He was combination fed. He was, he was breastfed in the very first few hours and then I became very ill after the caesarean so he, I think he perhaps had an ounce of formula in his first twenty-four hours and then that really kept going with an ounce of formula until he was six months old. By six months old I think he was perhaps on twelve ounces of formula but that would be two bottle feeds and then the rest would be breastfeeding by me.
So you were putting him to the breast regularly?
Yes, too regularly really, as in trying to make more milk, then it seemed to, you know, it was, it seemed to be almost constant at one point which of course I wasn't then giving myself any chance to have a rest. I think that's why we needed the ounces, or the two ounces of formula during the first few weeks, when I came out of hospital my health visitor was very supportive in working out a combination plan so that the baby would put on weight.
Can you remember what that plan was?
It involved three ounces of formula.
Every feed or?
No.
Once a day?
Twice a day. So it would be once at night. So something like seven o'clock at night and seven o'clock in the morning and all the rest of time he was fed by me, and he did put on weight quite slowly, to start with, but I've spoken subsequently to other mothers who've breastfed and they've said, “Oh he seems to have put on weight just the same as my son did”. And I think I was quite ignorant about how much more slowly breastfed babies put on weight than formula fed. But also I think the charts in the little health books that the kids get, I think that they are based on formula fed babies, so inevitably you're not going to be at the fiftieth percentile. My child was born at the twenty-fifth percentile and dropped after two weeks, less than two weeks, but certainly at two weeks he was on the ninth percentile. He didn't go below the ninth but it was quite, quite slow for him to come back up.
Was that seen as a problem?
Yes.
With what consequences?
That he wasn't getting enough food that he wasn't growing quickly enough. And I do [pause] I do think that as far as I'm concerned that after I'd had the baby then I, throughout pregnancy, I'd been in this sort of, 'Well health professionals know best and I'll just do what they say' and, which actually in other walks of life, you know, I take my own decisions really, but it was a time when I'd sort of resigned myself to, 'I don't know much about this'. If I were to do it again then I'd certainly trust my own judgement, more, and go with what I thought was right.
Because I'd have thought, 'I'm not doing the best for my baby'. By doing, so it felt okay to, it was almost a, the formula for us was a saviour to have that extra top up definitely, and I think that's all it was actually a top up [pause]. I can't remember what I was going to say, the formula was a top up.
A saviour for feeding in public?
Yeah, it was a saviour for at the end and the start of the day that would be our end and our start and that was fine, and we knew that that's all it was. But essentially our child was breastfed and that's the way I'd like to remember it really. But I'm honest enough to admit that if we hadn't have had the formula then we just, I don't know actually what would have happened, I'm sure he wouldn't have starved but perhaps it would have been at a greater cost to me. |
