Breastfeed Your Baby

If you have decided not to breastfeed your baby, you are not alone. Many women choose the bottle over the breast. There are many reasons not to breastfeed. Insufficient milk supply, cracked nipples, hectic work schedules, prescription medication and many other factors can deter a woman from choosing to breastfeed her baby.

Choosing to formula feed your infant was at one time considered to be a social faux pas. Today's culture is much more accepting of bottle feeding an infant. Many mothers return to work shortly after the birth of an infant and breastfeeding is simply not conventional in the average workplace. Deciding to formula feed your baby is often a matter of necessity rather than personal choice. Electing to formula feed your infant does not have to be a disadvantageous experience for you or your baby.

Breast fed infants do not necessarily gain a nutritional advantage over bottle fed infants. Advances in the formulation of powder and concentrated baby formulas now provide bottle fed infants with an adequately well balanced diet. Breast fed infants are at risk of ingesting prescription medications, concentrated sweets, and alcoholic beverages through their mother's milk. Infants with certain medical conditions require a close monitoring of their nutritional intake. It is difficult to accurately measure a breast fed infant's intake. This reason alone may advocate bottle feeding over breastfeeding.

Learning about breastfeeding benefits and drawbacks is often one area that healthcare practitioners focus on heavily during the prenatal period and immediately following the birth of a child. Many breastfeeding advocates support breastfeeding in part because of the bond created between the mother and child during frequent breastfeeding. This same bond can be achieved with bottle feeding by holding the infant during feeding times. Making eye contact, stroking and talking to your infant during feedings can create as strong a bond as breastfeeding. Talk about breastfeeding versus bottle feeding with your OB/GYN or nurse practitioner if you have doubts about your choice to not breastfeed your infant.

Many baby websites offer chat rooms or discussion forums dedicated to the discussion of bottle versus breastfeeding. Baby websites can also be a great source of information about the nutritional, social and emotional aspects of choosing not to breastfeed your baby. Many of the popular baby and parenting magazines now offer a corresponding baby website with additional articles, contests and links to other helpful baby-related websites.

Whether you choose to breastfeed your baby or opt for the bottle, your child will still receive adequate nutrition and bonding time with a little extra effort by both parents. Bottle feeding allows every member of the family to participate in the care of the infant, while choosing to breastfeed limits this bonding time to only the mother and child. Opting to breastfeed your baby for the time you will be spending off work for maternity leave, and then switching to the bottle before returning to work is a very common practice. There are no recorded ill effects of switching an infant from the breast to the bottle or even strictly bottle feeding an infant from birth. Today's mothers have the freedom to choose between the breast or the bottle without sacrificing the well being of their babies.