Formula Feeding Does Not Kill Your Baby, or make them Fat or Dumb

Nuthin wrong with a little formula

Before I had a baby I knew everything. I knew I would get pregnant easily, try for a natural birth, scream for an epidural after about five minutes, and breastfeed.

 When a friend had a C-section and bottle fed, I remember thinking Gosh, she has really taken the easy road, hasn't she? I mean, why bother if you don't give birth naturally and breastfeed?? Why bother indeed because about 12 months later I found myself with a baby in one hand, bottle in the other and searing pain along the abdominal incision where said baby was pulled out. Eating my words.

I mostly bottle fed after five months of combining breast and bottle with mixed results. I even took 20 Motillum a day, fenugreek and milk thistle imported from the USA on express shipping in a desperate attempt to increase my milk supply. Baby ended up in emergency due to starvation. But who really cares HOW I fed my baby - what kid is going to remember whether they were bottle or breastfed, or even fed at all? I really appreciate one comment made on facebook by my friend "Bottle or breast, fed is best."

Where did I get my terrible attitude from in the first place, and why does everyone think it's just so easy to breastfeed, that it really is a choice for women? For so many the choice is not breast VS bottle.
The choice is a Catch 22: A or B -

A. Breast feed, and please everyone, and do "what's best for baby", even though I

• am in extreme pain when I breastfeed due to infected ducts, blisters and lacerations,
• do not have enough milk so my baby screams constantly in hunger;
• have too much milk so my baby drowns and chokes
• feel awful breastfeeding and can't stop crying
• have a psychological block to breastfeeding
• have any number of other problems common to mothers attempting breastfeeding.

B. Bottle feed even in the face of criticism and midwives claiming it's poison.The baby health nurse at my local Sydney baby clinic actually said formula is poison.

Where did she get the idea that a life saving powder made up of fats, sugars and vitamins is bad? And what gave her licence to misinform an entire generation of new mothers? When did we get so nuts as a society?

Looking at those born in the 60s and 70s, or in France and China, where about 90 per cent of babies were/are bottle fed I really don't see any major plunge in their intelligence, spark in their obesity rates or any other major problems apparently caused by the dreaded formula. Mothers today are told that they should only formula feed if they want a fat dumb baby.

Last I checked an awful lot of Australians were fat and dumb and it had little to do with their food intake in those first six months.

I like how Tina Fey said in her Bossypants book "every woman has a magical number when it comes to breastfeeding, from 3 months to eight years. For me and my baby, that perfect number was about 72 hours." She was one of those mothers who pumped breast milk to bottle feed her baby, again illuminating how fraught and complex the issue of feeding a tiny newborn really is: some women cannot or don't want to do the latch nipple thing, but have enough milk and facilities to pump so do not have to buy formula.

I really like how Mia Freedman questioned midwives' stranglehold on the whole issue. Why is being BFHI friendly hospital so important in Australia? Why is what the WHO recommends even relevant here when we have clean water, expert medical advice in every suburb and good quality formula?

I just wish my prenatal classes had prepared me for the problem of low milk supply, and advised me to at least consider the possibility I would need to recover from major surgery, housebound AND have some bottles and formula at home in preparation for the hungry screaming newborn I was about to bring into the world.

Women's Work is Not Really Work

I'm sitting this morning with my family day carer "Shazza". She takes care of my 18 month old daughter four days a week while I work and study.

A father dropping his daughter off sighs delightedly as the picture of domesticity presented by Shazza sitting in her lounge room surrounded by small kidlets.

"The women stay home while us men go out to earn the money, hey," he comments. Shazza's husband laughs as the men groan about working out in the rain. And admittedly, I don't know any woman that would put up with working in the rain all day.
But I also don't know any man who would be pleased to stay home, stuck, changing over 30 nappies a day for five under fives, all day every day.

I also don't know any man that would be pleased his partner thought she was earning the money while he provided a support role. Because I know this family, and I know that Shazza's income is their bread and butter. Raking in over $1000 a week, their family relies on her childcare work which involves not just childcare but after hours cleaning, meal preparation, planning, activities, education, client relations and paperwork.

So Shazza, who barely has time to change into her tracksuit every morning before her first little charges run through her door and into her arms, merely laughs graciously at this misinformed comment. But I seethe, throwing the father a dirty look and wonder if we'll ever get to a point where childcare is understood to be one of the most important, or even just the most taxing, jobs in the world.

Here is more reading on how misogyny has become an effortless part of our everyday lexicon.

OK so I'm signing off now because tonight I am completing packing for an extended family wedding in Bali. I have spent the past 10 days caring for a very ill child with hand-foot-mouth disease covered in blisters and waking around the clock. After my husband returned last night from Thailand, I then spent the next hours preparing meals and packing for my daughter so she will be fed and clothed while I'm gone. Husband is staying behind with her as we agreed taking her on another international trip is a touch too close to insanity. And we're not willing to go there again.

More posts from The Nanny's Dead when I return. Hopefully I'll procure a nanny in Bali while I'm there. Actually that's an excellent idea.

Pregnant In Heels

Rosie Pope, WTF?

I watch a lot of television. This only started happening about 18m + 9m ago, when I became less mobile with a placenta and foetus inside me, swollen legs, and climaxing blood pressure making me feel like I weighed over 100 kilos. Oh wait, I did. Then, as is usually the case during a uncomplicated pregnancy, the huge belly transformed ineluctably into an alien baby.

Contrary to my hopes and desires, I became even less mobile, with obesity and major surgery recovery, and a four kilo baby to lug around. Add breastfeeding to the pile and I became a TV addict.

I turned to TV as my lifeline and my connection to the outside world. And baby, did she deliver. I ploughed through the entire 1st, 2nd and 3rd series of Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant, getting parenting tips and pitfalls from Farrah and Amber, learning how to deflect child service investigators and how to recover from breast enlargement surgery with a two year old. the extra expert support from Dr Drew was invaluable.

I was right there with Bentley's toilet training, Leah's parental separation confusion and Caitlin's "Woops I gave my baby away to a complete stranger and now I'll never see her again". I even got right into the second series featuring the hipster Chelsea, off her face Jenelle, workaholic Kailyn and southern belle of disabled twins Leah before getting a serious case of indigestion.

I then consumed entire series of old faves Californication, Dexter, the new Homeland, Revenge (patriotic to Rabbit Proof Phillip Noyce to the end) and Covert Affairs and ending up with half unfinished True Blood and Pregnant in Heels (PIH).

Pregnant in Heels stopped me in my obese tracks.

WTF is a Maternity Concierge? Who are these women? And where on earth did Rosie Pope, God bless her, pick up that bizarre bastardised accent?

And why does every chick show require a gay, preferably black, trickster?

Before exposure to PIH I thought women who had never cleaned, women who insisted on two nannies per baby and women who swore they would never change their new baby's nappy were urban myths. Or, fantasies. My fantasy, to be precise.

Then, lo and behold, I discover entire neighbourhoods in a small, anthropologically distinct island in the Atlantic are packed with women who never smell or even see their own baby's shit. You should have heard my whining. My husband was ready to pack me off to the meat packers district or Noho in an abattoir refuse box.

We watch reality TV to sneak into other people's lives. But watching PIH I was blasted into several truly bizarre scenarios every episode that made Jersey Shore and Real Housewives look like the nightly news. Or a mild case of chlamydia compared to the major herpes outbreak that was PIH.

Suffice to say, it had me on the edge of my seat and I'd give PIH a rating of 9/10 for pure madness. Only in America? I hope not! Give me two nannies any day!

Is Having a Baby a Good Investment?

Good value or waste of money?

Since we live in economic times, I thought I should do what money minded women all over Australia are doing: an economic analysis on the potential Return on Investment of Children.

Because we are basically the first generation to carefully control our reproduction. Women from 1970 - 2000 do not count as they, the Gen X-er's, basically forgot to have kids. In other words, women up to 1970 did not have access to reliable contraception so had to deal with any pregnancies as and when they came. Abortion in Australia only became accessible in the late 60s, so it has been a very short time indeed that women have had any control over if they have children.

Women who took up the Pill enthusiastically post invention regarded it with, understandably, such open admiration and gratitude that they forgot to stop taking it and suddenly, woops, 40th birthday and bye bye baby.

These Xers regarded babies with open suspicion, and were too chuffed with their corporate and career success to stop and smell the roses. Their next Beemer and Dior suit were more tantalising than screaming babies. What WERE they thinking?

So I am in the vanguard of Women Actually Choosing To Breed, Just For The Hell Of It. And FYI, I'm a Gen X / Y "straddler" - born in 1978. Being a straddler is quite fun.

While we, who actually chose to have a baby rather than having it thrust upon us, don't (yet) have an army of nannies to do the job for us, there are still plenty of resources in our toolkit.

Television is the first and most obvious. There are kids my age who grew up on Sesame Street, and this gave them a world class education complemented by expert skills in reading texts and critical thought. Most of them, unsurprisingly, work in high level media positions and their factory-working mums and dads are breathing sighs of relief that not being around for their kids' early years didn't seem to harm them.

Today we have not only the traditional TV shows like Sesame Street and Playschool, we have CeeBeebies on all day with delights such as In The Night Garden, and we have unlimited shows to download. Dora and The Wiggles get the most airplay at our house.

Dora has taught my daughter Spanish words and how to share. When my four year old niece met kids on holiday in Spain she understood that not only did they not speak English, but she could have a basic conversation in Spanish - thanks to Dora. Dora has better language lessons than Sesame Street according to a recent Harvard study - challenging my old-school mum in her assumptions that modern animations are a load of junk (her words not mine).

I credit the excellent Brainy Baby series with teaching my daughter the alphabet before 18 months, and saving me many trips to playgroup, because she's surrounded by friends and animals all day (when she's not at daycare). Our big screen TV makes it look like the kids are life size, so that saves mummy an awful lot of time and expense in silly excursions she'll never remember.

Before I wax lyrical too much about TV, I will point out there are other great tools for raising your kids cheaply by other people - the park, the beach and childcare are also excellent options.

We'll revisit this topic further down the track because it deserves an extensive and thorough analysis. I just wanted to introduce the concept by pointing out that while babies seem a terrible investment at face value, you can easily increase their ROI by using TV to raise them and training them to work from an early age.

The Nanny Economy

I've never smiled when my kid wrecks my work

I should elaborate on the title of this blog. For me, The Nanny's Dead, not because I don't want one, not because I killed her, but because in my part of the world they cost $200USD per day. So for now, I spend $80pd on childcare.

If it is true that women are starting to out-earn men, and have out-educated men for over a decade, it might be about time for Australia to admit it needs nannies, and at least extend any childcare benefits to nannies.

Everyone thought it was amazing that we got paid maternity leave a year ago, but the $10,000 payment was not really aimed at high earning women and kind of came about 20 years too late. And was rounded off with a litany of insults against women not staying at home and Doing the Best By Their Children. A lot of people in 2012 Australia think that if a woman chooses to have children she has to pay for them - never mind the benefits of raising children. We might as well import all our food (ala Singapore) and import all our future generations.

Better late than never, but let's really get up to speed. Let's look around to see what the rest of the world are doing. There's Canada's thriving nanny economy, which rewards nannies for three years service with residency. I am quite intimate with this particular quirk as my husband's first wife was a Slovakian who had gained Canadian citizenship after working as a nanny for a few years. That's a pretty cool bonus for the working women of Canada. I understand Switzerland and several other countries have a nanny migration system.

I would love to have a Cambodian or Thai nanny but for me to even consider this I must be prepared to pay a minimum wage of $50,000 a year for her to get a 457 visa to Australia.

Is this not a little ridiculous? There are thousands of women in Australia who really want a nanny but don't have a spare $1000pw lying around and are not sure about the visa issues around employing a backpacker. My understanding is you must ensure she leaves your employ, or the country, after less than 12 months.

Which doesn't give you much time to get to know the Nanny. Which would be particularly unfortunate, points out my husband, if she were a hot Swedish blonde.

And the Rest of You can go F Yourselves.

She cooks and cleans too

No seriously. So I’m sitting at dinner opposite an ex who didn’t have children with me four years ago. Luckily. Another asshole who now has zero current knowledge of what a csection, torn vag or the inside of a maternity ward looks like (uterine purple walls), let alone a baby slathered in vomit or a toddler stashing its own shit in the sofa.

 He asks me, having not seen me for two years, what I’ve been doing. Um, you know, I have an 18 month old, I say. Yes he says, but what else? Well, I could explain I’ve almost finished a grad dip, I worked briefly as a copywriter for a marketing company before they silently shafted me, and how I can’t seem to snare a part time job.

 But what I really should say is I’ve been to the beach with my toddler twice a day for the past 500 days of her life, to the library 400 times, to the Red Cross toy/op shop 300 times. I’ve cleaned shit off the walls and cot twice, been covered in every possible body fluid in unusual places, sometimes all at once.

That in the two years since he’s seen me, I gave her a spine, a heart and eyeballs, got married in Vegas, fed her vicariously through the womb (mostly not champagne), then fed her nonstop from breast to bottle to goopy rice and pear to toast and weetbix to steak. That it’s an fing triumph when I look up and see her healthy rosy face peering across the table at me, alive, well and alert.

 So this asshole who grew up in Singapore says: You have a nanny right? No I choke, no one in Australia has a nanny. Well, maybe your terrace-dwelling-IVF-twin-spawning-“William/Emily-or-Ruby/Imogene”-Montessori-patronising-friends in the inner west have nannies. Or the TV anchor woman. But not me.

 Now that I am a member of the secret world of mummies, the mysterious world of cafes and playgroups inhabited by designer prams, smart phones, heavily made-up mumazons or trakkie slugging slummy mummies, I am privy to a shocking revelation: Australian women really are doing it all. And it sucks.

Nowhere else in history have millions of women been forced to throw aside their postgrad degrees and six figure salaries, get shafted by midwives and insurance companies alike and lose their body and identity in such a sudden fashion as Australia circa 2012. And they think PND is caused by having a baby.

 Here’s the clincher: their new life of constant harassment and wiping little bums ten times a day is invisible, unnumerated and unsupported by either husband or grandma (who are either working full time to pay off the seven figure mortgage or busy abroad). It is certainly not supported by a thriving nanny economy they may simply tap into for a wealth of affordable talent.

 So when this ex boyfriend suggests I just get a nanny I want to reach across the table and slap him. He also suggests I “suck it up princess” and "get used to being a mum" in reference to my whinge about being booted out of hospital three days after major surgery and noone to take care of me. Ot the new baby.

If this attitude it any indication of Australia’s general feelings towards nannies then I really am stuck up shit creek without a nanny for the foreseeable future.