My rant about people who "know it all"

This morning I've had quite a bit of alone time :). I have been doing lots of research on organic foods, infant formulas, etc. I'm a bit annoyed at the amount of bad information there is out there on the internet. Not only are people's opinions tainted by this poor information, people are so rude and think that they know it all. I hope, that by giving the information on this blog, that you don't think that I think I know it all. That is not the case. My hope with this blog is that you begin your own journey of research.

One thing that REALLY annoys me is that there are so many people out there that think that they know it all about why some women don't breastfeed. There are enough mothers out there that struggle, daily, with the fact that they weren't able to (for whatever reason), and choose to give their child infant formula. Breast feeding was VERY difficult for me, and I have many reasons as to why. It shouldn't really matter what those reasons are, but I will explain anyway. After days of breastfeeding exclusively, and having a newborn that was dehydrated, jaundice, and starving, I had to supplement. As much as I think it's VERY important to breastfeed, it is MORE important that my baby not be dehydrated. He wasn't peeing or pooping, and his "urine" was orange and crystallized. After I began supplementing, he was content and happy. Then, I had to have a lot of dental work done when he was 2 weeks old (I had an absess and had a root canal), which involved pain meds (the pain was worse than giving birth naturally because it was constant), being away a lot (I couldn't take him with me!), etc, which decreased my supply even more, drastically. I tried, with lots of herbs, eating lots of oatmeal, water, etc, but it was to no avail. After trying just about everything that I could possibly try (without going insane), I decided that it was just going to have to be okay to supplement. Then, he started getting very gassy and colicy. I changed the formula, did everything I could with my diet, etc, but it never got better. My conclusion (again, as a frazzled mother of a 2 year old and 2 1/2 month old), was that maybe I should just stop breastfeeding. I have HATED that decision, but I can't change it now. So, before anyone knows what each mom has gone through, maybe ask the question, "why?" Or, maybe just assume that they have a good reason and don't think that you "need" to tell them that breast is best. Many of us already know!!!!!!!!!!