Bottles. Pacifiers. These used to be innocent icons of babyhood. Now they're the marks of Bad Parenting.

And I don't care.

I told myself I wouldn't be a martyr for pregnancy or breastfeeding. I'm finally making good on that promise. After going on nursing strike yesterday (and crying most of the afternoon) because cluster feeding has left me so raw that I couldn't even pump, I gave in and we gave her a bottle of POISON!!! I mean... formula. After that, she passed right out which gave me enough time to recover for a couple of night feedings. I managed to pump one bottle today on top of her usual (very frequent) feedings. Honestly, I would love to go to all bottle feedings because she is 100% less gassy than when she gets it straight from the tap. She always seems a lot happier afterwards since she doesn't have to deal with raging pent-up farts. I guess maybe the breast shields cause her to suck in extra air, but I can't feed her without them. That shit hurts enough WITH them.

So in the whole debate about breastfeeding vs. formula, it's always set up so it sounds like there's no middle ground. But you know what? I think there is. And that's fine by me. I never was an extremist.