What to Do When Your Baby Doesn’t Want to Breastfeed
After 7 weeks of painfully trying to breastfeed, on both mine and my baby’s end, I made the difficult decision to switch to formula.
Difficult in the sense that my already surging postpartum hormones intensified the first time mom guilt and anger of not understanding why my body was not allowing me to perform one of the most natural and motherly things it was supposed to do: nourish and feed my baby.
The Challenges Behind Breastfeeding For New Moms
As a first time mom, I had dreams and visions of being able to easily breastfeed my baby. I mean, everyone else on social media made it seem so easy and natural, why wouldn’t it be easy for me too?
I read all the books, went to the prenatal classes, pinned all the articles on my baby board on pinterest, and watched so many videos on latching and feeding positions. I didn’t even register for traditional bottles or formula because I was so sure I would nail this breastfeeding thing! I did not realize just how difficult this journey would be.
One of the first things I vividly remember saying to the L&D nurses after my daughter was born is “Do I feed her now? What am I supposed to do?” because all the articles I read stated that I needed to feed her in the first hour of life to have the best chances of successful latching.
My baby wasn’t even an hour old yet and I was feeling the pressure!
Make an Appointment With Lactation Consultants 🥛
From there, it was a long string of days and nights trying to get a good latch, making sure she was eating enough, and being in constant pain. I saw multiple lactation consultants in and out of the hospital. I watched every video on YouTube that I could find, yet we were still having problems.
I was still in pain every feeding and still had cracked, sore, and bleeding nipples each time (and it took a while before I realized this was NOT normal.) After a few visits with a wonderful lactation consultant, we discovered that my little one had both a tongue and a lip tie, which was making it difficult for her to get a deep latch, and that is what was causing my pain.
After a long family discussion, and because I did not want to feel like I failed at breastfeeding, we decided to get the ties revised with a local pediatric dentist. While this helped the latch tremendously, my supply had tanked and I was barely producing any milk. I tried everything under the sun to boost my supply: Pumping, power pumping, lots of water, Body Armor drinks, allllllll the oats, lactation teas, and cookies, herbal supplements, you name it!
- Most advanced way to automatically make a warm, formula bottle instantly
- Works with virtually all formula brands and all bottle brands/sizes
- Fully customizable – choose 1 ounce increments between 2-10 ounces, 3 temperature settings and formula/water or water only dispensing
- 1 year limited warranty
- BPA-FREE
Who is the Baby Brezza Formula Pro Advanced For?
What’s Life Like Without Baby Brezza?
Once we tried out a few different brands and found the one that best agreed with her tummy (that is another story all on its own) we quickly learned just how difficult and draining it was making a bottle by hand. Every three hours. Including in the middle of the night, sleep-deprived and delirious.
You had to make sure the water was warmed up, but not too warm, which took what felt like hours all on its own. Then you had to measure out the formula for the bottle, which was difficult when she was doing an odd number of ounces in feeding, because the formula scoops measure in ounces of 2. And then you had to mix the bottle. But not shake it, because that puts too many bubbles and causes gas even worse than we were already dealing with. All in all, it was at least a 20-minute ordeal. Each. Feeding. And 20 minutes to an already screaming baby in the middle of the night who just wants to eat feels like an eternity.
Is the Baby Brezza Formula Pro Worth the Hype?
That is when we discovered the Baby Brezza Formula Pro, or what we lovingly called the “Baby Keurig” (cue the heavenly music seen in movies). This thing was by far the most used product in our household from the age of 7 weeks to 11 months when we fully weaned from formula. Not only does this beautiful piece of manmade genius mix bottles perfectly at the touch of a button, it heats the water to the perfect temperature for the baby.
- Automatically sterilizes and dries bottles, pump parts and other accessories in 1 easy step – saving you time!
- Natural steam kills 99.9% of germs and products stay sterile for up to 24 hours when left in the unopened sterilizer
- 4 in 1 functionality: Use as Sterilizer Only, Sterilizer and Dryer, Dryer Only, or Storage System
How Does the Baby Brezza Formula Pro Work?
- Find and program the perfect scoop setting for your formula brand (easy instructions are provided)
- Fill the formula reservoir. One can of formula typically filled it up for us.
- Fill the water reservoir. We used normal gallon sized distilled water (much cheaper than “nursery water”)
- Select the bottle size in ounces, place your bottle under the spout, and press start.
- Need just warm water? There is an option for that too!
- Every four bottles, you get an alert to clean the dispenser spout.
- Once a month, you should clean the whole machine.
