Fed is Best: Why I Chose Formula over Breastfeeding

“Breastfeeding is best for babies.” This is what the side of my Enfamil A+ baby formula container preaches.

Nowadays, in North America, the main message is that we should breastfeed our babies. Articles like this one abound, telling us that breastmilk is superior to fortified formula products.

But what about our parents’ generation, where many were formula-fed? Most of my partner’s family were raised on formula, and they are all very smart, successful, standout people I admire. In fact, in the 21st century, only 42% of parents breastfed their babies, as industrialization required more women to work outside the home. (See A History of Infant Feeding for a very cool history on breastfeeding and formula.)

The thing that these breastfeeding studies fail to examine, is the mother’s mental health and happiness, and the feasibility of “breast is best” in our modern society, where women are also taught that we should aspire to work full-time as well.

For a long time, I was really reluctant to have a baby, and it was partly due to the breastfeeding narrative. I associated having a baby with needing to breastfeed, and for whatever reason, I just couldn’t see myself doing that. I had my own career goals, as a business school graduate who came in Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In era, and with an expectation to breastfeed for the first two years of a baby’s life, how was I supposed to do all of that, without giving up my existing ambitions? It was actually my partner Julien’s idea to formula-feed, and it was the key suggestion that washed away my hesitations to finally have a kid.

Suddenly I could picture my life, and everything seemed much more attainable. I wanted to have a more well-rounded life, with a mix of career and family, and the plan to formula-feed would empower Julien to have an equal role in our baby’s caregiving and upbringing. I loved envisioning Julien feeding our baby too, and the idea that we could both have that bonding experience. The more we finalized that decision, the more I was at ease, happy and confident that we were just doing what worked best for us.

When I did become pregnant, I was initially really anxious by the overwhelming amount of rules and restrictions placed on me: no salami, no coffee, no interesting cheeses, no sushi, no wine, no beer, no prepared salads, not too much tuna, not too much exercise, not too much heat… I felt crushed by them at the beginning, until I looked at the relative dangers and stats myself, and drew my own lines in the sand: one caffeinated coffee + many decafs would be fine, occasional sashimi and tuna and salami wouldn’t kill us, and when in Italy, I was going to eat the interesting cheeses… and maybe have one glass of wine in our incredible rifugio in the Italian Dolomites at 3,000m!

The decision to formula-feed was another important one that left me feeling empowered and happy. I discussed my plans with friends and family, and with my friend who is a paediatrician, and everyone was really supportive. Oddly, the least supportive people were other moms with newborns, who were slightly judgemental and skeptical, saying things like, “your baby may not take a nipple”, and prying into why I didn’t want to breastfeed, in an argumentative tone.

With all of this said, I was still open-minded. We would try formula, but if the baby would not accept it or didn’t thrive on it, of course we would breastfeed. I also planned to breastfeed for the first week or so, as a sort of combined plan where the baby could get some of the health benefits of the colostrum (early, kind of pre-breastmilk). Oddly, there wasn’t much information or advice about this combined approach, and so we made it up ourselves, and hoped it would work.

When it came time to have baby Luc at the hospital, all of our doctors were so supportive about our choice, agreeing that fed is best, and that many families have great results with formula. It was the public health nurses that shamed us, and kept trying to push breastfeeding despite our continued reminders of our choice. They would say things like, “I’ll see you in the grocery store in a few weeks’ time, and you’ll be breastfeeding while shopping.” These comments were frustrating, as we kept saying we weren’t going to breastfeed. If anything, they made us feel unnecessary guilt.

Speaking with other moms, I’m not alone. I know several people who planned to formula-feed for various reasons, from personal choice / mental heath to baby’s allergies, and who felt shamed by public health nurses. We did try to breastfeed for our first two days in the hospital, just being open-minded, but baby Luc didn’t want to latch. Meanwhile, he immediately took to the bottle.

We chose to feed Luc colostrum (via breastpump) for 5 days, and I was planning to endure another few days of sore breasts, but Julien knows me too well, and he told me, “okay, I think that’s enough, we should switch to formula now!“. I was just about to get proper breast milk in, and he knew that I would hate it. I was so relieved, and so happy to have a bit of time back. (As the colostrum pumping was very time-consuming!) I am so lucky to have a partner who not only knows me so well, but anticipates my needs even before I do.

Fast forward to today, and Luc is 13 months, and such a healthy and happy little boy. We both got to experience a bond with feeding him, and because of that, he’s not dependent on either one of us. He loves being put to bed, fed, and held by both of us equally. Formula was extremely practical for enabling us to both sleep and exercise well. We both got to take turns feeding Luc at night, so neither one of us ever got sleep deprived. In fact, we actually slept more than before we had him! (I just finished writing an article about our sleep strategies.) I was able to enjoy time outside running and skiing with friends, and while it was certainly less than usual, it was enough to keep me happy. With sleep and exercise on my side, I was able to bypass the very-common postpartum depression that affects 10-15% of moms, largely because I made a big choice that I knew would support my happiness.

To recap, here are the main reasons why we chose to formula-feed:

• I knew I’d be happier. I wanted to keep some freedom and independence, and I felt that with formula, I’d have more freedom to go run and ski, which is something that brings me a lot of joy. Of course women who are breastfeeding can use a breast pump to get some of that independence, but that’s also time-consuming.
• So that both Julien and I could have equal access to the bonding experience of feeding our baby.
• Sleep: because I wasn’t the only milk supply, it wouldn’t just be me that would need to get up at night to feed the baby.
• Quicker return to normal hormones: I knew that if I stopped breastfeeding earlier, my hormones would return to normal sooner. I was such an emotional mess with prenatal and postpartum hormones, and I wanted to get back to homeostasis as quickly as possible!
• Bone health: related to my last point, I’d heard from my new mom runner friends that breastfeeding could in some cases lead to bone health issues, partly due to my last point about hormones. The research here is very conflicted and controversial for sure – but I knew that if I could get back to normal hormone homeostasis, that I would be able to get back to normal menstruation sooner, which tends to be associated with bone health. Sure enough, I got my period back after 6 months, and have been able to run a 100 miler at Hurt100 only one year postpartum.

I just wanted to share my experience so that other women know that there’s a spectrum of choices out there. (Formula-feeding is rarely shared, as it’s not “the best choice” in our society.) You can breastfeed, you can formula-feed, or you can do any combination you’d like to try. It’s important to acknowledge that in today’s day and age, we maybe expect too much of women. We’re pressuring women to be “supermoms”, expecting them to breastfeed for hours, while also working full-time.

In Canada we have parental benefits if you’ve paid into them that can support women doing this, but what about in the US, where it’s only required that women’s jobs are held for 12 weeks of unpaid leave? How are they supposed to reconcile working full-time and breastfeeding for the recommended year or two after that? And even in Canada, where we have the benefits, it creates a situation where we’re encouraging women to leave the workforce at a critical career stage for 1-2 years, but then at the same time, we’re wondering why women get behind their male peers. I’m just here to point out that we’re maybe aiming for too much, and we can’t have it all.

In an ideal world, we’d have:

• More balanced healthcare conversations, that share the full list of pros and cons of all options. Both formula and breastfeeding have their own pros and cons, and we should be transparently sharing all of them, not just the pros of breastfeeding.
• An understanding of the overwhelming expectations placed on women, and that we can’t do it all.
• Workplaces that consider the needs of new parents, and offer flexibility for women to breastfeed as needed. Maybe that’s working from home part of the time, or having flexible hours to support this.
• Elevating the role of caregiving in our society. Unfortunately it’s not paid for parents who choose to work in the home, but it’s work and it’s damn important. I want to see more LinkedIn titles that celebrate this title– in my one-year parental leave, it was the hardest (and most satisfying) job I’ve had.

Whatever you choose, make sure it’s what you want, and know that what’s right for you could be totally different from the woman next to you.

Interested in support along your new parent running journey? I’m taking on a few more athletes for coaching in 2023! Check out my Coaching page for details.