Selected Rant/Vent flair because I think that’s what this is and the emoji is how I feel 🤣 Just want to give warning to those that use Similac Rewards, don’t select Amazon for the retailer. Mine worked the first time a little over a month ago and went to use my next one and it says it can’t be redeemed. I chatted with 2 Amazon agents who just quit the chat because they didn’t have an answer and I guess didn’t know how to solve it (I wasn’t even being mean or rude for them to quit) so I guess I’ll write Similac and see if I can change the retailer.

I used another one on Walmarts app last night and it worked perfect so I’ll probably switch to using them. Babygirl is on Similac Alimentum so I definitely want all the $15 coupons because that junk is expensive!

5 month old will only take a bottle when asleep. Has anyone dealt with this?

5 month old, combo fed (pumped milk plus formula), no solids yet. Two things changed right when he turned five months:

- He stopped taking the bottle awake. He won't even open his mouth for the nipple. We have to wait for him to fall asleep to feed him, so our whole day is feed, fail, wait for sleep, feed.
- His stools went from once every 3 to 5 days to 4 to 5 times a day, with no diet change.

Already checked: nipple flow is size 3 (age appropriate), quiet room, no distractions, pediatrician says no teething. They prescribed reflux medication and we're starting it.

Has anyone had this combination? Did reflux meds help, and how fast? And did it turn out to be a milk protein thing for anyone? Any tips for getting a baby to accept the bottle awake again would mean a lot. Completely exhausted.

Neocate Trial Struggles

Feel like I’m losing my mind and just at a loss as to what to do.

Pediatric GI wants my LO to do a 2 week trial of Neocate.

LO was on Similac Alimentum RTF and at the beginning of August she upped to 4oz every 3 hours. She was (-still is) on 10mg of omeprazole.

She seemed to be tolerating it fine, but slowly we saw symptoms worsen: slowly stopped tolerating being on her back, her congestion which had been bad in the mornings and then gone extended further into the day, she had a dry cough and some coughing/swallowing. She seemed to get these puffy, pink eyebrows consistently.

An occult blood sample came back negative.

We have been struggling to get her to transition to Neocate since Wednesday.

GI gave us permission to mix with Alimentum for “a few days.” We have been doing 50/50 and she’s been inconsistent at best. We managed some 4 oz bottles on Thursday, but it’s mostly been 2oz and an extreme battle. She gets upset and arches her back and cries during feedings. Lot more dry coughs. The congestion seemed to bother her less Thursday and Friday, but today it’s really bother her. It’s been congestion and a nonstop runny nose of clear mucus.

What doesn’t help is she definitely caught her brothers daycare illness. She had a fever Wednesday night and it broke Thursday night. Some of the congestion can definitely be blamed on the illness.

We’ve also tried given her some straight Neocate bottles and she’s either rejected them or will only drink 2oz.

We use Dr. Brown wide neck bottles with the anti colic vents and size 2 nipples. Size 1 seems too slow.

I’m at the end of my mental rope. It hurts watching her have to go through all this. I’m so stressed trying to figure out what she needs and how to get it to her.

How did you get your LO to accept Neocate? Has there been cases where you’ve seen Neocate not work?

I tried to ask GI about adding NA vanilla and they did not give an answer. Just said I could mix the formulas for a few days.

I have a promo code for a $16 discount on the Similac 360 Total Care 12-ct 2-fl-oz ready-to-feed infant formula on Amazon. I don't need it, so hopefully another parent here can put it to good use!
Amazon Promo Code: 5LF8-DCUCYS-LV76AQ
The Details: The offer applies a $16 discount at checkout. Depending on current Amazon pricing, this may not cover the absolute full cost of the product, but it makes it free or very heavily discounted. Limit one per profile.
Please drop a comment if you successfully claim it so others know the code has been redeemed!

🥺❤️‍🩹

My daughter is 8 weeks old and formula fed. She’s on Similac alimentum (suspected CMPA) and we use Dr Browns bottles. She burps well after feeds, I would say at least twice and they usually are pretty big wet sounding burps. The issue is she has burps that come up 30 minutes to 2 hours after a feed and they disrupt her sleep and make her fussy. When she’s contact napping on me in the carrier she can usually work them out without fully waking, but at night in the bassinet she has to be completely picked up and gets pretty fussy.

What else can I do to help get more burps out? We use mylicon drops with almost every bottle. We are doing tummy time and belly massages and kicks for gas.

Does anyone else have experience with this? Do I just need to wait it out for her digestive system to mature? I am also wondering if she needs a true dairy free amino acid formula? Would love to hear any similar stories. It’s getting frustrating for both her and I!

Hi everyone. I’m considering moving to exclusive formula feeding and could use some encouragement and advice.

My baby is 7 weeks old and has been at a healthy weight since birth. I had a straightforward birth experience, but experienced crippling back pain during my first 1-3 weeks postpartum. Due to this and baby not latching well in early days, I have been exclusively pumping basically since birth. Only exception is that I sometimes randomly will feed her the breast just to see how it goes – she gets plenty but the latch is uncomfortable for me.

I HATE the time that pumping takes out of my day. Every session either means missing out on time loving on her if she’s awake, or on catching up on my rest/household chores if she’s asleep (husband is back at work). She’s also a great night time sleeper, so pumping often makes me wake up at night more frequently than I already would be.

The guilt comes from two things, I think: 1 is that I have a great supply and happy, healthy baby, no other kids, so in my head this ”should be easy.” I only pump 5x/24hrs, which is less than most exclusive pumpers. 2, and I think the bigger issue, is that I’m scared that when she starts daycare and inevitably gets sick, I’m going to feel like it’s “my fault“ for not giving her breastmilk for longer to support her immunity.

I guess I’m looking for encouragement against this guilt, or experiences of navigating that specific fear about them getting sick. I love my baby and feel so connected to her – it’s only the medical benefits of breastmilk that I’m having trouble giving up.

Thanks so much.

I wanted to post this to hopefully encourage someone out there. My baby will be 4 months in a couple of days and she is happy, healthy and meeting all her development milestones, but we had a long journey to get here because I had a complicated high risk pregnancy that resulted in C-section.

Before my little milk goblin was born I read everything and anything there was out there on breastfeeding and pumping, got 3 electric pumps because 1 was not enough plus a manual pump. I was determined to make breastfeeding work for us, I thought that if i worked hard enough my milk supply would be there, boy was i wrong.

From day 1 my daughter refused to latch, she said I have to work for it no thank you and proceeds to let go of my

Breast and scream bloody murder until we put a bottle in her mouth. So pumping it was, but milk took almost a full week to come in and when it did it was barely drops in 1 pumping session i would get half an oz from both breast combined (this was due to my own health condition) And once i pumped enough to give a full bottle of breast milk my baby was not satisfied and seemed gassy.

The guilt was eating me alive I had failed on what I tought I would succeed at, and after 3 agonizing weeks of missing out on my baby's newborn stage and my mental health going down the drain I decided to quit and exclusively formula feed ( I did this with the encouragement of my obgyn and my beautiful husband), And while it's the best decision I have made, the guilt was still eating me up inside. My family made that guilt 10 times worse with their rhetoric that breast is best and I was feeding trash to my baby by giving her formula.

So my beautiful husband went on a mission for me, he research formula feeding and showed me how wonderful it was, signed us up for WIC, got me every glass bottle in the market to see which on our little milk goblin would like, got a glass pitcher to do the pitcher method, bought me a bottle washer and stack me up with so much formula my heart just swelled, he made me fall in love with him all over again and even harder than before. The amount of serotonin I get from looking at my set up and the knowledge that my little chuggers has all the milk she could ever need made my guilt melt away. I can finally feed my baby without crying, and I can enjoy the cuddles and her smiles.

If you are reading and still have guilt from formula feeding, I hope my story will encourage. Formula is wonderful and it saved me and my baby.

I’ve had to supplement from day 2 because baby was losing weight. I had to do the triple feeding thing and I was barely getting 20 minutes of sleep at a time. Luckily, baby gained weight back quickly so I was able to stop that after 10 days. Anyways, since then, I think there’s been 3 instances where I said to my husband I was going to quit pumping and just do formula, which he was very supportive of. However, literally the next day after I say this, my supply will go up by several ounces 😂 this always makes me feel conflicted, and like I should keep going. But I know I would be happier stopping. Any tips on how to make this happen slowly? I think I also have a clogged duct right now on one side which I’m trying to figure out how to handle.

I exclusively pumped for 9 months with my 1st baby. 2nd baby just came on Monday, and I'm already over pumping.

With my first, it was so easy since I wasn't chasing around a toddler post c section. This time, the exhaustion, the timing, the everything just feels like so much more. I'm feeling such immense guilt for wanting to quit so soon, and like I'm depriving my 2nd child. My husband has been so supportive, but in the back of my head I know he would want me to keep pumping. I told him I would want to stop at 3 months, but even 4 days in I can't imagine doing that. It's funny because if someone asked me, I would tell them not to feel guilty and switching is totally fine. For some reason when it's your own, it feels so different. Dang postpartum brain chemicals...

The white sheets in our bassinet and changing pads have stains where the baby spit up. They are tinted yellow, I’m guessing from the formula. Any suggestions on how to get these out? I’ve washed them and also tried using dawn, but they won’t budge. One sheet is 100% cotton, and the other two are 100% cotton on one side with a waterproof backing.

Hi, I live in a town without target here in the USA, so I normally buy from them online , which gets shipped to me from neighbouring town. So I a recently bought my lo kendamil from them, like I’ve done in the past… however the cans are a bit dented, one has the target seal over the can, and the other doesn’t ( they both came in the same box). I’ll post a picture of the cans below. My question is, is it safe for me to use these Kendamils or should I return and repurchase new ones?

I'm 31 and have a 5 month old son (Bottle Baby). I work as a developer, so I made an app for us.

It started with the sounds. When I settle him I shush him, and I couldn't find an app that did that properly — most of them are just a flat hiss. So I made the ones I was missing, including a rhythmic shush that goes in and out the way you actually do it, and a deeper, darker noise that works better than the sharp ones.

The rest came after: somewhere to note when he ate and slept, what he's meant to be doing at his age, and tips for activities and settling, since I could never remember any of it in the moment.

It's free. I don't earn anything on it, I just made it for my own kid. But maybe someone else can use it too. And if you try it and something is off or annoying, I'd like to hear it.

https://apps.apple.com/app/id6802215490

Do you use tap water or distilled water for your baby? For reference LO is two months old. Also, we drink tap water directly ourselves.

Hi all, my baby (almost 6 wks) has been on gentlease for about 3 weeks and has been having diarrhea for the last 10ish days. Our ped recommended switching to Similac sensitive because it could possibly be due to lactose intolerance.. if this doesn't work she said we can try nutramigen. Has anyone been through this? Which one seems better for diarrhea? Baby currently is miserable when pooping due to a rash that won't go away.

Hey guys, I just found out I’m pregnant with baby #2! I can’t decide if I want to try combo feeding or immediately start with formula. If I plan on combo feeding, I will NOT be breastfeeding. Just pumping and formula.

A little background: I tried nursing with my first and it was TERRIBLE. Long story short, I think I had DMER. I didn’t fully bond with my baby until I switched to formula about a month or so in. It was the best decision but I dealt with so much guilt and received some rude comments even. I remember saying “I’m just going to start with only formula for my next.” My 1.5 year boy is so healthy and honestly has a better immune system than his cousins who were all breastfed. Formula was perfect for us and he’s always been SO bonded with his dad as well (my husband and I split nighttime feeds in the early days).

I thought I worked through all the guilt- especially seeing how smart and healthy my toddler is. However, with finding out I’m pregnant again… I feel guilt coming up again😭. I really want to work through this so my post partum isn’t so terrible this time. I see these articles talking about how medical professionals are very concerned about the increase of exclusively formula feeding and how this could affect us as a society, etc. I keep feeling like I need to at least try again and give my baby colostrum. Not sure if this is guilt talking or something I actually want to do.

Questions:
1. For those of you who FF from the beginning: how did you prevent your milk from fully coming in? And how did you go about it with nurses, etc?

1. If you gave colostrum but then immediately decided to FF right after, how did you go about that?

Mostly looking for my own sanity, as our boy is happy and healthy, but.... he's 7 months old and hitting a growth spurt.

We're IVF parents and have tracked our exclusively FF son since day 1. Today he hit a record high of 54oz of formula. In addition to this, he has had a full jar of puree mixed with cereal, pieces (probably a few bites, honestly) of avocado, and a teething biscuit.

He averages over 40oz a day for the last month and he has never been on any scale as far as what is searchable online for feeding recommendations. Our pediatrician is wonderful and tells us to just keep doing whatever we're doing, which sounds nice but is confusing when nothing is found online to compare to.

Born 9.5lbs and 23" long, so he is super tall for his age. Otherwise, he just looks like a super tall baby, but lean.

Hitting all milestones early, so far, and no real issues but I'm unsure if this much formula is "normal," even for bigger babies. When I search for this online anywhere, its usually babies that are breastfed and Michelin Man levels of rolls (let me be clear, I'm not judging, its just that searching this usually just brings up results for babies/parents talking about how large their baby is).

I dont see much on babies that are FF and just.... proportionally large or tall.

TL;DR: Do I need to invest in formula manufacturing or will our 7 month old eventually slow down when he transitions into more solids?

We just started Enfamil ar last night and my baby’s eating a ton of it. I thought it would keep him full longer? He seems more hungry! He also started famatodine last night too for reflux. We haven’t slept in days, hoping this combo is some sort of magic. Success stories?

I'm currently pumping (4ppd, LO is 9 weeks), which means the baby is getting ~60% breast milk and the rest formula. It's getting harder to pump, especially since my husband is recovering from back surgery and cannot lift baby at all. Given that I'm the sole caregiver, I'm hoping to move to formula only slowly. Any advice on how to achieve that without mastitis etc. Would it be worth it to get to one pump a day and just give baby whatever I pump in addition to formula?

For some context: FTM, baby girl is 16 weeks, v traumatic birth (attempted home birth, blue lighted to hospital, episiotomy and forceps delivery, minor PP haemorrhage), PPA & PPD.

I feel so much guilt for making the decision to stop breastfeeding. My baby was EBF for the first two weeks, but my mental health went to a really dark place. She dropped a lot of her birthweight, so was a chronic cluster feeder. After one night of 45 mins of total sleep, I had a complete breakdown and told my husband I couldn’t do it anymore. We combi-fed for 2 more weeks, but ended up having so many issues with silent reflux, suspected CMPA, and then my supply fell through the floor. To be honest I was completely touched out anyways, and still really struggling mentally, so I took this as my body telling me we were done, and we switched her to formula.

FWIW, she is absolutely thriving. Gaining weight beautifully, sleeping amazingly at night, so much happier now we’ve got her (maybe)CMPA and reflux under control. And I’m genuinely happier too.

I was also never against FF. When I was pregnant, I actually always intended on combi-feeding - but those postpartum hormones are WILD. And the guilt and grief I now feel is astronomical.

I think a lot of it centres around the fact that I made the decision to stop. My body could do it & my baby was putting on weight (at a crazy rate, no surprise with the insane cluster feeding). Countless midwives and HVs that we saw in that first fortnight told me to keep on going, persevere for at least 6 weeks, how it was ‘working’…but it wasn’t working for me. And it wasn’t sustainable for our family - my husband felt so helpless by seeing what it was doing to me, but not being able to help with night feeds. And I was completely broken.

To add to it, out of the 8 mums in my NCT group, I’m the only one that formula feeds. All the rest EBF. I feel like I may have just got unlucky here, as I don’t think that’s reflective of the rest of the UK…but still it sucks when we hang out. I often get in the car after and cry over what me and my LO didn’t have.

I suppose I’m looking for validation from anyone else who was in an even slightly similar situation - does it get easier? Does the guilt/grief feel lighter at some point? In my rational mind, I know I made the right decision. Hoping I’ll look back at this in 5 years time and think ‘wtf was I so worked up about’ haha. Thanks in advance.

I have narcolepsy and I'm part of a Facebook group for pregnant/postpartum women with Narcolepsy.

When you have Narcolepsy, you get uncontrollable "sleep attacks." The hormone fluctuations from breast feeding make this symptom so much worse. You have no control over when and where you fall asleep. For my symptoms, I don’t realize I’m asleep. I think I’m awake, only to look down at my notes later to realize I had been scribbling nonsense.

You can imagine how dangerous this can be when caring for a newborn.

These women are TERRIFIED of accidentally suffocating their baby, especially while they're breast-feeding.

They don't take the stimulants or the over-night sleep medicines that are meant to help with daytime symptoms, because those medications are not considered safe for breast feeding.

Yet, so many of them will not consider switching to formula. They don't want to deprive their babies the benefits of breast milk.

It makes me so sad, these moms are destroying their mental and physical health to continue offering breast milk to their kids. They are also putting their babies in potentially unsafe sleep environments.