The Feeding Debate

We have a family friend who has a 2 1/2 month old daughter. Like all new parents she is very proud, so she has started a website to show off pictures and post news about their little one. I visited the site last night and was shocked to see her feeding cereal to her two month old. Granted, not much appeared to be going in, but they were solids, none the less.

I breastfed my daughter, and I knew before I had even conceived that I wanted to breastfeed. I did a lot of research and reading, talked to people who used formula and who nursed, but when it came right down to it, I just knew that I should nurse my children. I am not militant about it, but I do encourage any new moms of my acquaintance to consider it, I have educated my family out of some of their long-held beliefs against breastfeeding, and have really struggled to make the people around me receptive to the "new" idea of breastfeeding your child. But the discussion about our family friend today shows me just how far I have not gotten.

I mentioned to my step-mom what I had seen on Anne's site and also told her that I later found out that the baby became severely constipated, so her mother had given her doses of Karo syrup, which led to enough diarrhea that they now had her on Pedialyte. I expected her to be equally shocked and concerned, but quite the opposite happened. I was informed that she had fed her children rice cereal from two weeks on because "they were starving to death. The doctor told me not to, but he didn't have to deal with screaming hungry babies. Besides, they turned out fine, and I even used Karo syrup myself. You young girls just believe everything some expert tells you, and most of the time they don't even know what they are talking about. Look how much of a hassle it was for you to breastfeed, always trying to find someplace to nurse, but you stuck with it, probably because you read it in some book somewhere. You should have just used bottles and been done with it!"

I was taken aback by her vehemence. I had no idea that she felt this way about my nursing. She had always been a little uncomfortable with my nursing in public, ("would you mind going into the other room, I don't think your nephew needs to see you with your shirt pulled up") but I always had written it off to the fact that she just wasn't used to nursing mothers. Apparently, I was wrong.

I don't know if she felt I was attacking her mothering by bringing up what I believed to be a serious situation, but that she saw as completely normal. Maybe I had been too pushy around her when it came to my "new age" ideas of mothering and baby care. Perhaps I am over-reacting to a two month old on solid food, and I am the crazy one.
All I do know for certain is that the body of the little baby concerned is obviously having trouble processing something, or she would not have her system so disturbed.


So what do you think? Have you dealt with similar situations? Did you start your children on solids at an early age? Did you have to deal with breastfeeding non-awareness? Drop me your two cents so that I can feel a little more enlightened.