Avent

I really like my Avent bottles. Not only are they British made, but Daughter seemed to take really well to them. Except that the adapters on the Avent Classics warp in the microwave steriliser.

Trying to calm a hungry baby, and stop a bottle from leaking is not fun. Especially when you haven't been organised enough to keep a kettle full of tepid water (something I'm generally good at on account of my ten-a-day tea habit) and need to boil some fresh. You end up shaking the bottle to mix the formula and spray scalding hot milk all over yourself. Great.

So, after having just forked out for new Avent Classic bottles, I am going to have to fork out some more for the Avent Advanced.

Why not just take this opportunity to switch to the glass bottles I've spoken about before? Because doing so would result in me having to throw out all of the teats I've got an effectively start again. I wanted the glass so that I could be a little eco-friendly (and save myself some pennies instead of having to replace bottles all the time) and chucking out all the related paraphernalia to buy more doesn't accomplish this. Urgh.

I am so p*ssed off  at having had D-MER.I feel that between it, the house move and various other things, I have missed out on my daughter's early, snuggly days. All I can do now is race to catch up with her as she learns to do all kinds of exciting things and leaves me standing, longing for the cuddly feeds that I used to resent because I'd no idea  what was up with me.

Bottles

As regular readers will know, bottles are a fairly big deal for me. It took me ages to talk myself into switching from breast to formula milk, and I wanted the easiest bottles to use out there. As a maker of preserves, I know about 100 different ways to sterilise glass jars so I thought I'd go down the route of glass bottles, however finding them is far harder than you might expect. None of my local shops had any whilst I was looking so in the end, I chose Avent because though they're owned by Philips, the bottles are still made in England. And whilst the plastic ones can be recycled when they come to the end of their - relatively short - life, its not as easy to do as with durable glass, which can just be taken down to the nearest supermarket and tossed in with the remnants of Mum and Dad's tipple from the previous evening.

As with all things, I should have checked online before making my purchase.  Born Free do a nice range,  as do Green to Grow. And if you're not a fan of buying from amazon, the nice, hippie-friendly company Spirit of Nature now sell the German brand Emil. Score.

As discussed in a previous post, I found breastfeeding really harsh on account of the D-MER which I suffered from. IF - and it's a giant 'if' - I were to ever brave labour again, I would  probably just bite the bullet straight off, stack up on some of the Emil bottles and go straight on the formula after baby had done with the colostrum. But, as I say, BIG if.

Feeding

Before Daughter was born, I was intent on breastfeeding to the point where I refused to acknowledge that there might be an alternative out there. It was stupid, I thought, to bother wasting money on formula when my body could do exactly the same thing but better and for free.

As it stands, I haven't resorted to formula yet - 11 weeks in - but every night is a battle not to. I have something called D-MER which is basically a disproportionately high drop in dopamine levels when milk let down occurs. Since knowing that all the horrible feelings I've had whilst breastfeeding - not least that I am a wicked person, that I don't deserve my daughter, that I should hurt myself in some way - were down to hormones and not depression has made it easier to bear. I can tell myself that the feelings aren't real and that they'll stop at the end of a feed.

I know that breastfeeding is nutritionally best for my baby, but I'm torn between meeting her physical needs and our emotional ones. People talk about breastfeeding being a bonding experience, a time to get to know one another, but for me it has become an endurance test. But here's the kicker: every time I go to feed my daughter, I resent her for being hungry.

Don't misunderstand me, I love my daughter and nothing in the world could stop that. But when I start to feel bitter about having to sit down and feed her, knowing it will make me feel as though the world is ending, I start to think that actually, formula would probably be better for us.

In addition, her father could take part in feedings. My partner has had some degree of trouble connecting with our baby because he feels he can do nothing for her when she cries. We've fought about this in the past and I can't help but think that our relationship would benefit too if we were on something of an even keel where Daughter is concerned.

I will persevere with breastfeeding for as long as I can, however as soon as money is more readily available then I will seriously consider making the switch.

At the moment, I feel so terrible feeding her that it is putting me off ever having another child.