I've been a parent for six months now. As you may have guessed, I read a lot of advice books beforehand. Everyone says nothing can prepare you for the feeling of being a parent, and that was true. But from a practical standpoint, daily life has gone a lot like the books said.
The biggest exception: we’ve primarily fed our daughter pumped milk with bottles. This isn’t uncommon in my parenting circle, but it wasn’t suggested by any of the books I read (unless there’s no alternative, like when mom goes back to work). They suggest only two paths: exclusively breastfeeding, or feeding formula from bottles.1
We didn’t make a deliberate decision to try exclusive pumping; we were forced to try it out for a little while early on, and we found it worked well. Having done so, I think that the mainstream books are doing new parents a disservice, and they should suggest exclusive pumping as another viable option.
Anything about parenting can be sensitive, so a few caveats first:
This is not commentary on feeding formula vs breast milk; others have written about that question endlessly. I’m saying that even if you’re set on using breast milk, you should consider pumping it and feeding with bottles.
I’ll speak from a mom-and-dad perspective here because that’s what I have experience with. For same-sex couples who have the option, some of what’s here might be relevant, and some might not.
I’m not saying this is the best option for all parents; I’m saying it might be the best option for some parents, even though it isn’t often discussed.
Why? Three reasons:
Bottles give you flexibility
Bottles empower dads
You may need bottles eventually anyway
1. Bottles give you flexibility
Exclusive pumping takes more work: instead of regularly feeding your child, you have to regularly pump and feed and wash stuff.2
But bottles give mom a lot more flexibility, because they decouple “making milk” (which only mothers can do) from “feeding the baby” (which anyone can do). Both of these have to happen on a regular schedule, but the feeding schedule is much stricter: you don’t know exactly when they’ll get hungry; you have to be physically with them when they do; feeding requires most of your attention; and it’s really unpleasant if you’re late (your baby is crying). When mom is pumping but not feeding, she can set her own schedule, go out more, multitask, and bend the schedule a little.
Some examples from our experience:
One month in, we went on our first date (with my parents babysitting): we had lunch in a neighboring town and did some leisurely window-shopping, taking about two hours. At the time, our daughter was feeding every 2.5 hours during the day, so we left a bottle. Without it, we would have had to time our date just right and hurry back so we didn’t miss the next feeding.
Three months in, Meredith had to spend most of a day caring for another family member at the hospital. We had about a day’s worth of milk in the fridge at the time, so our daughter’s feeding wasn’t affected, and Meredith pumped at the hospital. Without those bottles, we would have had to make an impromptu switch to formula (or found someone else to go to the hospital entirely).
For the first month, our daughter had to eat every three hours overnight; getting up, feeding her, getting her back to bed, and falling back to sleep took at least half an hour. Meredith was pumping on a similar schedule during the day, but she found that skipping one session overnight was okay. By alternating bottle feeds during the night, each of us got at least one five-plus-hour stretch of sleep each night (minus a few minutes when the other’s alarm rang). Without bottles, Meredith wouldn’t have had a single three-hour sleep for the whole month.
Could we have had the best of both worlds — breastfeeding most of the time and using bottles or formula just in those situations when they were most helpful? We tried that for a while, but our daughter took much better to the bottles, so that became the path of least resistance. Maybe we could have kept trying breastfeeding for longer, but most of the parents I know have also committed to one method of feeding exclusively.
And exclusive pumping gave us flexibility to enjoy smaller conveniences. If Meredith was napping, eating, or just wanted to get some stuff done around the house, I could take the feed instead.
2. Bottles empower dads
In Fed Up, Gemma Hartley shows that dads have spent more time on childcare and housework recently; we aren’t all the way equal with moms yet, but it’s about 60-40 on average. However, she claims that the mental work of managing the family is still disproportionately borne by moms. (That argument is just anecdotal, but it’s true in my observation, and enough people agreed with it to publish a book around it.)
It’s hard to define what “family management” is except by example:3
Childcare is changing your baby’s diaper; family management is keeping the diaper drawer stocked, figuring out what brand fits best, and knowing when they’re due to go up a size.
Childcare is getting your baby dressed; family management is having bigger clothes ready for them to grow into and returning hand-me-downs to the right owners when you’re done with them.
Childcare is pushing the stroller through the park; family management is remembering to bring the diaper bag along, and deciding if you need to bring a bottle too or if you’ll be home in time (the answer is always to bring a bottle).
If dads can’t do the feeding, it’s naturally harder for them to take on the mental overhead surrounding it, such as learning their baby’s hunger cues and figuring out how to adapt their feeding schedule as their stomach grows. It’s not impossible, but even if he’s willing, it can be logistically or emotionally tricky.4 Bottles make it a lot less complicated.
More importantly, bottles allow dads to solo-parent for long stretches — taking paternity leave or just giving mom a day off. When mom is always around (even just for short feeds), dad can use her as a crutch; true solo parenting forces him to learn everything for himself.
3. You may need bottles eventually anyway
If mom goes back to work (in a way that involves being apart from the baby for long stretches), she’ll have to use bottles. Among some parents I know, this transition for exclusively breastfed babies can be hard and stressful. That isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker on its own, but it’s another point in bottles’ favor.
Why have bottles been neglected?
At this point we need to beware Chesterton’s Fence: if you discard time-honored advice without understanding why it came to be time-honored advice, you might be missing something important. So can we figure out why exclusive pumping isn’t usually suggested?
When the books make the case for breastfeeding, they say a lot about the nutritional benefits of milk over formula — but they don’t say much on why breastfeeding is the preferred way to get that milk to your baby. The one point they mention is that breastfeeding is a good opportunity for bonding. Women who find they enjoy this should absolutely keep doing it. But in reading and listening to mothers’ experiences, some find breastfeeding painful or stressful, which can interfere with bonding (also, you can still bond over bottles).
If you dig deeper than the books, you can find a few other arguments for breastfeeding. When babies feed directly from mom, they may also consume helpful microbes that they can’t get from bottles. And the process of getting milk out of a human nipple might contribute to “oral facial development.” These are interesting, but none of the doctors we’ve seen said these factors should outweigh other benefits of bottle feeding.
I’m speculating here, but I think two other factors are really behind the conventional wisdom. First, pumps haven’t been around long—individual electric pumps weren’t available in the US until 1991. Mainstream health care advice evolves slowly, in part because institutions are conservative about making changes, and in part because the people who write popular books are doctors at the top of their field, which generally means they’re old.5 Thus, advice might not reflect the current state of pumping technology: for example, I often read that babies get milk out of breasts more efficiently than pumps do, but it turns out that’s no longer true.
Second, the benefits of pumping don’t directly help children; they help parents.6 Of course, anything that helps parents be better parents will benefit children in the long run. But medical institutions haven’t traditionally considered that sort of thing, instead giving one-size-fits-all advice that doesn’t consider parents’ well-being.
If you agree with those explanations, the conventional wisdom is behind the times and ignoring important benefits, so there’s no reason for new parents not to explore exclusive pumping as an option.
Examples: Caring for Your Baby and Young Child (the AAP’s book), What to Expect the First Year, and the booklet our hospital gave us in the maternity ward.
The pump and parts might also cost money, although if you have health insurance you can get quite a lot covered for free now.
Hartley calls this “emotional labor”; Jeff Kaufman calls this “parenting” (as distinct from “work”); but I don’t think either of those labels captures it very well.
As Meredith put it in the early sleep-deprived days: “You’re the farmer, I’m the cow.”
The first author of Caring for Your Baby… is 79; the author of What to Expect… is 64.
Maybe there’s some benefit to the baby from bonding with more caregivers? But that’s hard to study in a clinical trial.
THX for your insightful sharing Kevin. Love to hear about the need to update and expand upon standard answers. Your practical observations are solid and I always admire your seemingly infinite curiosity. Refreshing reading!