Now in light of world breast feeding week I wanted to blog about my feeding experiences with my shorty. If my post offends then please feel free to move on to the next one, that one was a pretty popular, juicy one 
When my little man was born he couldn’t latch. We tried repeatedly and the situation became quite stressful. H’s Dr even made a very serious comment that has stuck with me ever since. I sent McD out to buy formula, in the UK it is not supplied. The hospital supplied me with these teeny tiny bottles (I’ve still got them) that could hold about a mouthful of formula. So H was formula fed. It wasn’t until six weeks later, six awful weeks of projectile vomiting and H choking so badly I called 999 that the Dr explained that he has a problem with his Hard Palate. You see H’s isn’t normal, he has the skin but the bone isn’t right, it goes too far up into his skull and looks bruised. This means that he has a hard time suckling anything and he could hold more formula in his mouth than a regular baby. It hasn’t been much of a problem really, once we knew about it and were able to take steps to manage it he was pretty much normal. The only difference is he wont use a fast flowing teat for anything, he will only drink out of Mam bottles, I think the unusual shape fits his mouth better and he’s is still on flow rate number one at 30 months old. He would also only take a newborn dummy, this looked rather ridiculous (in a funny way) as he got older as he would have these tiny dummies in a toddler mouth. We have suffered through a lot of projectile vomiting too. Feeding sessions used to be H propped up on my knees with a bath sheet covering him and tucked into my shirt so that when (not if) he was sick the towel would catch it all.
I used to feel a lot of guilt. In the early days of becoming a mum I would spend a lot of time reading parenting articles during my night time feeds, I wanted to stay on top of the game. The articles were always about how studies had found that breastfed babies were cleverer, less ill, had a better bond with their parents, were less socially awkward in teenage years than formula fed babies and could sprout wings and fly to the moon. Okay I made that last one up but you get the picture. It didn’t help that my close friend at the time who had a baby eight weeks younger than H liked to say she was part of the breastfeeding Mafia. She even had a breastfeeding Mafia phone case. She used to make comments like “formula feeding mums are lazy,” or “all formula feeding mums just gave up too quickly.” You can imagine how this made me feel right? As a first time parent I felt like a failure, I felt like there was this magic substance that was so brilliant for my boy and I has deprived him of it.
But then I went on holiday with this friend, we went to stay in a caravan owned by her parents and I heard her own mums reaction to her comments. She was horrified that her daughter had this view of other mothers choices and pretty much tore her a new arse hole in front of me one day. I started to realise that there was nothing wrong with giving my boy formula, he was perfect. When I sat back and compared my baby with hers I realised that her baby wasn’t healthier or stronger than mine. In fact he was a much more troubled baby, he suffered from awful acid reflux and spent pretty much the first nine weeks of his life screaming. When I compared this to my quiet happy boy who projectiled I realised that formula was just as good.
Now this is not to say that I think formula feeding is better (here comes the PC bit). I honestly could care less how other mums are feeding their babies, as long as they are fed what business is it of anybody else? And looking back I’m not sure if I would BF my next child (calm down McD its hypothetical). I liked that dad got to help out and feed his boy, one of my favourite pics ever is McD, H and the towel during a feed. On really bad nights McD used to wake up early and take H down to his recliner so that I could have a couple of hours of sleep. Or he would let me take an afternoon nap. He is a real hands on dad and definitely did his fair share during those early days. Would we have been able to do that if I was EBF? I don’t know.
And as for the whole breastfeeding in public debate, its a natural thing, people need to grow the hell up and get over tits. If they are so immature as to be offended by a woman feeding her child then they should not be let out in society, just look away folks. I do remember a very funny coffee date with some mummy friends, my little bro had tagged along and we were sat in starbucks just chatting away. One of the mums from my group got her boob out and started breastfeeding her son. My 18 year old brother was obviously torn between having a good nosey at her boobs and politely not looking. I can still see the look on his face to this day.
So my view on the subject, who cares, as long as the babies are fed that’s all that matters…
I asked my facebook page (www.facebook.com/4partsofthe1) followers their views:
“I breast fed Reuben, I breast fed Erin but it got on my tits” (BEST QUOTE EVER!!!)
“ff my eldest as he had a cleft palate and had no suck reflex, I bf’d my other 2 middle boy for 9 months till I went back to work, and youngest for 4 months as his reflux was extremely bad and he reacted to everything I ate. My ff boy is however the healthiest out the 3, the other 2 having asthma, eczema and hayfever.”
“I only managed 3 weeks of breastfeeding with my eldest who is now 11 but managed to feed till baby geek was 8 months old and started biting lol, and it was all down to external circumstances. Breastfeeding is wonderful experience if you can manage it but I believe everything around you has to be perfect for it to work so as long as both baby and mother are happy it doesn’t matter if it’s breast or formula cause happiness and contentment have to be the most important thing 
“
“I breast fed all 3 of my sons for about 16 months each x”
McD Feeding a very very new H-bomb
My big boy and his tiny dummy, this is an old pic, he hasn’t had a dummy for months
