Formula Alternatives For A Newborn Baby

[Jsaute21]

My wife is pregnant and due in early July. We are excited but one of my jobs as the husband/father is to research acceptable formulas for worst case scenarios. We want to breast feed as much as possible but from our understanding, this isn't always a sure thing (not latching, producing enough milk etc).

Through my early investigations, I have been unimpressed with formula ingredients. Surprising I know. Resident encylopedia @haidut mentioned that there may be a product consisting of reconstituted powdered milk with the typical added vitamin a and d. I couldn't find one this clean in my browsing. Does anyone have experience with a product that they found to be respectable? It would be good to have something on hand for emergency situations.

 

[schultz]

I would be tempted to use goat milk myself and avoid powdered formulas altogether.

Most likely she will be fine breastfeeding. People have been doing it for thousands of years after-all. 100% of all the babies I have seen delivered have latched just fine, which if we are including farm animals has been at least 25 (3 humans lol).

You seem quite intelligent, and I imagine you are helping your wife with nutrition, so I feel as though you'll be fine. We went through the same thing though with our first child. We were like "Oh no, what if you are unable to breast feed, what will we do?! The baby can't just starve, it needs food immedietly. We might need some formula just in case." We never did buy any formula...

 

[dreamcatcher]

Formula - Homemade Baby Formula - The Weston A. Price Foundation

 

[schultz]

Okay I asked my wife and she said the midwife told her not to buy any formula ahead of time. Her logic was that a mom is more willing to give up trying if there is formula on hand. This was a home birth though and not at a hospital. An hour after you deliver the baby, all the midwives are gone and you're alone with this new creature. It's a bit surreal in a way. A hospital would likely have formula on hand is what I was getting at.

 

[InChristAlone]

I breastfed both my kids exclusively never a bottle. But my life was limited. I spent no longer than 2-3 hrs away from my babies. I know that's unacceptable to a lot of people but I was an extremely stubborn lactavist. Some can make bottles and breast work. Others even one bottle especially early on can completely stop a baby from latching on. The hospital might be dumb and say well your baby has to get milk and then they will give a bottle and there goes the latch. Babies don't need milk for a few days they get colostrum and if for some crazy reason the baby isn't latching right away you can pump out the colostrum and feed via spoon not bottle. I would do anything to get that latch correct. Use all the help she can get. The first few weeks are the hardest then supply starts to even out and things get easier. Another thing she needs to know to get supply going strong is to be skin to skin with her baby a lot!!! Nurse on demand and frequently. She won't have issues if she does this.

 

[Iceman2016]

Lots of skin to skin contact with the mom right after the delivery onward is key. Ensure a good, proper latch early on. If you're having difficulties, be sure your midwife helps your wife to ensure good latching. If the midwife isn't helping, see a lactation consultant... It can make a huge difference if you and your wife don't know what's going wrong.

I'd suggest pumping regularly to maintain flow and freezing breast milk for emergencies.

Having said all of the above, if for whatever reason your wife has trouble producing milk, there is a formula we ended up buying in case of emergencies as a back up. It's definitely not perfectly "peaty" but it was the best I could find after a lot of research. It's called Lebenswert Stage 1 and it contains no maltodextein, starch, prebiotics, probiotics, added ALA/DHA, soy, or other additives that are common in infant formulas. The only negative is that though palm oil is the primary fat, it does contain some canola and sunflower oil. Here's a comparison of various organic formula brands: FORMULA COMPARISON CHART

In the end, I'd avoid formula if possible altogether. We breastfed until the breast milk stopped (about a year) and by then the baby was eating all kinds of things and transitioned to grass fed cows milk.

 

[Pompadour]

If milk supply will be not enough at first - dont give up! The key is to pump every 2 hours and not less as 15 minutes each side. For me it took 2 weeks to make a milk supply from literally almost zero to 1200ml daily . I had to give formula at first, but the share of it was less each day. And then i had too much milk and frosted it. Actually i had a 3-4 months store.
And all the midwifes have said to me , that i wouldn't have milk and had to use formula! And my mother and grandmother didn't have milk.

Then at two months age i transitioned my baby from bottle to breast again (because of using bottles , she refused to take breast). It took 4 weeks. But i am glad, i did it!

Now i still breastfeed a lot, like every 2-3 hours. And my baby is 20 months now. But that first three months was a real war for breastfeeding. Maybe that is because i breastfeed still, for me it was hard to get this milk :) And after that first three months i never used bottles. I tryed when baby needed water, while starting solids, but she refused to take breast after that, so i stopped immidiately and gave her cup instead.

Good luck to you! I am sure, everything will be fine.
Oh, and the site that helped me a lot was kellymom.

 

[somuch4food]

The baby should be put on the mother immediately after birth if he/she is healthy. Mine were rooting and latched on perfectly in the minutes after birth.

My second actually fed for 45 minutes after being delivered. I gave birth in an hospital, but breastfeeding and skin to skin are encouraged from the start in my location.

Where do you plan on giving birth?

 

[schultz]

I breastfed both my kids exclusively never a bottle. But my life was limited. I spent no longer than 2-3 hrs away from my babies. I know that's unacceptable to a lot of people but I was an extremely stubborn lactavist.

If milk supply will be not enough at first - dont give up! The key is to pump every 2 hours and not less as 15 minutes each side. For me it took 2 weeks to make a milk supply from literally almost zero to 1200ml daily

Wow good for you. That's amazing.

My wife was/is the same way. Basically if we go somewhere the baby comes with us. We never did the bottle thing.

The baby should be put on the mother immediately after birth if he/she is healthy.

Yes of course! There are studies on the importance of this. I don't remember if they talked specifically about latching and milk supply but I wouldn't be surprised. I may have to look that up for fun.

 

[schultz]

This one is not immediately post delivery, but still relevant.

Effects of mother-infant skin-to-skin contact on severe latch-on problems in older infants: a randomized trial. - PubMed - NCBI

 

[Jsaute21]

I would be tempted to use goat milk myself and avoid powdered formulas altogether.

Most likely she will be fine breastfeeding. People have been doing it for thousands of years after-all. 100% of all the babies I have seen delivered have latched just fine, which if we are including farm animals has been at least 25 (3 humans lol).

You seem quite intelligent, and I imagine you are helping your wife with nutrition, so I feel as though you'll be fine. We went through the same thing though with our first child. We were like "Oh no, what if you are unable to breast feed, what will we do?! The baby can't just starve, it needs food immedietly. We might need some formula just in case." We never did buy any formula...

Thanks for everyone's input. Would Goat Milk be inclusive enough or sufficient nutritionally for a newborn?

 

[catan]

The circumstances of a birth and hospital practices afterwards can greatly impact breastfeeding.

To maximize breastfeeding success and establish milk supply you basically have to do skin to skin contact right after birth, have the baby latch, breastfeed on demand (can be as frequent as every hour or more in the early days), avoid pacifiers and bottles...(make sure hospital doesn’t give these to baby unless medically necessary/with your consent)

I’ve been in hospitals where it’s the norm to take baby away from mother and schedule feedings ~2-3 hours. This will hinder milk production. I had to request to keep baby right next to me the whole time.

It can be hard to get the latch right at first and there is discomfort. Check for tongue tie. Out of 3 babies only my home birth midwife ever checked that, the other two were born in the hospital and not checked, and while I was able to nurse all 3, there was more pain than I’d expected, especially with the first.

Understand that milk doesn’t come in for a 2-3 days (or more?), just colostrum. I was told I wasn’t making milk by the third day but I hung on and had baby nurse (mine nursed every half hour to an hour for awhile) and the milk came in. Also have something on hand to prevent cracked nipples with the constant nursing... they’re painful...

Interventions at birth (epidural etc) can lead to a cascade of events that can interfere with breastfeeding. Check out the documentary The Business of Being Born. Be informed and have a birth plan ready.

There are lactation support groups like La Leche League. I attended with my first and it helped tremendously in the face of people discouraging me and witnessed them help other mothers who were struggling with latch and pain and were ready to give up.

Sally Fallon, writer of Nourishing Traditions, has a recipe for home made formula using raw milk.

Best of luck! I breastfed my first till 6, second till almost 4, and now nursing a 7 month old.

 

[InChristAlone]

The circumstances of a birth and hospital practices afterwards can greatly impact breastfeeding.

To maximize breastfeeding success and establish milk supply you basically have to do skin to skin contact right after birth, have the baby latch, breastfeed on demand (can be as frequent as every hour or more in the early days), avoid pacifiers and bottles...(make sure hospital doesn’t give these to baby unless medically necessary/with your consent)

I’ve been in hospitals where it’s the norm to take baby away from mother and schedule feedings ~2-3 hours. This will hinder milk production. I had to request to keep baby right next to me the whole time.

It can be hard to get the latch right at first and there is discomfort. Check for tongue tie. Out of 3 babies only my home birth midwife ever checked that, the other two were born in the hospital and not checked, and while I was able to nurse all 3, there was more pain than I’d expected, especially with the first.

Understand that milk doesn’t come in for a 2-3 days (or more?), just colostrum. I was told I wasn’t making milk by the third day but I hung on and had baby nurse (mine nursed every half hour to an hour for awhile) and the milk came in. Also have something on hand to prevent cracked nipples with the constant nursing... they’re painful...

Interventions at birth (epidural etc) can lead to a cascade of events that can interfere with breastfeeding. Check out the documentary The Business of Being Born. Be informed and have a birth plan ready.

There are lactation support groups like La Leche League. I attended with my first and it helped tremendously in the face of people discouraging me and witnessed them help other mothers who were struggling with latch and pain and were ready to give up.

Sally Fallon, writer of Nourishing Traditions, has a recipe for home made formula using raw milk.

Best of luck! I breastfed my first till 6, second till almost 4, and now nursing a 7 month old.

I agree with all of this!

With my first and just figuring out how to breastfeed I got the cracked bleeding nipples, my baby wasn't latching deeply enough and my breasts were very hard and full making it even harder. I wish I had pumped a little out before each nursing session but again my stubbornness didn't want to use pumps and bottles. Also have to be careful with pumping too much in the case of oversupply in the first few weeks. The oversupply led to mastitis which led to a breast abscess that I had to be on antibiotics for a month and get it surgically drained. I STILL persisted. Never one bottle. Next baby was LOADS easier. Especially since I was still nursing the first and he was able to drain me in case of mastitis. Nursed for 6 years both. Hard for me to see people not even try to breastfeed. I feel extremely sad when I hear someone close to me not even try or give up when the going got tough.

None of this will matter though if the wife doesn't do her own reading and get her own support. Or have the intense will to succeed.

 

[schultz]

Thanks for everyone's input. Would Goat Milk be inclusive enough or sufficient nutritionally for a newborn?

I doubt that it would fill in 100%. Some people mentioned the Sally Fallon recipe. I'm not familiar with what's in that, but it might be a start. Off the bat I'd say human milk probably has more sugar in it (my wifes is sweet tasting...), so maybe adding some lactose, if you can find that, to the milk.

With human milk the amount of nutrients, especially fat soubles, is limited by the dietary intake. They always say it is low in vitamin K, which is why they want to inject babies with it after birth. I've seen studies where they can get the K and D up to good levels in the milk by supplementing the mothers diet. Obviously it depends then on the diet of the mother (why wouldn't it?) The one study I saw said the mom needed to consume at least 6200 IU's per day to get enough vitamin D in her breast milk (I think that was the number). Goats milk is probably too low in K or K2, but could potentially be higher if the animal consumes a lot of K, like in fresh leaves or something, which goats love.

Assuming a word case scenario and you have to use some kind of formula, you could rub vitamin K on the baby. It's better than injecting it IMO, especially since you can control the excipients. You'd hav to compare the other vitamins and minerals in human vs cow or goat milk to see which other nutrients might be low. I may look this up myself out of interest.

With my first and just figuring out how to breastfeed I got the cracked bleeding nipples, my baby wasn't latching deeply enough and my breasts were very hard and full making it even harder. I wish I had pumped a little out before each nursing session but again my stubbornness didn't want to use pumps and bottles. Also have to be careful with pumping too much in the case of oversupply in the first few weeks.

Good point about pumping to relieve fullness. I just did this on a goat. The kids were only feeding from one side because it was too hard for them to get milk from the other side as it was too full, which then makes the problem worse. I removed a litre from that side and all is well.

 

[Pompadour]

Or have the intense will to succeed.

Oh yeah.... i pumped 8 hours each day to get milk...till i got a meleda device , which allows to pump from both sides at the same time. Then it took only 4 hours per day :)

 

[tara]

We want to breast feed as much as possible but from our understanding, this isn't always a sure thing (not latching, producing enough milk etc).

I know that breast-feeding sometimes isn't possible, but:

• Not latching: there may be help if this doesn't happen easily straight away - either from a lactation support person or whatever you have where you are, or by checking out physical issues like tongue ties, or mechanical supports at te critical juncture.
• If your wife gets sore, the best remedy I know is pure lanolin. I'd recommend getting some of that to have on hand before the birth, in case it's needed in the first days. The lamb's wool oil is OK for breastfeeding on.
• If it's still mechanically difficult, pumps can work well for some women.
• Supply tends to be strongly demand driven - the more suck, the more milk supply builds, and vice versa (assuming Mum is anywhere near well-enough nourished)

I'm afraid I don't know much about the best alternatives.
I agree with @sugarbabe 's comments too.
It's not urgent to have an alternative on hand in the first day or two.

Even if breast-feeding turns out to be hard going in the long run, I think there's huge benefit from it in the beginning, and it's a real shame if that gets interrupted too quickly by unnecessarily introducing formula, and valuable in the first 6 months, then still good but maybe diminishing returns for the next year or more.
(I fed mine for about a year, exclusively for the first 6 months, then gradually tapering as they got into other foods. To begin with that meant no separations more than about 2 hours. Towards the end, they could go through the day.)

 

[tara]

Then at two months age i transitioned my baby from bottle to breast again (because of using bottles , she refused to take breast). It took 4 weeks. But i am glad, i did it!

Good for you!

The baby should be put on the mother immediately after birth if he/she is healthy. Mine were rooting and latched on perfectly in the minutes after birth.

+1

Would Goat Milk be inclusive enough or sufficient nutritionally for a newborn?

I'm not an expert, but my guess would be: the proteins might be easier than cow milk, but not be adequate in itself. Different mammals have different proportions of macros. I think human milk is quite sweet (high in sugar).

Assuming a word case scenario and you have to use some kind of formula, you could rub vitamin K on the baby. It's better than injecting it IMO, especially since you can control the excipients.

I think I'd go for transdermal vit-K now, whether breastfeeding or not. Maybe just once as soon after birth as poss.

 

[methylenewhite]

Your local breast milk exchange groups aka milk banks.

 

[Jsaute21]

Thanks for so many helpful replies here @sugarbabe @tara @schultz and others. I am walking a fine line as a husband as i'm not the one who will be sitting on the hospital bed pushing out a baby lol. My wife wants to breast feed but the last thing i want to do is add to her stress and put pressure on her to do so if she's struggling and beaten down due to a tough labor process.

Below is my per batch recipe for a newborn after doing some research. Does anybody take issue with it? Keep in mind what trash all online formulas are. I'm really disapointed at the options. Is it ok for a newborn to ingest cow's milk or goats milk? Reading online that there is too much protein which i don't buy into. I am planning on adding gelatin to balance out the amino profile.

• Lactose (1/4 TSP per batch)
• Can use Regular or Goat Milk as the base.
• B Vitamin Source (Brewer’s Yeast) 2 tsps.
• Gelatin 2 tsps.
• Can melt butter and use it for vitamin K. 1 tsp per batch,
• Coconut Oil (Good SFA source and optimal for metabolic and liver health). 2 tsps.
• Vitamin C Powder (order more). ¼ TSP per batch.

 

[somuch4food]

Thanks for so many helpful replies here @sugarbabe @tara @schultz and others. I am walking a fine line as a husband as i'm not the one who will be sitting on the hospital bed pushing out a baby lol. My wife wants to breast feed but the last thing i want to do is add to her stress and put pressure on her to do so if she's struggling and beaten down due to a tough labor process.

Below is my per batch recipe for a newborn after doing some research. Does anybody take issue with it? Keep in mind what trash all online formulas are. I'm really disapointed at the options. Is it ok for a newborn to ingest cow's milk or goats milk? Reading online that there is too much protein which i don't buy into. I am planning on adding gelatin to balance out the amino profile.

• Lactose (1/4 TSP per batch)
• Can use Regular or Goat Milk as the base.
• B Vitamin Source (Brewer’s Yeast) 2 tsps.
• Gelatin 2 tsps.
• Can melt butter and use it for vitamin K. 1 tsp per batch,
• Coconut Oil (Good SFA source and optimal for metabolic and liver health). 2 tsps.
• Vitamin C Powder (order more). ¼ TSP per batch.

The one recipe I have seen in the past mentioned that it was important to add B12 and folate since there is not enough of them in milk.