Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

I’ve seen a few photo groups and one or two articles lately about bottle feeding, and how it can be a beautiful bonding experience with your baby.  I appreciate this, as I breastfed my first two children and bottle-fed my 3rd and 4th, for a variety of reasons.  I noted one interesting comment, though, from a woman who had also done both and asserted that breastfeeding was so much more something to her.  (I can’t remember what she said exactly, but the impression I got was that it was beautiful, fulfilling, etc. in a way that bottle feeding wasn’t.)  I’ve been holding in the perfect response to that for weeks, but I can’t resist sharing it, so here goes.

If breastfeeding is an activity you enjoy, that is fabulous.  Enjoy it.  I’m OCD enough that I find a certain satisfaction in cleaning that not everyone does.  But if you think bottle feeding your baby is significantly different in terms of your bonding with your baby, then you’re doing it wrong.

(And lest you think I’m attacking the maker of the comment, don’t worry; this is something else entirely.  If you’re not laughing, you probably don’t have firsthand experience with the advice I’m satirizing.)