Breastfeeding and Aspergers - Hard Time Weaning?

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I hated milk to as a child because it made me sick as a child I thought it did it to everyone it wasn't until I was much older that I discovered that I'm lasoste intolerant. You might want to try some lasoste free milk or even some soy it's not as thick and might be easier for her to deal with.

I'm just glad to see that there are still plenty of mothers doing the right thing and nursing their babies. There are so many advantages to nursing that its unbelievable that some people actually formula feed their infants.

Some lesser known advantages:

1. Formula babies grow up with lower IQ's than breastfed babies on average.
2. Formula babies grow up to be fatter than breastfed babies and tend to have weight challenges as adults.
3. Home-made formula babies grow up to be morbidly obese. Homemade formula consists of Karo syrup, molasses and sweetened condensed milk. In fact, if you see someone in the 300-400 pound range, you can ask them. There is a really good chance that they were fed homemade formula when they were babies.
4. Because of contractual sponsorships, every new mother at the hospital is given a week's worth of free formula and coupons to buy more. Just long enough for them to stop lactating. Once stopped, its very difficult to restart. With the economy the way it is, its also likely that when they can't afford commercial formula, they will start using the homemade stuff.
5. Formula companies have been accused of creating subsidiaries that deliberately manufactured faulty breast pumps that would injure a mother. They have also advertised with photos of a woman's diseased breast and stated that this is 'normal' for women who breast feed.

I'm an RN.

Saying things like that is why there is so much backlash from formula moms.

The studies done on intelligence said that it could lead to an increased chance of higher intelligence, which is not the same thing as insinuating that a child will be of lower intelligence. Genetics will always play a role in IQ and two fairly dull people breeding will rarely manage to produce intelligent offspring.

I have not seen any literature from formula companies saying that breastfeeding causes diseases. I started having children twelve years ago and did not see it then either.

We live in a day and age where most women get to decide what to do with their own bodies. No one is forcing anyone to take and use formula. With my last two children all they did was ask if I planned on BF once and after that they checked in to make sure I knew what I was doing. That's it. There is not a grand conspiracy here.

Now I did bf my younger two children, I tried with the first and he just could not do it. So I improvised. There are also women who cannot nurse due to medication, or they just cannot pump successfully (I personally have a horrible time at it, I was so glad that the younger two did not need me to). There are plenty of legitimate reasons that it just does not work for some women.

What would you have them do? Leave their babies to die somewhere?

I don't know anyone that feed their babies karo and cows milk and I've lived all over the contry and the world then only place I've seen it was doctors and others in health care saying not to do it. If a mother cannot afford formula thye can go to the WIC office and get something thats like food stamps to buy formula they also offer beastfeeding classes and provite checks for food to help the mother 's eat the right to make healthy milk. The standers to get on wic are lower then for foodstamps. They even give some baby foods and juice when the child reaches the age that they are able to eat these foods. The teach nutrition classes and even give checks for the local farmers market for the parents of older childer < the program runs until your child is five>.
If a mother doesn't breatfeed her child thats up to her. I hate the pushy propagnda driven breast feeding movement. My cazy sister inlaw just had to keep breasting feed even when her son was losing weight and was showing signs of dehyration. The doctor had put the baby back in the hospital in order to keep a baby that was born healthly from dying. Saddly even after that she lied to the doctor and kept trying to breastfeed even when it was still not giving her son what he need so the rest of the family got bottles and took turns sneeking in to feed the little boy. I hated lying to her but none of us to just watch the baby get sicker and sicker. It took weeks of this to get the little boy to the point were he was getting what he needed just from breast feeding. Ok my sister inlaw is a nut case but my point is if for some reason you can't breast feed don't worry about it your baby won't be hurt by this your not a bad mother.

Thanks, CRD, for the advice on the lactose free/soy milk - I'll give it a try.

I completely agree with the last 2 posts. There is WAY too much pressure on moms to nurse their babies these days. Of course it may be the best option, but formula is a completely acceptable option as well. The way people talk, you'd think giving a baby a bottle of formula was like giving her a bottle of beer. I had such a hard time trying to breastfeed my son and when it turned out to be unsuccessful, I sobbed and went into quite a depression because I thought I was the worst mother on the planet. I still remember the times when I fed him in public and got all sorts of disapproving comments and stares.

I've never heard of homemade formula either, but I know that there are parts of the US (TN comes to mind) where Mountain Dew is considered a perfectly acceptable substitute for formula. A lot of women in the are surprisingly uneducated and do not receive proper healthcare for themselves or their babies. Check out the latest statistics on infant mortality in these regions - it's enough to make you sick!

Please, lets not start a pro and con war on the breastfeeding movement! I had more than enough of that when my kids were badies. Women get passionate, there is no doubt about it, but one can never really know what another's options have been, the reasons behind their choices, and do forth. The best any of us can and should do is to make sure as many women as possible have access to solid, positive information on how to successfully breastfeed. If I hadn't had acess to a top lactation consultant during my son's first week, my attempts would have failed. And it wasn't the movement that was sending me to tears, it was wondering why I'd spent my life with DD breasts if they weren't even going to do the job they were designed for (I HATE being so large)! But the lactation consultant was brilliant, and I am forever grateful for that. If more women had such help, many stories would be different.

My son was easier to wean than his NT sister. I only nursed him for around 7 months. I nursed her for around 15 months.

Thanks DW, you're so right about life being stressful enough. I don't think it's worth forcing my agenda on her yet either. At least she's still a baby. I'm just not comfortable nursing a toddler. I tried soy milk today with no luck. Oh well, eventually they all get weaned at some point.

You are already down to four times a day right? That isn't bad. Try picking one of the afternoon ones to cut out, and if she is insistent don't fight her, just try again the next day.

Also she might like yogurt. It isn't as hydrating, but it will help her get used to dairy if you intend to use it.

Mine went like this:

NT daughter weaned at 16 mos (I was very thin and pregnant)
NT daughter put on formula at 9 mos because she was not gaining weight as rapidly as the doctor wanted her to
AS son weaned at 16 mos (very thin and pregnant - again)
AS son weaned at 14 mos (he would only nurse on one side and was biting)

None of my kids were particularly hard to wean and my oldest didn't really like being held all that much. She's NT. Go figure.

I felt bad for years that I weaned my younger daughter early, but knowing now that she is lactose intolerant and that was probably why she spat up so much, I think it was the right thing.

My older son was in the NICU for a few days after he was born and he was also tongue-tied, so getting started was difficult, but we finally got it and he nursed with no problems after that.

I planned on nursing my youngest for as long as possible, but when he started refusing the right boob and (unlike his older sibs) thought it was hilarious that I screamed when he bit me . . . yeah.

Hubby and I used to call them weaners when they were weaning, though I suppose it would have been more accurate to call me the weaner and them the weanees.

Edit: I am very pro-breastfeeding, but I agree that it sucks to put pressure on moms who have a difficult time nursing or just don't want to. People, including the media and total strangers are always trying to make mothers feel bad. The job is hard enough without us doing it to each other!

As far as the whole obesity thing goes- my husband is obese and was breastfed. I was bottle fed and have only just now gotten up to a 'normal' weight. His family is large. My family is small.

He *is* smarter than me, though.

My husband has a friend with a daughter around our middle friends age. She had been exclusively Breast Fed when we saw her at eight months old and she was enormous. I have never seen a fatter baby. She just never tried to crawl or anything. She was eating as if she were burning a ton of calories to get super hungry but was essentially just a lump of smoosh, no little baby muscles at all.

Formula does not cause obesity, it *can* increase one's risk of it. I was formula fed (mother had medical problems/medications) and I am not obese. In fact I have the most muscle mass and the least fat out of any female in my family for my age range or older.

Well I certainly don't mean to pass judgment on women who don't breastfeed because they are forced to use formula because of medical or social reasons. But at the same time, I still think that women who do breastfeed should be applauded for doing the best thing for their babies.

I had to do a research project on the subject a few years ago and that is where all that stuff came from. There is overwhelming research that shows that breast feeding is the "Best" thing if it is possible for the mother to do so.

As far as IQ, there is nothing to suggest that breast milk itself raises IQ, but its more like a sign that the parents are smarter. <<I had a whole section about that, but deleted it so as to not offend anyone.>>

The Karo syrup homemade formula seems to have started in the 1950's with good homemaking "urban legends" of the time. Unfortunately, people are still passing this recipe around today as a viable substitute for commercial formula. Goat's milk is actually, a viable substitute for emergencies, but never anything with cow's milk or sugar in it.

One other thing I forgot to mention is that breastfed babies tend to have lower odor diapers.

I think everyone already knows about the higher immunity to disease when babies are breast fed. When I worked in the ER, I NEVER once saw a breastfed baby come in. They were all formula babies. The problem was usually related to unsterile handling and mixing of the formula and not the formula itself.

Another urban legend that needs to be extinguished is the phrase "Fat babies are healthy babies". Nothing could be further from the truth.

The "Diseased Breast" photo was from an ad campaign by L'Oreal/Nestlé that appeared all over
France. Formula companies were trying to convince new mothers that breastfeeding was unhealthy and that a diseased breast was what you could expect if you didn't buy their product. There was a lot of consumer backlash on that and the company pulled the ads. L'Oreal/Nestlé is a very large formula manufacturer.

Here is another interesting tidbit. While alcohol consumption by the mother is extremely harmful during pregnancy - especially in the first trimester - it is not all that harmful while breastfeeding. If a breastfeeding mother is legally drunk with a blood alcohol level of 0.08%, that means that her milk will also contain 0.08% alcohol. Compare that to fresh orange juice which contains 0.03% alcohol. While drunken nursing is not to be encouraged, a mother who wants to have a glass of wine at dinner is not going to harm her baby.

Well my mother couldn't breastfeed because she had breast reduction surgery. All us three kids grew up not fat when we were fed by formula. I plan to breastfeed. I read it's a quicker way to lose your baby weight because you burn up to 500 calories doing it but you still need to eat the way you did when you were pregnant. Eating the wrong kind of food changes your milk and it can make your baby cranky.

I will still use baby formula because I won't always be around to feed my kid so my husband would need formula to feed our kid or our in laws or whoever is watching our kid. I also heard of the breast bump but you can only have it in a bottle for so long before it gets used or else you have to toss it out when it gets old. Baby formula is just easier. You just put it in a bottle and put water in it and shake it and it's ready to go. I've seen moms do that. But in my pregnancy book it says you need to heat it up and test it on your skin so I don't know which is correct.

You are supposed to follow the directions on the canister to the letter technically. Right down to sterilizing the bottles right before each use. However with my oldest I just made sure the bottles were clean (ie out of the dishwasher and not used again since then). I would not really suggest skipping the boiled water to mix with the formula though. It is what helps dissolve it so that there are no clumps or flakes floating in it.

In my experience pumping was a colossal PITA! However you can actually freeze Breast Milk and then it is good for a month, unless you thaw it then it must be used within 24 hours.

One thing that the studies that "prove" that formula fed babies get sick more often frequently do not address is that formula babies are more likely to be day care babies as well. Any kid going to daycare is going to get sick more often just because of the wider exposure. Not to be taken as my arguing against the fact that breastfeeding grants a baby immunity mind you, but if the mother has a crappy immune system it isn't doing the baby a bit of good. Mine personally is insanely high and my children are almost never sick, even less so when I was breast feeding them. However, they are also home only babies. We do not even have a part time baby sitter.

This from a mother who breastfeeds, co-sleeps, wears the babies, stays at home and cloth diapers.

I plan on doing infant potty training. Wouldn't the bottles crack if you froze the breast milk in it? Liquid expands when frozen and I am afraid of melting the bottle from boiled water.