Breastfeeding

Reading Perfect Madness reminded me of our experiences:
...... the general culture of motherhood in America -- oppressive. The pressure to perform, to attain levels of perfect selflessness was insane. And it was, I thought, as I listened to one more anguished friend ... expressing her guilt at not having "succeeded" at breastfeeding ... (p. 16)

I agree that there was a lot of pressure on my wife to breastfeed mainly because of all the literature and the preaching of the benefits of breastfeeding. It turns out that she couldn't produce enough milk and I still fume when I hear women huffily proclaim that this can never happen if we had just kept on trying. Once in a social situation, a woman nodded her head smilingly and said we should have just kept on trying. I almost slapped her. A coworker came up to me when we had our first and asked how breastfeeding was going and I said that it was hard and she laughed and said to keep it up and not to let the zealots (she actually used another word but I thought it too be too inflammatory for the blog) at the LaLeche League get to us. In the end we did supplement with formula because our baby was losing too much weight -- yes it was a medical decision by the pediatrician even though we had said we'd keep trying. She looked horrified and I thought she was going to report us to child services.

For our second child, we went straight to supplementing without even batting an eyelid and we felt no guilt, got lots of sleep (compared to the first time), and had no problems. Trust your heart and head, I say.