"Fed" is best.

When you're a first time mum, there's so much pressure in the media and from health professionals, and even friends and family, to breast feed. "Breast is best!" everyone says.

Yes it's true, that breast milk is absolutely amazing. Its ideal for your baby, full of all the necessary nutrition, readily available and contains antibodies to help fight off nasty viruses and bacteria. But if it's not what you want to do, then that is fine.

It's your choice how you feed your baby.

I personally couldn't wait to breast feed. I had this idea in my head that it would make life so much easier, milk available "on tap". I could bond with my baby and my baby would be healthy and getting all that she needs, from me! My body! The whole idea of it fascinated me.

I had no idea of the struggles of breast feeding.

The first few days after giving birth, we attempted breast feeding as much as we could. We had all the skin to skin we could, and took all the advice from the midwives, yet she just wouldn't latch on. To me anyway, she had no issue trying to latch onto Alex!

I had no idea it would be this hard, no one tells you these things. After what felt like an eternity, we started to get worried. She was a newborn, a day old, and she still hadn't fed. We had to do SOMETHING. I didn't want to go onto formula, I wanted to breast feed. "Breast is best" I kept telling myself. It got to the point that they were worried about our daughter becoming dehydrated. The midwives at the hospital gave me some colostrum syringes.

Finally we could get some "food" into her. But obviously this wasn't a permanent solution. we kept trying and trying, but the latch just wasn't happening. So we resorted to plan B.

Expressing breast milk.

This was fine, I was a little upset that I wasn't able to "properly" breastfeed, however she would still be getting my milk which is what I thought was "best". When my milk came in, I sat down and expressed enough for her to have a bottle and she guzzled it down. Amazing! I thought to myself, no more worrying about feeding her, and this way, Alex can bond with her too by bottle feeding her. It was a win-win all round!

This lasted around 3 months. I ended up buying an electric pump in the end, and got so much more milk from it! I got myself in a good routine and could easily pump out a days milk first thing in the morning, anything else was extra for the freezer.

Until her milk intake was going up and up by the day. She was definitely a hungry baby! I found myself struggling to keep up with how much she was drinking. When a few weeks ago I could express a days milk in one sitting, I was now struggling to express one feed in a sitting. I found myself constantly stressing out over how much milk she had, how much I needed to express, whether I had enough or not. And of course this stress caused my milk production to deplete.

I didn't have enough. I had to do something, she's hungry, crying, and I just didn't have the milk to give her, so we had to start supplementing with formula.

This was not what I wanted. I didn't want to give her formula, I wanted to breast feed, but I didn't really have a choice when my baby wants 5oz of milk and I can barely express an ounce.

In the end we switched to formula completely. And honestly, she's so much happier. She can have as much milk as she needs when she needs it, and I can spend more time with her playing, learning and bonding, rather than concentrating on expressing milk.

In my experience, breast wasn't best. Fed was best. And if that means giving her formula then so be it. She's a happy healthy little girl, and I wouldn't change her for the world!

Science has developed so much over the years, formulas are there for a reason. Not everyone can breast feed. For some people its impractical, others just don't feel comfortable, and for some people, they just can't do it. and there's no shame in that.

If you're able to breast feed, and want to, then great!

There's no "right or wrong" way to feed your baby. As long as they're fed, clean, and happy, you're doing an awesome job.

It's about time we stopped shaming parents for formula feeding their babies. We don't know their stories, and quite frankly, it's none of our business.