Breast is best....except when its not...

And just like that my baby boy is almost 4 months old.  Where did the time go?? Seems like just the other day I was sitting here writing my last blog post before Greyson was born.  So much in my life has changed in these last 4 months.  My life has become full of more love and joy than I could have ever imagined.  Sometimes I will be holding Greyson and I will just start to cry while thinking of how much I love him.  I am so thankful God blessed me with him and I just pray every day I can raise him to be a strong man of God.  I have learned SO much in the past 4 months.  Before having Greyson I felt prepared to become a mom.  I have always had motherly instincts and I just felt I was going to transition into being a mom very smoothly.  And I have to say for the most part I did.  I loved Greyson from the moment I laid eyes on him.  I felt the need to protect him from the moment I held him.  However I would have to say the first month was definitely difficult.  The first week was relatively easy minus the lack of sleep.  But Greyson just slept or ate most of the time.  He had latched on right away and breast feeding was going pretty well....or so I thought.  After the first week all of a sudden Greyson went from this sleepy baby to crying ALL THE TIME.  I went from feeling like I knew what I was doing to feeling completely helpless.  I had a feeling I wasnt producing enough milk but all the research I did said that all woman worry about this but that you are producing enough and the doctors I talked to told me to "keep trying."  So I did...Id even let Greyson eat for a whole hour.  Which sucks when your baby wants to eat every two hours.  What sucks even more is breastfeeding that long and your baby still acting hungry at the end.  When he would cry I kept telling myself he just ate there is no way he could be hungry!  But then instead of gaining weight he started losing weight (more than the original weight loss after leaving the hospital.)  I felt so helpless.  I was trying so hard to feed my baby and take care of him and provide for him like his mother is supposed to....and it just wasnt working. We finally started feeding him more formula and to my surprise he was eating 3oz of formula AFTER breast feeding.  Thats beyond supplementing....thats showing that he wasnt getting much from me at all.  Then I had a huge eye opener when my friend who just had a baby told me while pumping she would produce 4-5 ounces at a time.  I was producing a whopping 1/2 ounce to 1 ounce at a time.  OBVIOUSLY something was not right.  I finally had to start using my own judgement and trust my own instincts.  I really wanted to be able to breast feed but my babies happiness and health was way more important to me.  And what do you know...after switching Greyson to formula and weaning off breast feeding he started gaining weight and stopped crying all the time.  He turned into a happy baby right before my eyes.  My poor little guy...I was practically starving him unknowingly!  I felt horrible for that and also happy that I trusted my gut even though everything I read was telling me otherwise.  I tell this story for 2 reasons.  First I think its important for all women to know that its possible to not produce enough milk.  Everything I read said otherwise, but even my Dr. told me that 5% of women dont produce enough (after I already made the decision to formula feed).  I feel like there is a lot of pressure to breast feed and I really think its unfair.  I for one really wanted to and planned on it....and I simply couldnt. Every woman is different, every baby is different and I for one am glad that I live in a world where there is another option available to me and my baby isnt going to starve!  I will agree especially in the beginning "breast is best" but I dont think any woman should be judged for how they feed their baby.  When I first started feeding Greyson formula I would try to hide it out in public...I didnt want people to think I was a bad mom for giving my child formula.  How stupid is that?!  I hate that our society has made women feel less of a mom if they have to use formula.  Thankfully I took my emotions out of it and used my best judgement to do what was best for my child.  I tell this story for another reason.  I think its important to point out that God truly gives you a motherly instinct when you become a mom.  I learned very quickly that I had to trust in God and trust that he would guide me and my motherly instinct to make the right decisions.  Not only with the formula but pretty much in every area of Greysons life.  I spent so much time those first few weeks looking up things online to make sure I was doing everything correctly.  When really all that was was me worrying.  Once I started trusting my instincts my  life became so much easier and I was a better mom for it.  We Co-slept with Greyson for 2 1/2 months (something I never thought I would do) and they tell you not to do that.  But once again I had to trust my gut.  And I now have a baby who sleeps through the night and has been the last two months.  Before we co-slept with him he would only sleep a half hour at a time.  Basically what I am trying to say to all moms (and dads too!) out there is do your research, make sure you know whats safe and whats not, and then TRUST YOURSELF.  God designed you to have a motherly instinct and you need to go with that.  Every mom is different and every baby is different.  What works for one might not work for another.  Dont judge others for how they parent their children.  Instead of bringing other moms down we need to encourage each other.  Its a hard job and we dont need to make it even harder on each other by expecting everyone to be "perfect."  And I am in no one saying that my way of parenting is the right way for everyone or that I am a perfect parents so I hope its not coming across that way!  I have definitely made mistakes as a parent but I am learning every day and not beating myself up about the mistakes I make.  I know when I was going through all this with breast feeding I felt very much in the minority so I hope that this blog encourages someone who may be going through the same thing!