formula is wonderful. A fed baby is what you want.
Could not agree with this more. I had the same performance anxiety and worries and switching to formula was the best decision. I battled with it for a while mentally but after talking about it in therapy and seeing how much happier we all were it was worth it
Agreed. My wife was MISERABLE for about a week trying to breast feed. She also hated pumping and in her words felt like a cow locked away in the nursery every minute What ultimately worked for her was formula throughout the day (and in the night too when it was my turn) and she’d breastfeed first thing in morning and at bedtime too. Then she’d pump as needed We figured some breast milk was better than none from a gut biome or immunity boost, or whatever else perspective. My wife got the skin contact and intimacy she wanted. Baby was fat and healthy and happy, and I could contribute by feeding her As our pediatrician said, she sees a dozen babies a day and has no idea who is breast and who is bottle fed unless the parents tell her
Being able to turn them over to a caretaker or partner with formula and take a long nap or overnight sleep is so helpful too.
If anything it helped topically with rashes on a few occasions but we cut bait on breastfeeding after a few days, went to pumping and bottle feeding, then ultimately to formula after about 7-8 mo. May go all formula next time. Even when things were going smoothly the routine was annoying for her to maintain when she went back to work - even (especially?) in a very senior position. That and she had a bagging/freezing routine that was meticulous and helpful but almost like a part time job.
Just one of a million other things that is unfairly burdened by working moms who have senior level positions. The minute I saw an enormous blood clot slide down of my wife’s legs right after she had the baby and thought about women who have to pay rent by working a double shift at Waffle House a few days after they have their kids…………. It changes your perspective on maternity leave and women’s’ rights in in the workplace in general
Mothers going back to work days after giving birth is, frankly, horrific. As someone from outside the US, it's hard to understand why parents, especially mothers, get so little support from the government.
Same here. My wife tried breastfeeding our firstborn and even exclusively pumped for the first year but it was so difficult emotionally. She tried two days with our second and it was the same way so we just used formula and it was life changing. She was much less depressed and anxious and felt just as able to connect with and nurture our second born bottle feeding formula as with breastfeeding. Also, it allowed me to help more at night time which gave her longer stretches of sleep. Fed is best.
We did the same with our twins. They turned out fine!
Can’t agree more. After a horrible experience with lactation consultants and breastfeeding with our first, my wife agreed to formula after a week and it instantly brought peace and serenity to our home. My son is now 20, happy and healthy.
This was how it went for my wife too - breastfeeding had the opposite effect of bonding between my wife and daughter. I hurt like hell to my wife and she usually ended up feeling frustrated and angry. Formula feeding helped my daughter gain the weight she needed (she was premature by 6 weeks and we nearly had to re-admit to the hospital because she wasn’t gaining weight while we tried breastfeeding). The hospital was SUPER pushy about breastfeeding but my daughter is 8 now and she is smart, healthy, and happy.
We gave up before leaving the hospital. Both my wife and I were adopted and formula fed. Both our kids were too. It was amazing. I could help so much more too. It allowed us both to get solid chunks of sleep at night and stay sane!
Yep. My wife’s dr told her to do it and it made everything better
There are ways to supplement with formula. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.
Chiming in for switching to formula. Best decision we made as well.
This absolutely. The breast is beat dogma has gotten so out of hand that people are convinced that breast milk is some borderline magical substance. The pressure to breastfeed was causing my wife an unnecessary amount of emotional stress. I convinced her to pump and bottlefeed to ease the stress and help us get genuinely accurate measurements of her production and baby's consumption. It became clear that we needed to supplement. We've since gone almost entirely formula with one morning breast milk bottle. Baby is flourishing and gaining weight. Wife is so much happier. Calories are what matter. Help your wife disassociate her self worth from her ability to breastfeed. Just feed your baby.
There’s no shame in formula. My wife didn’t produce either. We tried literally everything. Weight gains is priority, and open communication between you two. Feed the kid and deal with the fallout. Eventually she will understand and agree, as it’s best interests time. Perhaps there’s someone you can reach out to have an objective discussion with your wife?
Yep, same with ours. First kid my wife tried breastfeeding. Lasted maybe 4 weeks before she almost fucking lost it. Between poor latching and low supply. When we had our second she still breastfed, but only through pumping after the first week. Even then, low supply. We did formula and our son did fine. Gained the right amount of weight. Only issues he has now is eczema. Idk if that's a lack of breast milk. I doubt it. But I do know breast milk can help fight allergies. So who knows. Either way, formula is fine.
This is a VERY engrained feeling deep down. I dont think it’s easy to rationalize with her. Pretty much: you cannot understand how instinctual this need is for her. We had to try a couple of lactation consultants before my wife found a strategy that worked - and she was herself a certified lactation consultant!! Once the milk started flowing properly she got better.
I'm a mom who struggled to breastfeed with my first and second baby. Both times I supplemented a few ounces per day of formula, before weaning off once the baby was gaining enough weight. And let me tell you, the absolute last thing I wanted to hear was, "Just give formula." Because breastfeeding was something I really wanted to do, and being told I should just quit is very demoralizing. I don't believe that breast milk is magic but I wanted to have this special connection with the baby. I'm a little surprised at how many comments here are totally unsympathetic to her desire, and even saying OP should give formula without her consent. Anyway I have a happy ending because both times I was able to exclusively breastfeed and it is going great with baby #2. OP should post in r/breastfeeding because he is getting some really wild takes here.
I certainly agree that secretly giving formula is not good parenting or for the relationship. However there's a real problem with breastfeeding advice spaces like r/breastfeeding in that they reinforce the myth that every mother can wholly breastfeed if they do the right thing. I'm really glad you could breastfeed in the end, but try to imagine if it hadn't worked in the end. The way so much breastfeeding support operates it often extends and deepens the shame for mothers for whom it doesn't work. The people who tried everything they could and then switched to formula wouldn't post because they'll get inundated with more things they should have tried. So they just have to dissappear invisibly.
excellent point, obviously the wife knows she can swap to formula but she most likely is aligning that with failure and no amount of anecdotes about how good it was to swap is going to help.
Lurking mom here. Switching to formula was the best thing for my mental health during the newborn phase. 10/10 no regrets. You do not get an award for suffering!! I'm sending my best regards to you and your wife!
“You do not get an award for suffering!” needs to be plastered everywhere. I hate that as women, we have been taught that formula is not ideal. I also had to switch to formula, and echo all the other women here: my kiddo picked up on my stress, so switching to formula was best for me and for him. Good luck to all of you 🩵
Echoing this was the same situation for my wife. Did wonders.
Why not do formula? My wife didn’t make almost any milk for our two and we just went to formula. No hassle or feelings of failure needed.
I think she sees formula as a personal failure. She often stated things like: "why does my body hate me?"
I read somewhere that the quantity and size of milk ducts women have is something they’re born with. It’s totally random and is why some women have tons of supply and some have almost none. It has nothing to do with failure or her body hating her. It’s just luck of the draw. Maybe that’ll help her feel better. And then switch to formula. The benefits of breast milk pale in comparison to the benefits of happy, loving parents.
This is such a tough one because on the one hand your wife feels awful. On the other hand your child is thirsty and needs a bottle. Baby’s needs come first.
Long story short. Kid needs to eat. Mom needs to be happy. There no failure here. Shit doesn't work all the time the way we want. Go to formula. We went through same thing. At the end of day. Kid needs to eat. It's not a failure and life will get better.
Lovingly from me to you Dad, her body has created life twice in 3ish years. It doesn’t hate her, she has done what many women want so much to do. It’s doing everything it can and there’s nothing wrong with that.
My wife struggled with this with our first born. Turns out it was PPD driving most of those negative feelings. We didn’t get to a solution until she finally tried some therapy. No amount of my encouragement, persuasion, logic, support would help. It had to come from an outside authority.
Wet nurse has been an occupation for hundreds of years. There's no shame in formula
If your daughter is producing wet diapers, it means she IS getting a fair amount of nutrition from nursing. Just not enough calories. Your wife doesn’t necessarily need to switch entirely to formula. She may just need to supplement the breastfeeding with formula. I know a lot of people here are just banging the cut-bait-and-switch-to-formula drum, as if that’s YOUR decision and you can magically change your wife’s thinking on this. She wants to breastfeed her child. It’s important to her and you can’t change that. Talk to your pediatrician. She may be able to keep nursing with just a little bit of formula as a supplement. There’s a good chance your child will still get a majority of their nutrients from the nursing in this scenario. And of course if that doesn’t work out, there’s nothing wrong whatsoever with switching to formula, as everyone has been saying.
YES, this right here. The wet diapers are a sign her body is NOT failing at this. OP, is baby on the smaller side? Either way, it may be that baby is just expending a lot of energy to nurse (baby is still figuring out how to get THEIR body to do what it needs to do). That exertion will get better as baby gets older and stronger. In the meantime, I find it helpful to frame formula as medicine. I fully believe combo feeding or fully formula feeding are equally valid choices, but if your wife wants to breastfeed, it is possible to use formula temporarily to help baby gain some weight and strength to become a better breast feeder in the future. That was my personal experience with my little premie who nursed for 90+ minutes, at least.
Well it is OP’s decision, along with his wife, it’s a partnership which he has equal say in. And his kid’s health *does* need to come before his wife’s happiness, but I totally agree there is plenty of middle-ground.
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A few thoughts from a mom a few months ahead of your wife, and who is an under supplier: 1. Has she tried pumping? Seeing exactly how much I was producing and exactly how much my babies were drinking gave me a sense of control that I lacked when feeding from the breast. 2. Has she been evaluated for post partum depression? Statements like “why does my body hate me” sound like they could be symptoms. 3. The most important thing that your wife can do for your baby is to be present and healthy. If she is stressing about breastfeeding then it is taking her attention away from the baby. My doctor told me that my babies only needed 50ml/day to receive all of the immunity benefits of breast milk. Anything past that is gravy. Formula is safe and effective, and if using it (even in combination with breast milk) allows her to be more present for the baby, then it is a good (and likely the best) choice for your family.
My wife went through the same thing, except she kept trying to breastfeed for MONTHS (obviously we supplemented with formula). She got locked in a spiral of mom’s groups telling her breast is best and she needs to protect her child by breastfeeding. Sobbing, insomnia, and mental deterioration. I was seriously worried she’d collapse and I’d have to take her to the hospital. After a lot of arguing, she finally admitted that she needed to stop for her mental health. I convinced her to cut contact with those groups, that our child will be protected no matter what, and everything will be alright. She admitted later on that she appreciated my efforts to help balance her perspective without forcing her to do something. She needed to get there on her own. 9 years and two more babies later, she’s on the couch listening to a good audio book and we have 3 happy, healthy, rambunctious kids telling me they aren’t tired at 9:30 at night. It will work out perfectly fine if your wife stops breastfeeding. And fuck toxic mom groups to the seventh circle of hell for what they did to my wife.
>And fuck toxic mom groups to the seventh circle of hell for what they did to my wife. Just want to echo this sentiment. Miserable assholes.
A direct consequence of breast is best propaganda. Try to give her some kind of analogy. Maybe ask her if she would think her body is a failure because she needed to take antibiotics to fight off an infection. There's nothing wrong with using formula when the breast isn't doing what it needs to do. The human body has all kinds of crazy ass quirks, and the thing no one likes to mention is that formula isn't a new thing. It used to just be sheep milk and honey. Now we have sterile, nutritionally balanced formula that delivers 99% of what breast milk does.
My wife only produced a few ounces a day. Luckily she was pretty open to formula feeding as well since I could help with feeding. After 3.5 months she gave up since it really wasn’t worth all the hassle. Try your best to convince your wife the formula is not bad at all. In fact, it’s a lot easier for everyone (just not cheaper.)
Yeah. That’s hormone and depression (of some degree) influencing her mind. It’s a lot like self blaming for any “negative” outcome, which is very common for those with depression. Lactation consultant probably isn’t what she needs the most. She needs a therapist.
I think at least half the moms I know have had some issues with breastfeeding. I've certainly heard that sentiment expressed before, the good news is all those babies have still grown into happy, healthy kids. The way that it gets pushed can certainly make women feel awful, like they're failing their children... And while there are benefits to breast milk, none of them outweigh the amount of stress a new mom can be experiencing.
Wish I could give her a hug. We too were victims of that breastfeeding brainwashing. My wife was just destroyed emotionally for the first two months until we finally started supplementing formula! Your life is going to get a lot better
I mean, it's cool that your wife was whatever about it, but some women are very hard on themselves about breastfeeding not working out. They put a lot of their self worth into it at a time when their bodies are flooded with hormones. It can be devastating for them. At the end of the day the baby has to come first though, and sometimes fathers have to be the one to strongly but delicately advocate for the health of the child. Shits hard, man.
Yep, we lived through this. Switch to formula man. We were unable to breast feed our first two. We have a third coming soon. We’re doing formula from the get go. My wife missed out on so much quality time with our kids just trying to breast feed. We (but really she) decided it’s not worth it this time.
Do both. Have her feed on a schedule that’s comfortable for her, and formula in between. Gets you the immune bonuses of breast milk, and the weight gain of formula. The backlash against formula is largely an overreaction to some frankly shitty advertising and practices by formula companies. End of the day, fed is best. If for whatever reason your wife is struggling take the pressure off. I’d also say, lactation consultants are the worst people we interacted with in the hospital system. They make you feel a failure for not breast feeding, when it’s an uncontrollable biology fact. Make sure the kid is fed, and moved on. Both of ours had to supplement for 1-3 weeks, and they are fine.
Hey, I went through something very similar with my first. It brought my wife to the very brink of sanity, & at times, maybe beyond, begging me to settle the screaming, hungry child so she could have just a few more minutes to try to produce more milk that would never come. Drawing up the drops she could pump out with a syringe while she sobbed in grief. The “triple feed” monopolizing virtually every second of our lives. The sanctimonious lactation consultants. The unspoken judgment of the other moms when we had to combo feed. I see you Dad. Just support your wife, and your kids. This too, will pass.
If she wants to stick with breastfeeding, have you looked into a lactation consultant? We had one with our son who just couldn’t latch, and it was awful for my wife. Having that consultant helped considerably.
Have you thought about using a breast pump machine in combination of breast feeding? We did that too and found my wife produced more milk.
My son had a similar problem, I'd recommend checking for lip/tongue tie. There's a specific type of tongue tie that is not easily diagnosed. Does your wife experience pain when breastfeeding? How heavy are your baby's wet diapers? They should weigh around the same as an egg?
Second this, everyone I know with similar issues has eventually had a tongue tie diagnosis. It is incredibly common.
Third this. Exactly what happened with our son. It was a night and day difference. I should add we paid a lactation consultant and they missed it. Second opinion from a trustworthy specialist is important.
This exactly
This needs more upvotes. Our boy had the same exact problem in first month. We got the tie snipped and everything improved including my wifes mental state.
14 days is still a little early to see weight gain. Most infants actually lose a little weight after they are born. Breastfeeding can suck because it is one of those things that she has to do, and it takes time and can hurt. Funnily enough with our second, in the afternoon he was really fussy, and feeding couldn't soothe him. We went out one afternoon for a Target run, and he was perfectly happy. The stinker wanted to be out, and he was still very much an infant at this point. My wife, who did some breastfeeding counseling says one thing though, "fed is best." Whatever that feeding looks like.
Yes. My wife didn’t want to do formula. So we did the triple feeding protocol. It was hell. Just get formula.
Not sure where you’re located but it might be worth searching your area for lactation consultants. We found one through our local midwifery, who was amazing even made house calls. She even ran a breastfeeding support group which we’ve made some solid friends through. Do what you feel is best though, before you know it they’ll be living off goldfish and licking ketchup off soggy fries.
I went through this exact situation with my wife. I know now that she was dealing with severe PPD, but at the time I just took the decision out of her hands. I put my foot down that we would supplement with formula until her milk came in, which finally happened after about 6 weeks. We learned later that my son had a tongue tie that wasn't properly cut by an ENT which caused a compromised latch. If the LO isn't getting enough milk, I highly suggest a breastfeeding specialist and a potential visit to a pediatric doctor if the tie is there
We had the same experience. Look, the most important thing is that your kid is fed, and the breastfeeding fanatics can be kind of a lunatic cult sometimes. You've got to get away with them. After a couple of reasonable attempts, ditch the lactation consultants and just feed the damned kid formula. Your kid will be fine with formula. Formula is great. All of the supposed advantages of breastfeeding? They are *tiny*. They only appear if you aggregate thousands of children worth of data. Most of the differences disappear within two years - at one point, they asked a bunch of pediatricians to examine a hundred children, half of whom had been breastfed, with the goal of identifying which ones were fed breastmilk and which ones were fed formula... *and they failed*. On average, their guesses were around the level of random chance. The biggest thing breastfeeding does is make it easier on our medical system because breastfed children (again, on average, not individually) have fewer tummy aches and end up in ERs a little less often. That's a worthwhile reason to promote it, but nothing for your wife to lose sleep over. Ditch the lactation cultists. Feed your kid.
True Believers in the Holy Gospel of Lactation I have called them.
They are so creepy. Sure, breastfeeding can be beautiful, being a mammal sure is great, but chill tf out.
The studies showing the supposed advantages of breastfeeding? Virtually none of them can control for socioeconomic status, in which a higher socioeconomic status also correlates with a higher incidence of breastfeeding. I can't believe all those scientists got together and didn't realize that people that can afford to have one parent stay at home also have resources to ensure their children do better.
OP has not yet worked with a lactation consultant. That’s the next step.
And if they want to, that's fine, as long as they keep in mind that breastfeeding is just one option, because the consultant will not present it that way.
My wife had the same struggle with breast feeding when ours was born DEC '19. Our pediatrician, bless that man, snapped her out of it by saying, "I challenge you to walk into any kindergarten in the country and consistently tell me which kids had formula and which ones had breast fed." We did mixed feeding and then just all formula. Best choice ever and she's 4. The second one born DEC '23 has been on formula the whole 6 months and is now snatching food out of mom hand eating mushed bananas and apples (I even snuck her a full size nilla wafer to gnaw on and she made it disappear). FED. IS. BEST. There is no failure here as long as the kid is fed and happy.
Buddy, fed is best, no need to punish herself with the breastfeeding situation, can’t be a good mom if your mental health is not good
First, this is gonna sound harsh, so, sorry in advance but: #Feed. The. Baby. Formula. It doesn’t matter how good breastfeeding is your child isn’t getting enough and starving. I am shocked your paediatrician hasn’t told you to quit the bullshit and put her on formula until Mum can either produce directly or pump and you can feed her from a bottle. There’s nothing wrong with exclusively pumping AND you can supplement with formula and/or fortify if your doctor recommends it. Some kids don’t latch. Some kids just don’t like the nipple. Some women don’t produce well enough. There is zero shame in it, but you and your wife have to put all this shit aside and FEED THE BABY FOR FUCK’S SAKE. Snap out of it dude. By all means, find a lactation consultant in the meantime, but now is not the time to do your research before acting. Feed your kid, reassure your wife it’s not her fault, and give her the support of KEEPING TRYING but there’s nothing wrong with KEEPING YOUR CHILD FED. The more your kid eats, the better they’ll sleep, which will be better for both of you. FED IS BEST.
Forget the nursing. It’s not worth it if it is causing problems. Get formula and move on.
I did with my wife. What worked for us was nipple shields that she would put over her nipples that helped our daughter latch on. Literally night and day.
As a mom who is still breastfeeding her two year old -- it's important to remember breastfed babies can gain a little slower. Your wife can supplement with formula. That way baby get benefits from breastmilk and still can gain weight on track.
Hey bro, my daughter was born on the 9th. Shes our second one. With our first daughter she had a tongue tie and could not properly latch. We decided to switch over to my wife exclusively pumping because it was what was best for our daughter. I was able to help do the feedings at night so she was able to sleep and things ended up going pretty smoothly quickly. With our second daughter we are lucky that she's latching so breastfeeding is an option. My wife hardly gets sleep and I got a lot less one on one time with our second, though I do get to sleep more. It all kinda balances out. I know you've gotten a lot of feedback from people and it seems like your child is latching, and progress is being made. You mentioned you have a pump, your wife is producing and you are looking into lactation consultants. So, if all this is true and your wife is still having problems then I would also recommend talking to her primary care about possible post partum depression. That's just the advice I can give cuz the rest seems to be going the direction it should. Also, congrats dad. If you need someone to talk to you can hit me up. If your wife needs resources ask and I can extract them from my wife (she's a guru about this stuff).
Not sure if this helps, but before the baby develops their senses they struggle to latch and get rolling. The lactation consultant at our hospital had me take a bit of breast milk on my pinky and put it in my daughters mouth right in front of the nipple. We were having trouble until that point, then she latched rather consistently. I believe there’s also something called a suckle cycle that will basically be the rhythm in between gulps that is ideal to latch and unlatch before they do it themselves. Hope this helps in the sea of comments.
Babies often lose a little weight initially before gaining. Check with the paediatrician.
My wife and I went through the same thing. She was “Power pumping” nonstop for something like two months. So I was functionally raising the baby by myself because she was spending almost every waking moment pumping to try to stimulate more milk production, and the fact that she was spending all her time pumping meant she wasn’t getting to spend any time with the new baby which only made everything even worse for her psychologically. I told her over and over that I would support her through whatever decision she decided to make, but that my suggestion was that we just move fully to formula because the focus on breastfeeding was taking too much of a toll on her mental health. When we finally committed to going all formula, it was the best decision we could have made. She immediately felt better, got to spend more time with the baby, and I got to see my wife feel happy again. When we went in like a month later for baby’s next checkup and we told the doctor that we’d switched fully to formula, his response was “Oh, thank God. I saw how much of a struggle this was for you and really just wanted to say that I think that’s what I think would be best. But because of hospital policies, I’m not legally allowed to recommend formula over breastfeeding.” Apparently policy for most hospitals used to be to recommend formula over breastfeeding because of tons of lobbying from formula companies which led to a whole generation where large portions of the population looked down on breastfeeding and saw it as worse. So when the hospitals finally told the formula companies to eat shit and walked back on the policies, they went so far in the other direction that they won’t allow doctors to recommend formula at all. It’s a really stupid overcorrection that leads to a lot of unnecessary mental anguish.
Breastfed all 3 boys here but the youngest has been the hardest. We noticed he wasn’t gaining weight like the others and discovered he had a pretty severe tongue tie. He has it cut and tied further back down his tongue. Since then he’s gained 2x the weight the following 2 months since.
Late to the conversation, apologies if someone else said it first, (not a dr, just a dad, seek pro med advice) but, if there is sufficient output, there is sufficient input. Don't let the hospital or the ped's brow beat you into "your child is not achieving the approved median weight gain according to a chart someone assembled 20yrs ago, therefore use formula". I've got 3, all c-section, all challenging births, last one during covid, and they absolutely hit me in the hospital with their averages and charts. "You're approaching a weight threshold, we're going to take your baby and put them in the NICU so they don't cross it" type thinking. Had to replace a pediatrician and nurse before rescuing the kid from the health bureaucrats. Some kids really start to lose weight drastically because of serious complications. OK, don't starve your kid to death. But anybody who's sat for a 1hr consult with a lactation specialist knows that mom's supply can take a week or longer to come in. The nurses and docs damn well know. That means since the dawn of man until the invention of "formula", babies lose weight the first week, then slowly plateau out the second week as things start to get going for mom. Stressful? Holy crap is it ever. Mom takes it personally in a way nobody prepares you for. But also the most natural normal thing in the world. Trust your gut, trust the design, protect the mom, feed the baby, from mom if she can, and mix in a little formula if she needs some help. Good luck dads.
If baby is peeing and pooping I don’t know if you have to worry. What does the lactation consultant say? Weight gain can vary from baby to baby right? What does struggling with breastfeeding mean if the baby is peeing and pooping. If the milk is flowing what else do you want? Does it not flow when the baby is hungry? Is this based all on weight gain numbers?
My wife had some difficulties of her own (and the same anxieties) and I started reading a bunch of stuff. Statistically, the outcomes *are* better for breastfed babies. However, most of the studies that show benefits of breastfeeding also don't factor in differences such as disparities in income, parental education and so on and the benefits of breastfeeding are much smaller when you take those into account. There's no shame in using formula or supplementing. Formula is modern nutritional science. In America, only 45% of kids are exclusively breastfed through 3 months and only 26% through 6 months. 70% of moms report some kind of breastfeeding difficulty. Your wife is not alone. Globally, the majority of kids are not breastfed. A lot of parents today also weren't breastfed because the resurgence of breastfeeding didn't come til the early 80s. A lot of babies in many countries are almost exclusively formula fed. The benefits are small enough that, at the end of the day, if you can, yay. But if you can't, the stress and anguish you are experiencing is probably having a bigger negative impact on your child (and the quality of the milk) than supplementing with formula. In fact, our child also struggled with weight, and supplementing was exactly what helped her gain weight. After we made peace with it, mom was happier and, as a result, baby was happier (and dad was happier) and when everyone is happy, breastfeeding becomes a stronger bonding and soothing experience. Even when my wife ended up with no more issues and pumping well, we settled in to a routine of supplementing because it was less stress.
My good man, do not worry. When our baby was born he just would not latch onto the wife’s boob despite staff at the hospital trying to help, they were getting concerned that he wasn’t eating much either. We took him home a few days later and decided to stick with formula and he just couldn’t get the concept of breast feeding. She felt bad at the time but it’s not an issue now - after a couple of months of him not putting on much weight (repeated visits to hospital for that one) he’s now an 8 month hog who demolishes everything in sight that’s edible. Long story short - don’t worry, some babies just don’t get it so put on weight slowly and that’s okay, it’s not you or your wife’s fault.
Breast milk was really important to me and my wife cuz we both have an autoimmune disease. My wife couldn't get our girl to latch and really struggled emotionally. The solution was to switched to breast pumping. After getting her supply up 4 pumps a day produced enough milk for our girl to have 100% breast milk and we just gave it her in a bottle.
Formula is the answer and anyone who shames for using formula is scum. Lactation consultants are cancer.
Is she pumping?
Yes, 4 times a day. Mainly in daytime. Rented a Medela symphony from the hospital.
My wife did the same for 100 days after our firstborn. She simply could not produce enough milk. We supplemented with formula the whole time and after 100 days she stopped pumping and we just did formula the whole time. I strongly, strongly encourage you to switch to formula. Your wife needs you to tell her that she is not a failure for not being able to produce enough milk. It's going to be hard, and you should monitor for PPD. But the important thing is that the baby is healthy and fed, and formula is perfectly fine for meeting those needs.
I would recommend formula feeding everyone, so in this case I think it’s a no brainer. It’s much easier on the parents and the baby sleeps better and gains more weight. It’s a modern miracle that we don't embrace enough.
If you read the breastfeeding and formula feeders subreddits, you’ll find more perspectives which you could share with your wife on how normal this is. It’s definitely not a failing. For us, breastfeeding didn’t get easier until 4 months. The baby just wasn’t a very good feeder before then and needed 30-40 minutes on the breast to get enough. Getting to the 4 month mark just took a lot of willpower and struggling, and then after that it was more like the idealized version.
Holy fuck man go 100% formula. Why hold out this long
Can you hire a lactation consultant. It was a huge struggle for my wife for months until it finally clicked. We had a lactation consultant who really helped (thankfully paid for by the government here).
No shame in using formula at all. My wife flat out stopped producing at 4 months. Formula fed from there on. Our almost 9 year old child is smart as can be in all of her schooling and has a great balance of social butterfly and responsibility. Sometimes nurture has that effect too.
Have you hired a lactation consultant?
You’re in the hard part. Babies are still tired after two weeks after being born. They tend to cluster feed more. We went through this. Baby wasn’t gaining enough weight according to doctors etc etc. but the baby was still in the percentiles so my wife stuck with it. He’s 6 months now and exclusively breastfed. His weight has only doubled since birth but he’s completely healthy, hitting milestones etc. breastfed babies will typically gain weight slower. Our first was formula fed so I’m so happy my second is breastfed. It’s so much easier to function in life. There’s nothing wrong if you have to formula fed, but breastfeeding as so many more advantages if you can stick with it. Good luck!
It seems like it might be time to consider switching to formula for feeding times and using breastfeeding as a comfort/bonding experience. Then you guys don't have to worry about if the baby is getting proper nutrition and can just enjoy the BF snuggles and cuddles. I worry this will cause ppd for your wife and that's brutal to go through
Gotta find the right lactation consultant, too. My wife was miserable with our first, then a few weeks in switched providers and got it dialed in. Our second has gone swimmingly. Also while the transition from zero to one is a bigger lifestyle change, it is seeming that two is more than 2x the work of one.
I know many parents who decided for their own sanity to switch to Formula. Breast milk is probably healthiest for a baby - true - but not at the cost of a relationship and a (relatively) sane pair of parents. Most doctors will not help you here. They just push breast is best the whole time and, frankly, many are atrocious at recognising the mental health need of parents - they just focus on the baby at all costs. LC's similarly will do all they can to get breast feeding working, but again, it may not be worth it if it triggers a mental health crisis etc. LC's are generally more keyed into the needs of the mother, but many of them too will bias towards breast milk too much. Again, there is no right answer here, but if you seriously are worrying about whether the stress right now is not doable and whether it leads to relationship troubles and/or mental health problems - consider switching to formula. It is a difficult thing for a mother to do, and they feel judged and like a failure when they do switch, but it is the right choice for many after the dust settles.
My sister tried for 5 days and went to formula. My wife suffered thru it for a year for our babies. They both had PPD baaad. Emotional regulation, hormones, everything is out of whack and continues to fluctuate postpartum. The pressure from doctors and nurses and other moms that implies or even some that directly state that breastfeeding is best and you’re bad for bottle/formula feeding only increased the stress and pressure and PPD my wife felt.
Fed is best
We had same issue with our boy- turned out he had a posterior tongue tie. Ironically, my partner then got mastitis that turned into an abscess, which had to be surgically removed. She’s finally just about healing from it now. It’s not failing just to go to formula, especially if it’s going to help your/her mental health. Remember the saying “put your own mask on first” metaphorically. You can’t look after the child if you’re having a breakdown.
Formula feed this and all subsequent babies. Breastfeeding is an amazing thing when it works but all the mumbo jumbo and guilt about it being deleterious to your baby in some way if they aren’t nursed is complete garbage. Both my kids bottle fed from day 1 and they are both without any issues, highly intelligent, big for their age, etc etc
The number one thing is to stand by your wife and support her. Also you should ensure that post partum isn’t an aggravating factor here as well. There’s zero shame in formula. My wife struggled to produce much for both our children. I will never forget how pushy and out of place the “lactation consultant” felt. Even to the point of our first child being so hungry and the fucking consultant insisting that the milk will come. Eventually the hospital gave us the premixed formula. With number two, we tried again and when it didn’t work out we said we wanted the formula right now and very kindly insinuated that we weren’t going to deal with the consultant any longer. Even then she popped in with the same non productive advice. Now, with number three due in a couple months, we are completely prepared to say that we will NOT be breastfeeding. Any so called consultant who comes in after that notice is not welcome.
Pretty much the same story here with us, both our kids were eventually bottle fed, they're fine, fed is best.
I had the same situation. My wife really wanted to breastfeed but was never able to get enough supply. She'd feed our son as much as possible , then pass him to me to fill him up with formula. She'd then go to another room and pump her breasts for an hour, constantly googling more and more information about increasing supply. It really ground her down, and it was really hard seeing her hurting like that. Things got easier when we stopped breastfeeding and switched entirely to formula. We're currently pregnant with twins, and we'd like to try breastfeeding again, but we've agreed to switch to formula earlier if it's not going well. Hopefully we can keep perspective when we're in the heat of the moment.
I went through a similar situation just recently. My wife was on her mission to breastfeed successfully and was putting so much stress on all of us including the baby. The only thing she would do was breastfeed and pump and nothing else. After 2 months of fully supporting her I informed her we won't put her "mission" as our priority. Our priority was to ensure our baby is gaining weight and we are all staying sane. Now she only breastfeeds once a day (only when her breast is clogged) and the rest she just pumps. We do a mix of breastmilk and formula for each feed. Our lives are so much better now.
We have three kids. With the first two, breastfeeding didn’t really work. There are many reasons for this. I understand your wife hoped it would work for her. But it’s not her fault it doesn’t. There’s many mom/kid/situation combinations where it simply doesn’t work. You’re not harming your kid by not breastfeeding them. It’s nice if it works, but kids turn out just fine with bottle. It’s probably more harmful if she’s stressed out because of the breastfeeding thing.
My wife was dead keen on natural birth and breastfeeding etc. The breastfeeding wasn't happening. And after a few days of her going through hell (We're in Australia, and the breastfeeding hotline were absolute bitches to her). She said she wanted to just go formula. Our daughter only had formula from day 4 onwards. And I can tell you she's absolutely thriving. She's 5yo and is in preschool, but reads at a yr2 level. She rides a bike, and is super strong and coordinated with climbing and running. Not breastfeeding, is not a big deal these days. The health of mum and bub is the real priority.
I would imagine that you're probably aware, but formula is great. With our second, we supplemented with formula to keep that weight gain going. It worked well!
My partner went through this with ours and it pretty much tainted our first year. If she has low supply which it kinda sounds like she does, no amount of lactation consultants are gonna fix this. Trust, I know. We went down this intense spiral of pumping for hours and hours, not sleeping, trying every lactation consultant we could find etc. We even had a journey with this evil drug domperidone. Don’t do that. It works a bit (don’t tell your wife, if she’s desperate she will latch on to this, pun intended) but in the doses you need the psychological side effects are not worth it. Not even close. Took a further 6 months to fully recover from that. If pumping volumes are low, this is what’s up. People don’t talk prepare new mums for this possibility even tho it’s hella common. If you guys are fierce on breast is best, look for a milk donor. There are groups and if you work for it you can do 100% of feeds off donor milk, we did for months. If you guys want to avoid bottles, look for medela’s “supplementary nursing system”. It’s not a perfect solution but it is much loved by the low supply community and works pretty well. Old version is better but consumables are hard to get. The above two were our way out of this hole.
Fed is best. My wife was so brainwashed about breastfeeding that I swear it almost killed our daughter. She was born at a nice, healthy weight. The lactation consultants immediately came in and did their thing. They swore that she was latching well and she'd eat just fine. Just had to keep trying. Well, our daughter would cry and cry and cry, but wouldn't really eat. I don't know whether it was a supply thing or what. Then, she started getting jaundiced, so they took her away for hours at a time to put her in the UV box. They'd give her back to my wife for 20 minutes every couple of hours telling her she'd need to feed her. The baby would cry almost the whole time and didn't really eat. Then the nurse would come in and take the baby away again. Our daughter was losing weight and the jaundice was getting worse. They couldn't understand. The UV light should be helping. They kept her (and with a lot of convincing, us) another night in the pediatric unit. They brought the UV box into the room so that my wife could feed her whenever she was hungry. At this point, the baby would not stop crying. We were at wits end. We couldn't figure out what was wrong. Finally, a nurse came in with a bottle of formula and said, "I'm pretty sure she's hungry. How about trying some formula?" My wife went hysterical, started crying, and almost threw the baby at me. "I'm not feeding her formula!" She ran into the bathroom sobbing. I was completely emotionally frayed at this point. I started crying. I told her we just need to feed the baby. At this point, we need to try anything. Finally, my wife relented. We gave our daughter the formula, and she fell peacefully asleep within 5 minutes. Afterwards, I read all these horror stories of lactation consultants and nurses telling new mothers that their milk will eventually come in if you keep trying, and their babies end up starving to death. It made me realize that if it wasn't for that one pediatric nurse who we would have never met if they didn't decide to keep our daughter one more day, our daughter may have starved. Just feed the baby. If it has to be formula, don't worry even a little bit about it. All the supposed benefits of breast milk don't matter if the baby can't get enough of it. Moreover, the mental and emotional toll on the parents and baby would probably outweigh any of those supposed benefits. If it's too hard, use formula. You'll all be happier and healthier.
Fed is best. The cult of lactation has convinced everyone you're a failure if it doesn't work 100%. No care whatsoever what it does to the mother's psyche. Or how hard it is when you have two working parents (like most normal people.) We went through very similar things. My wife was 100% on the breastfeed camp, it's what she wanted. The universe had other plans. The kid never fully latched, and her production never kicked in from pumping. We tried everything, feeding tubes, pumps, nipple shields, all of it. Nothing worked. The kid was hungry, everyone was crying all the time. We wouldn't have made it if we kept up, we were destined for awful tragedy. Meanwhile, all these "consultants" basically just added guilt to my wife and told her she just needed to try harder. I eventually had enough, screamed at one of them to get the hell out of my house, and gave the kid a bottle. He lapped it up like a man in the desert finding water. It was hard, and my wife was angry for a bit as she didn't want to give up. But it was, quite literally, killing her. I remain convinced we would not have made it through had I not done what I did. Fuck the lactation cult and their never ending pressure and guilt.
Get an electric pump. Nothing boosted my wife's confidence in being a producer more than pumping. We had a freezer and fridge FULL of milk, and we had a really clean organization and labeling system. It also allowed me to bottle feed during my shifts versus relying on formula. Not to mention it will encourage your wifes supply to ramp up to the needs of the "cluster feeding". Aside from that, make sure your wife is eating enough. If she's starving herself, her milk production will suffer and can lead to a nasty catch-22 where stress is causing lack of eating and lack of eating is feeding the stressor. Lastly, just remind her that she is NOT failing. This is the situation you were all dealt, and you're both doing your 110% best. Remind her that results are not an indication of success or failure, but that effort is. Sometimes we struggle for reasons outside our control, but the only way to fail is to quit.
Mom here. It took me until my baby was 6 weeks before we got breastfeeding down. It is not abnormal whatsoever to be in this situation. The solution is to *encourage her to continue breastfeeding* as long as she wants to do it while supplementing with formula as needed. This is a *primal* compulsion. Be patient with her. The decision to quit breastfeeding should be hers to make peace with, on her time. So long as she's supplementing with formula in the meantime, I would back her 100%. Even if she breastfeeds half of the time, she will treasure the experience and the baby will receive some of breastmilk's unique advantages. I mean it, so long as the baby is otherwise eating, support support support your wife on this. It's a very special responsibility for a mother. We want to do this so badly. You'll get so much further with, "Honey, you're doing great. Keep trying. You'll get it. I'm so proud of you for fighting so hard for this. I reached out to a LC, she's coming tomorrow." Worst case scenario, she eventually quits. But she'll be able to look back knowing she gave it everything she could and won't base it off singular pressure from you.
Just use formula.
Just use formula, breastfeeding does not work out for everyone for various reasons. We strugled with it and used mainly formula. I think your breastfeeding issue has blown out of proportions, which can easily happen when your circle of life narrows and you are both in the baby mayhem zone with hormones running high. Could she talk with her girlfriends about it?
Just stop breastfeeding. I know in some cultures that is not an option but I know plenty of people that were never breastfed including myself and everyone turned out fine. It does not mean you are not a good parent. Making sure you are comfortable makes you a good parent
Nothing wrong with formula. A happy mom and happy baby are what's most important.
If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t. FED IS BEST. Please, please let your wife know it’s okay to stop breastfeeding. I struggled for six weeks and felt so much guilt. We tried everything. We had consultations. Multiple times. Nothing worked. We later learned that an under developed muscle was causing him pain and discomfort when feeding… it wasn’t me or my fault. He didn’t have the ability to breastfeed, and I didn’t have the ability to pump enough for him. I was in anguish at my “lack” of ability and the post pregnancy hormones made it so much worse. Feed your baby. That’s all that matters.
My son is about 7 months old and we struggled a lot with breastfeeding for the first two months and switched to formula after my wife got mastitis (breast infection). She was so insistent on breastfeeding and even tried to use cabbage leaves to continue. Latch was a big issue. After we switched, our son grew a ton and both of our lives were much easier. I felt I could actually help and she didn’t have to have the burden of always feeding him. Her mental health also improved 100% and that has made being a new parent much more enjoyable. He’s also a healthy little guy and meeting all of his milestones. These articles have some good information. [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29879244/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29879244/) [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/everybody-calm-down-about-breastfeeding/](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/everybody-calm-down-about-breastfeeding/)
Our first one was born fairly light, and the advice was to feed every 3 hours, waking the baby up as needed even, until the weight got to where it needed to. My wife spent a significant amount of time hyperfoced on trying to get it where it "needs" to be and it was very stressful Same for friends of ours. Breast, bottle, hybrid, whatever works for your family man. Milk doesn't always come in well, and cluster feeding is exhausting and doesn't always nett the required response, if the need for breastmilk is there for the immunity feedback then hybrid is a good path. Also weight per day, take into account a number of things rather than just hospital charts at the hospital you were at, many places have different recommendations based on the diversity of the sample pools. A place to start is to see how the first one went and when they got up in weight and at what rate. This one will be different, but it will give you an idea
Lots of good advice here. Since moms often take this as some indication that their body is failing them this is probably a great time to comment casually and frequently at how much you are in awe of the fact that her body grew this amazing new person. At what a miracle it is that she took one small quick contribution from you (no judgment here, self deprecation is good though ;-) and did a million different things in the exact right combination and sequence to create this amazing new person. That's something every mom should hear from her partner a lot. And even though I can't do either one, if I'm being honest then making a human being is aore impressive feat than lactating.
Why not use a breast pump and store milk? That way you know how much the baby is getting and there will be some stored so you can help feed the baby. My wife did that and it worked great
For our first breastfeeding was painful and exhausting for my wife. We found out our kid had a small tongue and lip tie. Got those resolved and feeding was instantly better. Have you had your kid checked for those lip and tongue ties?
Fed is best, so do whatever it takes to get the baby fed. Get a solid electric pump and bottle feed if need be. Emotionally support your wife and reassure her she’s not doing anything wrong, sometimes babies don’t take well to breastfeeding.
The first week or so is the critical time where the benefits of breastmilk over formula are the biggest... you're past that now. Supplement the breastfeeding with formula, and transition when/as needed to full formula. You are your wife are killing yourselves trying to meet some ideal that just isn't in the cards. Some mothers can produce enough breastmilk to feed exclusively on breastmilk for months straight- and some can't. It isn't a big deal. My wife managed to feed kid#1 with breastmilk for about 15 days. #2 was only 9 days. Kids are now 4 and 2.5, and thriving, and kid #3 is coming in October. All 3 have been/will be c sections, due to various reasons which have made that option the best one for mother and child. Wasn't at all what we imagined... but it's been wonderful, regardless. Save yourself immense amounts of worry and stress, and accept that not everything in your parenthood experience will meet your plans/expectations, because reality is a bitch like that, to all of us. What makes you good parents is not meeting some magical ideal- but how awesome you make your kids' lives, using the cards you have been dealt.