I love the focus of this Similar article, very unique angle, and very much your voice! And if you seriously did that while your one year old was playing on the floor without TV I am in awe!!

I do feel sorry for how much pressure there is on women to breast feed and how woman who don’t do it are made to feel guilty and this kind of formula scare doesn’t help! I did breast feed my daughter until one year old but not exclusively and not only on the breast by any means. My breast pump was my best friend for one year!!!

It is true that newborn babies are more delicate than one-year-olds and yes folks are a little overprotective. We forget those of us who are moms and in our late 20s or 30s that most of our moms gave us formula. Those of us who have siblings know that a good parent of yester generation would never have gotten off their seat while reading the paper at the park to take a stick out of your mouth! My mom definitely would have let us chomp on it!

Reasonable supplementation of the breast milk is completely sane — especially for working moms! And also new research has come out about how it is more risky NOT to give your kid a bottle by 2 months old than to give a bottle of breast milk ideally or formula if not breast milk — to him or her week one or two home from the hospital.

I gave my first kid a bottle of colostrum and breastmilk the first two weeks b/c the kid would not take the breast and I was terrified she would not breastfeed. The research does nto support this but rather supports keeping your milk supply up until your kid gets the hang of it! I thank god every day both for reasonable birth control so I could have my kids when I was ready but also for the bottle and the breast pump — I would never have breastfed as a working mom without either and we do need to change the conversation a bit from this radical focus on breastfeeding which is oppressive and discouraging.
Anyone who has a kid in daycare also knows that life builds immunity.

Of course – and yes, I intend to do more of these…

I will keep working on my168!

Sukeina – yes, sorry, I’ll add that to the post. I was confirming that the person was up for it. Blogging is good for writers – you learn to come up with something to say and get better about saying it!

BTW–I assume that the winners of the time makeover have been decided? I might have missed the announcement/post about it.

Thanks