Even among the exclusively breastmilk-fed, but not exclusively breastfed,
there is much difference in degree between babies who get the occasional
bottle or cup of breastmilk, to babies who get a bedtime bottle, to babies
who are exclusively bottlefed breastmilk.  And even among those exclusively
fed by bottle, there are those fed donor milk or stored frozen milk, and
those regularly fed freshly expressed milk.  There's no way to define a
homogeneous population of "exclusively breastmilk-fed but not exclusively
breastfed" babies.

In our LLL meetings we talk constantly about how to be a responsive
breastfeeding mother without being a martyr, and mothers share their
experiences with having a life and continuing breastfeeding, which does
involve bottles in some situations, but not as many as our culture would
lead you to believe - and seeing what other mothers have done is a powerful
way to change the culture.

In my non-LLL life I also talk a lot online with a cohort of young Canadian
moms who have 12 months paid mat leave (so jealous!) but often choose to
introduce a bottle for the usual themes of convenience, independence, and
letting their partner feed the baby.  However, the one motivation for
bottlefeeding that seems hardest to shake is the fear that something would
happen to make mom unexpectedly and temporarily or permanently unavailable,
and baby would go hungry.  It's hard to reason with this very primal fear of
leaving your baby unprovided for.  I see that as another target for
education and cultural change so that babies do not end up getting bottles
just for insurance.

-Rosemary McNaughton
LLL Leader
Northampton, Massachusetts, USA

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