Formula feeding – sometimes it makes sense

I recently read a fantastic blog article by Anna White in the Telegraph.  Some of the language used by White made me wince but I found myself agreeing with her her call for a more common sense approach to the great ‘breast versus formula feeding’ debate.

You very rarely, if ever, hear men commenting on this issue. I’ve never understood why, they are our children that are being fed after all! In my case it’s a subject I feel passionate about as both my children have been primarily formula fed. Added to this my youngest child, Elizabeth, is just a few months old and so the experiences are all very fresh in my mind.

This is a contentious subject so let me make clear that my wife and I wanted our children to be breast fed. Unfortunately it just didn’t work and so they were both formula fed from just a few weeks old. In the case of our eldest daughter we were encouraged by a health visitor to top up with formula because she lost a dangerous amount of weight shortly after the birth.

Using formula means I’ve shared the responsibility of feeding my children. That’s been a real privilege. As I’ve spent more time feeding my daughters, I think I bonded with them much more quickly than if they had been breast fed.

I’m no stranger to doing feeds at three o’clock in the morning and I’m quite used to putting a bottle together and feeding the baby in restaurants, lay-bys, churches and multi-storey car parks. Even in this day and age people don’t always expect to see a man bottle feeding in public and I do occasionally get the odd strange look, not that it bothers me. It’s a sign of progress, deal with it (it goes without saying I have immense sympathy for women that breastfeed in public and have to cope with much worse. Carry on sisters, you’re feeding a child, not making a porn film).

My wife and I have naturally worried about the consequences of using formula. You’re told your child may develop allergies, that they may not bond with the mother and so on. These were all real and genuine concerns but I have seen no evidence of the issues associated with formula feeding coming to pass.

There are also one or two fringe benefits to formula. You know exactly how much the child has taken so you can generally rest easy knowing they’re fully nourished and not in danger of becoming dehydrated. They’re also likely to go through the night at a younger age. I won’t reveal how young Elizabeth was when she starting going all night without a feed. Rest assured, however, that most readers would be very jealous.

The way I look at it, my family has had to make the most of a bad situation. My wife and I never wanted to formula feed our children but that’s just the way things worked out. It allowed me to get heavily involved with my children at a very younger age and in the case of our eldest daughter it was beneficial for her health. I suspect I will come in for criticism for saying this but from my perspective, as the dad, it’s been an unexpectedly positive experience.

About John Adams

John Adams is a married with two young daughters. He has been a stay at home dad for almost four years. John started blogging back in 2012 after being invited to one-too-many "mother and toddler groups." This inspired him to write about the issues he faced as a stay at home dad and the gender barriers men face as parents. John continues to write about lie as a stay at home dad. He also writes about every aspect of parenting; schooling, education, pregnancy and birth, childcare and so on. Over time he has broadened the focus of his blog so he now writes about family finances, photography and occasionally covers men's style and fashion. John was originally a journalist. He concedes, however, that was a long time ago.

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