Originally Posted by grannie cheechee

Originally Posted by beadywoman

When we brought our first child home from the hospital, I was breastfeeding. After a week, I began hemoraging and was admitted to the hospital for three days. I tried using the pump, so that I could continue breastfeeding, but unfortunately my milk dried up. With the second child, there were pregnancy complications that caused me to be on long term medication, so breastfeeding was not an option.

Small bottles were were used for water and were glass. Larger bottles were plastic. Cutesy bibs with plastic on the back. And with the first baby, I cooked separate meals with no seasonings, then ran it thru the blender, per pediatrician's recommendation. Second child, no time for that. Lol. Baby food and table food. I remember eating homemade soup, and feeding some to the baby by accident. His expression was priceless!

Originally Posted by JENNR8R

Breast fed and homemade baby food for both children. I was a regular mother earth. They never had a bottle or a jar of babyfood. Reason? I wanted the best for my children.

I read labels on everything and never allowed my first child to have anything with any type of processed sugar. At the age of two I took him to the dentist for the first time, and he had six cavities. I relaxed after that and gave up being the perfect mother. He never had another cavitity.

Originally Posted by mhollifiel

Breast fed both boys even though I returned to work at 5 weeks for one and 3 weeks for the second. I was a public school librarian with access to a small nearby room for pumping which I did manually. Grew up on a dairy farm, LOL! High school students were very supportive. How I love those students to this day.

I live with my son and DIL and they have a 5 month old who is completely fed with breast milk. However, he is in daycare so he gets bottles of breast milk she pumps for him. She has a huge milk production so they have a significant supply of frozen breast milk as well. My son's a Type A so he bought a generator just in case the power went out for an extended period! She is a doctor but has set times when she can pump at work.

I used purchased baby food for the most part. I would not do that today. My DIL is preparing solid food ahead, freezing in small batchest. These solids are just being introduced with success. He's really taken to prunes!

Bottles were plastic as I recall for my boys probably both sizes but I remember the smaller ones. Also cloth bibs.

For the grandson, bibs are cloth but I have bought a plastic adjustable one for future use on the recommendation of a friend that goes through the dishwasher for cleaning! We aren't using that yet. His bottles are plastic for drinking but special bags were purchased for freezing the breast milk and there's a microwave system for sterilizing the bottles that has a limited number of uses before it's replaced with another one.

Originally Posted by red-warrior

I breast fead all 5 of my children, much to my family's dismay. (they all bottle fed) I did make most of my own baby food or just ground up what we were having. Bibs were mostly plastic. The first 3 I did cloth diapers till hubby said no
more and I used disposables. I must say my mom bottle fed us formula and gave us jar food and we all grew up very healthy. She did however feed us very nutritiously as we ate table food. My dad always said" better to have big food bills than MD bills!"

Originally Posted by P-BurgKay

I bottle fed my four babies, nursing was frowned upon when I had my kids. Always started with 4 oz glass bottles, made the formula, and sterilized it in a sterilizer, my babies ate what we ate, used blender and put food in it with a little formula for right consistency. And all cloth bibs and burp cloths.

Originally Posted by citruscountyquilter

Breast fed all my children all the way. They never had a bottle. This was 30-40 years ago. My daughter who has three children 3-5-7 breast fed hers all the way too. She had to return to work for a time after her first one was born while her husband finished grad school and she pumped milk during the day and chilled it and her day care used it the next day to feed my granddaughter. Before her daughter was a year old my daughter was able to quit work and so no more bottles of breast milk or pumping and she just breast fed.

Originally Posted by quilt1950

I breast fed, but not for the best reason - I breast fed so I could lose my pregnancy weight faster. I did enjoy it, and never had any real issues. They all weaned straight to a cup around 15 months.

I went to one La leche league meeting. My 1st daughter found her thumb immediately after birth and liked it. She was sucking her thumb at the LLL meeting and they told me I wasn't nursing her enough. If she wasn't hungry she preferred her thumb, but the meeting leaders did not believe me, so I never went back.

I did make baby food - whatever we were eating. The only baby food I bought was the cereal. I think bibs were cloth for nursing, but plastic/vinyl for solid food eating.

My 11 grandchildren have all been breast fed, even the two sets of twins. My daughters were stay at home moms when the twins were born, so that helped. They pumped at work for the 1st year. After the first birthday, they put the pump away, but still nursed first thing in the morning and at bedtime, until around 15-18 months. The kids used sippy cups after they turned 1.

Originally Posted by meanmom

I breast fed all 4 of mine. I found it easier and healthier. I never had to worry about fixing bottles. I breast fed all of them until they were almost 2 years old. The only problem with breast feeding was none of mine liked to take a bottle so I could go out. I used cloth diapers with all 4 also. The first 2 broke out in diaper rash from disposables. I did use disposables occasionally when we were out. I also used disposable a little bit more with the youngest. I had 2 kids playing sports by then. There were times we were at the soccer field or tack meets all day. I did make pretty much all of my own baby food since we have a big garden. My kids were never fond of being fed baby food, they wanted to do it themselves. SO we didn't mess with baby food very long. I would chop things up really small and they would feed themselves.

Originally Posted by Chasing Hawk

I did both. I breastfed each of my kids for about the first 3 months of their lives. My milk would stop producing enough to feed them. The weaning onto formula went rather easy.

I made their baby food fresh everyday.