My wife and I were new parents, but had already gotten used to starving our daughter. Comfortable with it. We had a routine….
…and we were doing a great job. Augustine was loosing weight crazy fast.
Oops
This started in the hospital. It must have started in the hospital, right after the delivery…because before Augustine was actually born – no one talked about how to actually feed our kid, everyone just wanted us to have a kid.
So, it had to be there – in one of those best hospitals in the world hospitals – right in that fist hour of becoming a parent. That had to be when I was introduced to the phrase:
‘Breast is Best’
Breast is best, what an effective phrase. The wordplay is so good and simple that I can’t believe it hadn’t hadn’t been said to death in like a locker room or at my party college. These two words ‘breast’ and ‘best’, they fit together perfectly, and in that perfection comes the phrases’ authority; it’s easy confidence.
You can’t argue with something catchy like ‘breast is best’…maybe, we’re actually conditioned not to.
- This goes all the way back to grade school. We’re taught to trust rhymes. Think about it, the best way to make fun of somebody has always been to rhyme their name because it sounds so solid and irrefutable. ‘Bob the slob’…yeah, Bob must be a slob, right? Also so easy to remember that it can be repeated again and again. ‘Fat Mat’…yep, Matt’s gotta have some poundage. You know Matt heard that over-and-over. ‘Breast is Best’…if it wasn’t the truth the words would match so well.
So sure…random nurse – you got me…’breast is best’.
Jade and I bought into the ideology immediately. We heard it, popped a boob in our Augie’s mouth and patted ourselves on the back.
Instantly, we were the proud parents of a fed kid. Not only that – we were doing it ‘the best way’…it was even organic. We were good boob-to-mouth parents.
It was awesome. We believed that Jade was our own personal factory – like that scene in Richey Rich where there’s a McDonalds in the basement…we had everything and it was all in-house.
The first two doctor’s visit didn’t sound any alarms
As pretty much all parents and every doctor I’ve met will attest, babies loose weight after their birth. It’s just something that happens. So the 5 day check-up and the week-after check-up were both fine.
At 10-days, our doctors concern only reached the ‘maybe try a lactation specialist’ level, which ranks only slightly above the ‘try herbs’ alarm, and is just about on par with asking about ‘the night nurse situation’…an almost bougie concern level.
Now, our one month follow-up, that’s when Jade couldn’t leave the doctor’s office.
It sounds funny – even at the time it was more bizarre than worrisome* – but it was real. Our doctor weighed Augustine, turned to Jade and said, ‘I’m going to get you a bottle of formula. You can’t leave until Augustine drinks it and gains a half-pound.’
Augustine was dangerously underweight.
- Quick Side Note – As with several significant early childhood events in Augustine life – her first smile, her getting pinched by random Armenia Gand Ma’s, her brief kidnapping…I wasn’t there for this pediatrician-jail situation. By the time I found out that Jade had been ‘detained’, Augustine had already been fed. So, it was scary for Jade at first, but my distance made it more weird to me…I mean how in the world was Augustine underweight and we didn’t know?
It didn’t make any sense. Augustine didn’t look emaciated, and Jade spent hours upon hours every day with Augustine affixed to her boob. Back in 2015, that was the limit to our advanced understanding of judging if someone was eating – how they looked and seeing them around food.
It might sound dumb, but, I mean, if we saw a beefy guy walking around with ice cream everyday…I think we’d all assume that he ate too much ice cream. None of us would think that he kept buying cones just trying and failing to figure out how to get them into his mouth.
So, no, even now, I don’t think we were wrong to assume Augustine had been eating. Everything seemed ok and we were doing our best…but nothing was actually ok…and that’s really scary.
Doctore Jail = Silly
Not Being Able to Trust Your Eyes = Terrifying (especially as a new parent)
The Experts
The doctors emergency formula was just a band-aide, we needed a permanent solution…’after all, breast is best.”
Meeting with specialists, they rooted out two causes for our under-weight problem. Augustine had a tongue tie and Jade’s milk was a bit below optimal*.
- I have to go with Optimal here because I have a hard time believing that she was below average. Having gone though all this, I have met way more adults who don’t produce enough milk to be the sole provider than I have met over-producers. (I’ve actually never met an over producer.)
The Tongue Tie
Brief backstory, I had a tongue tie when I was a kid.
- As a parent of a malnourished kid, it was hard not to blame myself for passing along the bad genes that caused this happening…which is irrational but also right on track with my early parenting psychology.
Augustine got late diagnosed at 1 month (so approximately a lifetime before mine was diagnosed) and she had her operation in my lap, literally. I had to hold her against my chest and restrain her little 1-month baby arms as the doctor did he 2-second snip. She was healed within the hour.
Unlike Augustine, I had mine snipped when I was like 6…there was a gurney, operating room, recovery…the whole medical experience…whatever it was the 80s.
- Fun Fact : Apparently in the 1800’s (and presumably before) wet nurses kept one of their nails really long and, if a kid had a tongue tie, they’d just slice it out with a flick of her pinky.
Getting Augustine’s tongue tie fixed wasn’t a whole solution, and really never could have been. I’m fine not knowing what to do…that’s why we went to see the experts…but the experts should have known better because the lactation specialists sorta implied that getting her tongue clipped should have fixed everything…again, it couldn’t have.
Why?
As I understand it, a woman’s body uses the amount of milk that is actually pulled out of it to determine its overall production levels going forward. So, since Augustine was basically only teasing Jade’s nips for the first month and leaving the juice behind…Jade’s milk production was trained to run low.
Still…we went to the professionals.
The Lactation Specialists
Look, if you’re a hammer…everything looks like a nail. If you’re a mammary lady…everything looks like a milk bar.
*There should be a name for lactation specialists that’s similar in intent to man-splaining…I’m gonna go with lac-splaining…but someone has to do better.
Jade went to the groups and the consultations. I didn’t go through what she went through physically/emotionally, I only know how it seemed to go. Everyone pushed breast, breast, breast.
Sitting there watching another stranger pinch onto Jade’s breast and lac-splain about how things should work was excruciating. Let’s just see this for what it is – no one goes to a lactation specialist if they aren’t really trying, no one goes to a lactation specialist if they aren’t totally committed.
Still, there was an air of ‘you can do better’ throughout the whole process…the whole failed process.
Going Half-sies
Starting on that lock-in day at the pediatrician’s office, we raised Augustine on a mix of breast milk and formula. We had to, and we wanted to.
Jade did everything she could to get more breast milk. (There was a time when I could only stay asleep if I heard the rhythmic knocking of her breast pump chugging along after hour, after hour). Ultimately though only so much milk got made.
So, we relied more and more on formula…which was great for me.
As soon as we started Augustine on formula, she got better sleep and actually got time to be awake and alert without looking for food. Formula gave us a baby instead of a grumbly-stomach-monster. Also, I got to help throughout the days and nights.
For the first time since some-point-mid-pregnancy, Jade started to be able to sleep through the night and I got to get up and feed Augustine. Which was tremendous, having a purpose in those first few months as a Dad…being able to take on some of the workload. It feels great to actually help everyone out, be a part of the solution.
Eventually, about month 8, the hours of pumping stopped working and we went full on formula.
Formula literally saved our daughter’s life. So, it’s so dumb that we still felt a little guilty about using it. It’s stupid to think that way… a baby has got to eat.
Still, as we moved from formula to fruit pouches and puree…our lasting impression of early childhood was breast is best and, although she was alive, Augustine had been raised in a second place home.
Round 2
Six years later, we were back at the waiting line for our second kid. As the date of Atlas’ birth got closer, Jade and I got increasing prepared for a repeat of our feed-the-baby-gauntlet.
We were delivering in the same way, with the same doctor, in the same hospital. We both accepted that Atlas was going to need formula, but hoped and prepared for a boob-miracle…we wanted best…breast.
Do you want to breast feed? – Yes.
Do you want a lactation consultation? – Yes.
Do you want formula? – yes?
Jade began breastfeeding immediately after Atlas was born – in the recovery room the boob was in his mouth. But as soon as we were in our overnight room, we requested a lactation specialist – really before anyone’s milk actually comes in, we wanted a consultant.
She showed up two days later, calm…but calm like a grandmother, not like zen chill.
It was the same hospital, same staff…but
‘Fed is best.’
That’s what our lactation specialist lead with. ‘Fed is best’
It’s a slant rhyme…but it works.
We split in formula on Atlas’ third day of life, and have continued throughout his infancy. And look, Jade’s boobs are churning out milk like I’ve never seen, but, when Atlas is hungry…Fed is Best.
It’s really important that we allow ourselves to trust rhyming less. (At least Bob the slob who now has a minor cleaning addiction would appreciate it.) But beyond that, we let ourselves feel bad or lesser-than, just because something sounds good.
I’ve said it before, being a parent is so many things…so many choices and decisions all the time. We all have to make the decisions that help everyone get through the days and years. And, if you think of it that way Fed really is Best.
Now for the Googling, there’s probably tons of research in both directions on the boob/formula debate. First off, none of that matters…kids have to eat to live. Second, it’s like all these studies are conducted in a vacuum. If feeding a kid anything was going to promise them a better more well adjusted life…I guarantee that Jeff Bezos would still be eating it. Instead, every part of development is overlapped by dozens of other factors…nothing stands alone. There are an equal amount of scholars and parolees that were breast fed.
Do what works for you..that’s what’s best. Umm…build your nest, that’s what’s best.