To Eat or not to Eat that is the question.....

The question  I think troubles many mothers especially when their babies are reaching the 4 month mark.

Do I start solids with my child, or do I wait until they are 6 months?

No matter who you ask, midwife, doctor, friend, new mother, mother-in-law or your own mother, you will probably hear a different story from each and every one of them.  My advise, is go with what you think is best ,after all you are that child's mother and at the end of the day the old fashioned saying of 'mother knows best' seems to finally make sense.

I was a first time mom, with no family in sight to help me along with decisions I was to make regarding my sons needs.  So the pressure was on me, i found myself asking myself the questions and after a few minutes answerring my own questions.  At about 3mnths of age my son started to get extremely angry on the breast, not only would be pull and graze me due to this frustration, he would take hours to fall asleep and sleep then was very short.  After my first visit by the midwife, I was told that perhaps I did not have enough milk for my son.  This could not possibly be true, my breast were so engorged, I was a genuine  Moo-Cow as my husband put it, who would express 150ml from each breast within 10mins.

And so after no avail, I was told to start topping him up with formula feeds.   A couple of days into this my breast milk started to dry up 150ml came down to 50ml, and at this stage it was truly not enough.  At 4months my son was being predominately formula fed.  The guilt trip was still placed on me by every midwife who did his fortnighly weigh-ins at our local pharmacy. Questions on why I had stopped?, had i tried to stimulate more milk flow?  Inside part of me wanted to say "how about you chop off your boob and give it to me to take home and feed my son, because clealry mine are faulty and this of course makes me not normal."

No one should make you feel guilty on how or when you choose to feed your child.  Besides instead of putting big WARNING: BREAST MILK IS BEST FOR BABY, CONSULT YOUR DOCTOR OR HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONAL FOR ADVICE BEFORE DECIDING TO FORMULA FEED.

Perhaps what they should say is the truth and nothing but the truth, breast feeding is damn hard, it is not walk in the park and believe you me it ain't that beautiful when you have a bout of mastitis.

So yes my son at 4months was formula fed and was eating solids, a shock to some but pure bliss for me and him.  Littleraf was happy and that of course made mommy happy. 

And so starts our adventures in the kitchen, cooking for littleRaf, without all the added nasties that are packed into that ready made baby food in the supers.