By now you probably know that August is the month of National Breastfeeding and this week {August 1-7} is World Breastfeeding Week.

We have been sharing breastfeeding stories, encouragement, battles, and ways to make it a little easier. We hope this is helpful to all those wanna be, soon to be, veteran, and expired breastfeeding mamas!

AMB is no stranger to breastfeeding blogs, and even covered the controversial Time Magazine article a couple of years ago.  But all of this pro-breastfeeding stuff has put so much pressure on moms.  It is one thing to offer information and support, but it’s quite another when mothers are feeling bullied into breastfeeding, and then made to feel guilty when they can’t for whatever reason.

True confession time:  I am not one of those moms who was madly in love with breastfeeding.  I wish I were!  I know that it’s best and I worked So. Hard. on this, and I am INCREDIBLY proud to have nursed Finn for 15 months…but there was a big part of me who wanted to give it up at least once or twice a week.

Then my guilt starts to seep in…

I nursed Hudson for less than 6 months, and I started supplementing him within the first few weeks because he only ate little bits every 1.5-2 hours.  At the time I thought I wasn’t producing enough milk, so he must be hungry.  It turned out to be food allergy related, but for the 5 years in between his birth and Finn’s, I had major guilt and regret that I hadn’t tried harder to nurse Hudson.  That if I would have only known about food allergies and nursing, we could have nursed longer.  And I always said that if I had another baby, I would nurse for a year.  At least!

When I got pregnant with Finn, I began reading everything I could get my hands on about breastfeeding.  I wanted to be prepared for every scenario, because we were doing this.  I was FULLY committed.  I had my husband and friends on my side, we were ready to go.

Finn was born 5.5 weeks early, but latched on like a champ.  We were in the groove and then 24 hours later they thought he might have a Staph Infection.  So the doctor and nurses started preparing me that we might have to supplement his feedings so that he would not lose weight – in case he needed antibiotics.  Immediately I asked for a breast pump and insisted that we would NOT give him formula.  They were SO great at my hospital and very supportive.  The LC on staff was also incredibly helpful, and then I spend the next 24-36 hours either pumping or nursing.  I did not sleep.  I was able to supplement all of Finn’s feedings with pumped breast milk.  I felt victorious!

Well, as the time went on, the babe turned out to be a marathon nurser and from about six months on, I  contemplated introducing formula into Finn’s diet.  Not because I want to completely stop nursing, but because it would be nice to leave my house for more than 30 minutes, or to go teach a class or sit through an entire church service without having to worry about leaving enough milk!

(Side note: because I nursed on demand, I did not have time/make time to pump as often as I might have liked.  Finn was still nursing every couple of hours, until we weaned at 15 months, and I had to take the in between feeding times to do things like take my then 6 year old to school. 

I had the hardest time making the leap into introducing him to formula.  I had tremendous guilt over offering it. I guess it is a combination of guilt from societal pressures, pressure put on myself, pressure from friends…

It’s time for me to get over the guilt and do what makes our family the happiest.  If that means a bottle of formula here and there, then so be it.

“…because make no mistake: breastfeeding is worth it. But so is a mother’s sanity, health, and sense of autonomy. One does not supersede or cancel-out the other.” – Suzanne Barston

So how about you? Did you/do you have mom guilt if/whenyou chose to formula feed?