Feeding & Nutrition

Resources on breastfeeding, introducing solids, nutrition, etc.

Breastfeeding

  • Here are some great resources:
    • Kellymom.com
    • The Pump Station resources page (handouts, online videos, etc.).  I think it’s worth skimming the handouts before you give birth, to give you an idea of issues you might face.  Examples:
      • I wish I’d read the handout on offering the breastfed baby a bottle, b/c I shouldn’t have waited until 5 weeks. Eleanor didn’t take a bottle well enough for me to leave her until she was 3.5 months old, and she’s still not thrilled about it or the sippy cup we replaced it with at 6 months.
      • I had overactive letdown, but didn’t realize it until Robert figured it out by googling Eleanor’s symptoms.  If I’d read The Pump Station’s handouts we would’ve figured it out sooner.
  • Thoughts on equipment & supplies:
  • Donating extra breastmilk: I’ve always pumped at least once a day (except during growth spurts, illness, etc.).  I started pumping right before bed when Eleanor started sleeping long stretches at night; when she stopped sleeping so steadily, I switched to pumping after the morning feeding.  Pumping most days maintains my comfort, keeps my supply up, and also allows me to accumulate enough fresh milk before going to work (e.g., if I know I’m going to work on Monday I won’t freeze the 3-4oz/day I pump the few days beforehand), so Eleanor has only had to drink frozen milk once.  Of course, it also means I accumulate frozen milk that Eleanor doesn’t need — a few ounces on days that I stay home, and larger quantities on the days I go to work — so I looked into options for donating my milk.  There are two ways to go about it:
    • You can donate to a milk bank.  They will test you for infectious diseases, and ship you coolers of dry ice so you can FedEx your frozen milk (at their expense) to them.  They pasteurize the milk, and distribute it to babies that need it.  However, they charge a processing fee of $2-3 PER OUNCE, which means it is really expensive for someone to get breastmilk from a milk bank.  I assume that in most cases insurance must be covering it.  It’s still a great option though.  You can find a nonprofit milk bank through the Human Milk Banking Association of North America.
    • You can donate peer-to-peer (private donation).  This is what I ended up doing.  A mom posted on a mom’s board that she was looking for milk for her adopted baby, and I contacted her.  She picks up my frozen stash every few months; I hang onto my most recent 20-30oz in case of emergency.  Her daughter is now 7.5 months old and she’s managed to give her only breastmilk, no formula, since she was born.  She must spend a lot of time & energy tracking down & picking up breastmilk.  It’s great to know my milk is going to a good use, rather than being wasted.  I like that it’s going to someone without them having to pay the exhorbitant rates that a milk bank would charge, plus it’s nice that it doesn’t have to be pasteurized, so it doesn’t lose some of the health benefits that would be lost in the process.  If you want to donate to someoen directly and aren’t part of an online or in-person community where you could be matched with a baby in need, contact a local organization.  In LA The Pump Station puts moms with extra milk in touch with moms who need milk for their babies.  I’m sure La Leche League and other organizations probably perform the same service.

Formula

  • We’ve been fortunate not to have to introduce any formula, but if I had to I would try the brand Baby’s Only Organic, which I learned about when a mom posted a bunch of good info about it.   Some of the things that sound good about it:
    • They have no BPA in their packaging.  Earth’s Best is another popular organic brand, but they do have BPA in the lids of their cartons.
    • They don’t put Martek’s DHA/ARA in their formula.  Martek’s DHA/ARA supplements are finding their way into a lot of formula brands, and into Horizon’s organic milk, but they are controversial and are thought to have caused severe diarrhea in some infants.
    • They have a lactose-free dairy version for babies who can’t tolerate dairy or soy formula, or whose parents aren’t comfortable having soy be their baby’s primary food source.
  • That said, I have no experience w/ this area — just wanted to put the info out there b/c I hadn’t heard of that brand before.

Introducing solids

  • Full disclosure: we took a fairly unorthodox approach, but we’re very glad we did.
  • So, what did we do?
    • We started out with the goal of making our own purees.  We introduced some solids at around 4.5 months, b/c Robert thought it was going to be a lot of fun (it was!) and couldn’t bear to wait until 6 months.  We started slowly, using the Wholesome Baby Food site as a guide to what foods were OK and waiting 4 days between introducing new foods, so that we would know the culprit if any food caused an allergy.  What I’ve read is that this is more important early on because an allergy may take a few days to show up in a younger baby, whereas as they get older the reaction would turn up more quickly.  Eleanor had mashed bananas, pureed pears, pureed roasted butternut squash, and mashed avocado.  She liked them fairly well at first — solids are a new experience & babies make funny faces! — but she never got that interested in them.  We weren’t trying to give her enough food for any nutritional purpose; we just gave her a taste once a day or every few days to introduce her to the idea of eating things.
    • When she was 6 months old, we decided to try the “baby-led” approach (see article above) that a friend had suggested. We tried giving her a wedge of avocado, or a peeled wedge of pear or peeled dried prune, that she could hold & gnaw on.  She was SO much more excited about this than purees!  We kept giving her things she could hold & eat, and gave up on the puree idea altogether.  She also loved gnawing on a piece of pita when we were eating Lebanese food. Otherwise I think we just gave her fruit.
    • At 7 months we decided to let her eat what we were eating, which of course was what she really wanted.  We’d felt bad guarding our plates from her, and since most things I read said babies’ intestines are immature for the first 6 months, I thought waiting until 7 to let her try whatever she wanted gave us a little extra assurance that she’d weather it OK. She tried (and loved) Mexican food, Indian & Pakistani food, and Thai food, as well as the pasta, paninis, salads (she can eat the avocado & the sunflower seeds, but has a tough time with baby greens) and other things we made at home. It’s a lot of fun for all of us.
    • We also started giving her some things that we keep on hand especially for her:
      • Plain organic whole-fat yogurt
      • Avocado cut into bite-sized chunks
      • Frozen organic veggies: my sister’s pediatrician recommended this so you can offer a variety without spending all your time cooking baby foods.  You can thaw or heat them, but we just give them frozen because she likes them this way.  Needless to say, we stay with her whenever she has food within reach.   We give her frozen peas, cut green beans, broccoli florets, and butternut squash cubes.  We like the Columbia River Organics brand because they don’t add salt and they’re grown in the US (always check the bag for origin when buying frozen).
      • Frozen organic mango (she started eating solids during the winter, so there weren’t that many good fresh fruits available — but the frozen mango is great b/c it’s soothing to her gums too, and it’s really tasty, like eating a great popsicle).
    • So, Eleanor has never eaten anything from the baby aisle.  No baby food, baby cereal, formula, special snacks.  I think she eats more healthily and enthusiastically as a result, and we must save a fortune — probably enough to cancel out the added expense of buying organic. In the past 3 months we’ve probably spent $30 on food for her. I really believe that baby companies have done a remarkable job of shaping what we as a culture think raising a baby requires, and are making a fortune off us as a result. Don’t give in to the marketing! :)
    • We are not delaying the introduction of potential allergens. I do tend to think that delaying them may, if anything, increase the risk of food allergy.  I heard an allergy expert say that at this point they just don’t know, and all he can tell parents is something like “whatever you do, don’t feel bad about it, because there is no evidence to suggest that introducing early or delaying is the right thing to do.” Eleanor has been loving almond butter (on toast, on apples, and by itself) since 7 months, and she’s had egg, peanut, dairy, etc., and we’re lucky to have had no signs of allergy. Aside from tending to believe that it’s better to introduce early, I mostly decided that since the true experts in the field can’t guide us one way or the other, I’d go with the approach that gets the issue off the table sooner — now we don’t have to spend the next year worrying that she’ll eat a peanut when we aren’t looking and get sick.  Each family is pretty much on their own on this one, and you should do what feels right to you. The advice to delay to 1 or 2 years is still out there, mixed with a few newer studies showing that delaying might be a problem rather than the solution. Since the information we encounter in books, websites, and from other moms takes a while to shift, you’re probably mostly going to encounter sources that encourage waiting, and may not hear the “we have no certainty that either approach is right” message, so I wanted to put that out there so you know not to feel beholden to the older warnings or guilty about the choices you make.

Nutrition and Vitamins

  • NOTE: The FDA recently tested prenatal, women’s, & children’s vitamins and found that almost all of them contain lead, sometimes at alarming levels.  Don’t take a prenatal without checking the FDA report to see how much lead is in it.
  • For info on prenatal vitamins & Omega-3 supplements, see my pregnancy resources page.
  • As a general rule, I’m not that into vitamins or supplements.  I just try to eat a balanced diet.  Here are some resources I’ve found really helpful.