Preamble: I recognize that, as a mother of a three-year-old (!!!), I’m well out of my breastfeeding era, however this post was originally written for an editorial opportunity that never transpired. Since it took me a million hours to write it, and because I have so many friends tackling the newborn stage as we speak, I thought it deserved to see the light of day.
A month before giving birth to my daughter in February 2021, I ordered a three-pack of Holle formula from Germany. The inconspicuous box, one of the dozens that were landing on our doorstep each week, went on to trigger the biggest argument my partner and I had in my third trimester (which is saying a lot, considering that he made an award-winning effort to preserve peace during this time period). He thought I had ordered formula because I didn’t even want to attempt to breastfeed. I assured him that I had simply purchased it upon a friend’s advice, just in case of any unforeseen lactation issues that his uninformed male brain couldn’t envision. The fight was resolved with a compromise: I would do my best to breastfeed for exactly six months and not a day more. If it worked for the American Academy of Pediatrics, it worked for us.
A week after my due date, I checked into the hospital for my scheduled induction. After 17 hours of being poked and prodded and infused with drugs and rotated around a giant “peanut ball,” followed by 40 minutes of active pushing, my daughter flew out of me in her 7.2 pound glory, looking like the tiny baby alien of my dreams. We named her Alexandra – Sasha for short, as per common Russian custom.
Everybody always talks about the labor, yet nobody warns you about the 24 hours that follow. By the time I was done throwing up the remainder of my drug cocktail and we were moved to a smaller room in the maternity ward, it was midnight, and there were very few nurses on duty. After an hour-long wait, a night nurse named Carmen arrived to show me how to breastfeed. With the bedside manner of a drill sergeant, she pulled out my breast from underneath my robe, squeezed it into a cone-like shape, and shoved it into my daughter’s mouth. The baby fumbled with the nipple and spit it out immediately. The scene repeated itself on the other breast, after which Carmen assured me that this was normal and promised to be back for the next feeding three hours later. I spent the rest of the night in complete delirium, drifting between various states of worrying about my daughter starving, marveling at her perfection, and occasional windows of sleep.
In the morning, I was graced by a visit from a postpartum Mary Poppins, a lactation consultant who somehow managed to get my baby to extract something from my breast for about 15 seconds. With her in the room, I felt like I was making an inkling of progress. Without her, I was back to square one, shoving my breast into the mouth of a 14-hour-old creature I was still scared of breaking. By the time I left the hospital two days later, I had a new pair of nipple shields, a rented Medela breast pump, and no clue how to actually nourish my child. Formula, I was told, was strictly off the table if I wanted a chance in hell at breastfeeding successfully.
At home, things went from bad to worse. Not only was there no milk in sight, but my colostrum – the precious elixir that my daughter’s livelihood appeared to be contingent on – was practically nonexistent. On her first night at home, Sasha’s high-pitched, hungry wails reverberated through the house for hours as my partner and I struggled for solutions. Rock bottom involved sitting at the kitchen counter at 3am, hand expressing a teaspoon of colostrum with my fingers, which I then fed to my daughter through a syringe. My nipples felt like they had been ravaged by goblins. The baby never stopped screaming. The idea of breastfeeding for six months, like I had pledged to, sounded ludicrous.
The next morning, we made an emergency appointment with the pediatrician. Alarmed at the baby’s one-pound weight loss, the doctor handed us a bottle of Enfamil formula that our daughter chugged down in three seconds flat as the color returned to her face. According to certain Reddit boards, the pediatrician committed a cardinal sin by ruining her gut microbiota within seconds. According to me, she saved the baby’s life while also giving me the greatest gift – a carte blanche to breastfeed to my own ability, with the available option of supplementation.
In the days that followed, I continued to rely on formula as a primary source of milk, while simultaneously pumping and teaching my baby how to latch. About four days in, I woke up with swollen, milk-filled breasts that made me feel like Superwoman in every sense of the word. That morning, Sasha clung to my breasts for over an hour, finally picking up her head to give me a big, milk drunk grin that melted my exhausted heart.
I’m sure there is a case of revisionist history present, but, in the landscape of my early motherhood memories, it was all uphill from there. Once my milk came in, I could relax and enjoy my child, curling up in the chair in her room with a cup of Mother’s Milk tea and my TV show du jour as she snuggled against me, extracting every last drop. After a long session, I would play Everlasting Love (her favorite) and we would hang out together, staring at one another as though trying to memorize each other. While many parts of my life were in chaos back then, these were some of the most peaceful and serene moments that I will always hold tight to.
And yet, despite my newfound milk supply, I didn’t put any pressure on myself to breastfeed exclusively. Instead, I used the fact that my child had already tried formula as an official permission slip to supplement whenever I needed to. Rather than sitting for an hour next to the godforsaken Medela (just the sound of it was enough to make me spiral), I would rely on my Holle and Bobbie potions anytime I wanted a long stretch of sleep, or a night out, or just a few hours to myself. I never had a baby nurse and yet I slept through many a night, simply leaving a bottle of formula for my night owl partner to feed the baby at 2am. My supply being relatively mediocre, I never had any leaking issues or clogged ducts, and my daughter most definitely enjoyed the occasional surplus. Speaking of which, another part of the reason breastfeeding came easily was because my child always loved to (and still loves to!) eat. After hearing every story of latching issues, colic, allergies, and general fussiness, I have come to realize how lucky I had been to have a baby who adored milk and accepted it every available form. To this day, I believe these are the two factors that allowed me to lean into breastfeeding and stick to it for as long as I did.
Much to my own surprise, I soon developed a hippie-like ease around breastfeeding that felt entirely out of character (I’m a control freak) yet completely natural at the same time. I quickly dropped my lifelong stigma against my breasts (uneven! droopy! not perky enough!) and instead started seeing them as a superpower, capable of nourishing my baby on the go. I breastfed on planes and in airports, I breastfed on park benches, I breastfed in restaurants in a way that made most patrons uncomfortable. Before I knew it, six months had flown by and food was introduced, and yet I didn’t even think about stopping. Breastfeeding was my secret weapon – it soothed Sasha when she was sick, it was a lifesaver during cross-country flights, it saved us from getting kicked out of hotels and people’s homes when she would wake up at 3am, screaming bloody murder. It was also my favorite way of connecting with my daughter.
Around the time Sasha turned one, people around me started encouraging me to stop, telling me that it would only get harder as she grew older and more attached. While I knew they had a point, it felt like a barrier I couldn’t cross – as if I wasn’t ready to let go of my baby, as if our connection wouldn’t be the same. And yet, your body has a way of informing you of things you may not be ready for. When our daughter was about 14 months old, my partner and I took a short trip to Paris, our second solo trip without her. During the first one, I had found myself running back to my pump every evening as my breasts reminded me that, somewhere far away, my baby was ready to be fed. This time around, they did no such thing. Two days after we had arrived, I realized that I hadn’t turned on the pump once. My milk had been running out for months, and it was finally gone. In an act that felt symbolic to nobody but myself, I left the pump in Paris.
So here it is, my rough-beginning-happy-ending breastfeeding tale that sounds borderline idyllic in the complex, taboo-ridden breastfeeding landscape of today. Over the past three years, I have spoken to many a new mother around their breastfeeding journeys, only to realize that my positive experience is more of the exception than the norm.
First off, there is the fact that nobody actually understands how to start. Education around the topic is limited (which makes my friend Elizabeth’s new breastfeeding platform Swehl a complete goldmine) and our medical system, even in the best hospitals in the country, is too overburdened to handle those sensitive first days with the care they deserve. Then, if you do pervade through the trepidatious first stage, there is a whole sequence of unspoken Mommy Rules that are not to be violated. Breastfeed exclusively! Never supplement! Make sure your milk is top quality by gorging on lactation cookies – but also drop those last 20 pounds, why don’t you?! Go back to work but, nuh-uh, don’t you dare stop breastfeeding! So many mothers I meet feel so overwhelmed by these rigid, judgement-laced pressures, that they ultimately drive themselves to the point where stopping at the bare minimum of three month feels like a relief. Personally, I know for a fact that I never would have continued breastfeeding without supplementation – because I hated the pump, because I needed sleep, because I simply didn’t produce the amount of milk my baby needed. Because I am not a damn martyr, nor am I trying to be.
From where I stand, there are no rules. Instead, there’s a dire need – for transparency, for empathy and understanding, for open-mindedness, for the freedom to do exactly what works for your family in that chaotic time when your world is flipped on its head. The first few months is some of the most important time you will ever have with your child, so you must do exactly what you need to give them the best version of yourself. Supplement if you’re short on milk, co-sleep and breastfeed exclusively if you’re a 20-something superhero, go for the formula and enjoy the cuddles if that’s what keeps you sane. The only thing that’s important is that you cherish your time and build the bond that will keep you going when your sweet angel is three years old and hiding from you in the hamper, screaming bloody murder. The rest of it will fall into place, American Academy of Pediatrics be damned.
Thank you for triggering my breastfeeding PTSD - but a bigger Thank You for reminding me that no breastfeeding journey is the same and that supplementing with formula doesn’t make you a horrible, negligent mother. I nearly lost my mind trying to breastfeed, and felt like an absolute failure because my body was unable to produce enough food for my baby and I had to supplement with formula from day one. I really wish I had been easier on myself and knew just how many moms actually struggle to breastfeed, so sharing stories like these make a big difference.