Our Baby’s Feeding Journey: My Bobbie Formula Review

hey it's really good to see you guys because this video has been a long time coming I've been getting requests to share our whole feeding Journey the breastfeeding the pumping the formula from start to finish however I wanted to wait until I was officially done nursing and done pumping and now that Milo is 100 formula fed with our Bobby formula it's time to dive in thank you so much to Bobby for sponsoring today's video we love you so much well actually I've never tasted you Milo loves you so much but I'm just so excited to share our whole feeding Journey with you from the day Milo was born up until now where he is just about one year old and I'm in the kitchen right now because I was just about to make a bottle from Milo but I'll get to that in a bit first I want to go back to the breastfeeding days when I was pregnant I always knew that breastfeeding was something that I at least wanted to try my boobs actually started leaking a little bit of colostrum when I was about 19 to 20 weeks pregnant so I could tell that my body was getting started with the milk production however you still don't really know if the milk is going to come in for you until you give birth and you see if it comes in or not spoiler alert and if you followed any of my videos you probably already know this but my milk supply did come in and it came in rather strongly it came in so robustly in fact that I was actually able to donate some of my milk to the NICU and I'm really grateful that I had that opportunity but of course before Milo was born even though I was leaking I still didn't really know what the journey was going to look like for us at all but one thing I did know was that before Milo came I wanted to make sure that I had some formula on hand at home just to have just in case I was also told by a couple of friends friends that I should bring my own formula whatever formula I felt comfortable with to the hospital so that in the hospital if they recommended that we give him formula I could sort of hand them the bottle that I felt comfortable with and I could tell them give him this so now the question of course was what formula do we feel comfortable with so the first thing I did was I asked a few close friends of mine that had babies before me what formula they recommended and this is when I sort of fell down the infant formula Rabbit Hole overwhelmingly across the board I got recommended that we use Bobby formula but I didn't know anything about Bobby I had never heard of various infant formula brands before so I just decided to do my own online research if you're not familiar with the infant formula space I'll just tell you that there is a lot of chatter and a lot of talk about these European formulas my understanding is that the EU regulations are a little bit more prescriptive when it comes to what ingredients can actually be in the formulas because of this a lot lot of U.S people try to Source these European formulas however they're getting formulas that are not regulated by the FDA and that just kind of freaked me out a little bit I didn't feel comfortable giving Milo something to drink that was not at least reviewed by the FDA so that is why Bobby was incredibly appealing to me because Bobby is the first and only European style formula that is manufactured and sold in the U.S and on top of that it has been reviewed by the FDA and it meets all of their requirements for infant formula personally I did a ton of research and at the end of the day we were choosing between Bobby and Similac Advance and I'll tell you why we wound up going with Bobby first of all Bobby is organic and non-GMO whereas Similac Advance is neither of those things there was one Department that they both checked the boxes for so both of them were lactose based and both contained DHA and ARA and those are both fatty acids that are present in breast milk but I compared their way to casein ratios and by Hobbies is 60 to 40 whereas I think the Similac Advance was 48 to 52 and the Bobby 60 to 40 ratio is closest to the ratio in breast milk another reason we went with Bobby is that it's a subscription model so it's very easy to order and make sure you always have formula on hand something that has changed since we first started using Bobby is that it is now available in over 1700 Target stores I did a q a on my Instagram so I could Source questions for this video and a couple questions were about when we first introduced formula to Milo and the answer is the day he was born so in the hospital Michael and I were able to send Milo off to the hospital's Nursery so that we could get some rest in our room so although he was latching and trying to drink on me and I was at that point learning to pump and I was working with lactation Consultants to get that process started my milk hadn't really come in yet so I do think the nursery made him a couple of ounces of formula and they were just feeding him little sips here and there now when we got home from the hospital you might remember we had a nurse that lived with us for the first month of Milo's Life if you want to learn more about our nurse situation I did an entire q a on my Instagram stories I introduced you to our nurse who we absolutely loved and I just share all the details I was really transparent about that whole thing on Instagram and I was so grateful that we had Maddie with us because she taught us literally everything we know for that first month Milo was primarily feeding on me and nursing with me during the day but one of the perks of having a nurse there overnight is that we would send Milo into his Nursery with the nurse at night Michael and I could stay in our room and try to get as much sleep as possible I of course was still waking up every couple of hours because I was feeling my milk coming in and I needed to keep pumping every few hours but our nurse was actually giving Milo little bits of formula overnight although I was starting to pump and build up somewhat of a supply I did personally want to give Milo a little bit of formula in the beginning because I wanted to get him used to drinking both breast milk and formula I didn't know how long I planned to breastfeed for I didn't know how long it was going to last and I wanted to make sure that he took formula easily I also wanted to introduce a bottle relatively early because I wanted to make sure he was comfortable drinking from the boob the bottle whatever he never really showed us any signs of preferring one over the other I think he just loved food so much that no matter what we offered him milk or formula he just took it I really understand the fear that people can have in those early days of giving your baby something from a can or a bottle they're so tiny they're so vulnerable you just don't know that the quality is up to the standards you want it to be so that's something we loved about Bobby they undergo 2 000 quality checks to make sure that the formula is safe and nutritious for babies it's also the first ever infant formula to receive both the clean label project Purity award and certification as a pesticide free product so all good things in terms of scheduling so when he was first born he was just drinking on demand if he was sleeping for longer than three hours we would wake him up and he was just kind of drinking all day and throughout the entire day I would be nursing him and then at night when he was in the nursery he would either have some Bobby formula or if my milk was pumped and it was accessible our nurse would heat some of that up and so she was kind of going back and forth at night giving him a little formula and a little breast milk but also on demand of course and he was waking up every probably one to three hours overnight our nurse left us at four weeks so from four weeks to eight weeks Michael and I were just kind of on our own figuring it all out and then around eight weeks is when we decided to as per our pediatrician's recommendation switch him onto a feeding schedule of eating every four hours four times a day and that's just the day time of course the night time continued to be on demand feeding in terms of ounces we were told that he should be taking in at least 24 ounces of milk in 24 hours and so if you kind of divide out the 24 ounces by the number of feeds he had in it day that's about how much we were giving him at each feed but keep in mind all of those four daytime feeds I was nursing him so there's no real way for me to know exactly how many ounces he was taking the only way I could really know how many ounces he was getting at those feeds is the fact that when I would pump in place of those feeds I would usually get about six to eight ounces out so I assume he was taking between six and eight ounces at each of those feeds and then he was still feeding on demand at night and if he ever showed signs of wanting more milk we would offer him a bottle after a feed all right now we're at 12 weeks so around 12 weeks is when Milo dropped all of his nighttime feedings I'm not going to get into all the sleep stuff that's a conversation for another video I do have another Instagram story highlight if you want to go read about our sleep Journey but at about 12 weeks that's when he stopped naturally waking up for his nighttime feeds so at that point he was getting four feeds during the day and usually it was 7 A.M 11 A.M 3 P.M and 7 P.M most of these kids were me nursing however if I ever wasn't available and we offered him a bottle we were usually giving him between six to eight ounces and that is how much he would take at each of those four feeds side note a lot of people were asking about my middle of the night pump and when I personally dropped my middle of the night pump so as I said at three months 12 weeks that's when Milo stopped waking up at night but I actually continued waking up at night to pump in the middle of the night until he was about six months old and at six months old I had a friend who told me that I need to just slowly wean myself off that middle of the night pump if I want my body to stop producing milk at that time so it definitely took a little bit of time but basically what I would do is when I woke up I would slowly shorten the amount of time that I was pumping for until I got to a point where like I woke up in the middle of the night and was pumping for 30 seconds and then eventually I was able to phase that middle of the night pump out and that was a life-changing moment for me because I finally got to sleep through the night when Milo had been sleeping through the night since he was 12 weeks old also if we go back to the 12-week mark around three months that is when we first hired our Nanny and our Nanny as you probably know comes three days a week and she's there for those full three work days so what I was doing back when I was pumping is during those work days I was kind of set on not nursing Milo during the day the point of us having the nanny there was that she was watching him while I was able to fully dive into work so what I would do is at those two points during the day when arnani was here the 11 A.M and the 3 P.M and I normally would be feeding Milo I would just put on my pump and keep working at the computer and just be pumping while I worked and during those times she would feed him with a bottle and she at this point was pulling from my Supply that I had stashed from those middle of the night pumps that I had really stashed a big Supply from so that went on from about when Milo was three months old to about when he was seven months old and throughout that time our Nanny would be going into the freezer or the fridge pulling out the Pumped milk giving him bottles of that and at the same time I was pumping and adding back to the supply so I was just constantly replenishing our fridge and freezer stash when Milo was around seven months old I woke up in the middle of the night one night so keep in mind I was now about a month into not doing my middle of the night pump and I woke up one night and I felt a really painful lump in the side of my boob I identified it as an early sign of potentially getting mastitis and I went into the shower I was combing it out with a comb and putting warm water and warm compresses on it I took some sunflower lecithin which I've heard can help ease clog ducts I took some ibuprofen because I was getting a headache and then I went back to bed and when I woke up a few hours later I had a full-blown fever and I definitely had mastitis it was not fun it was pretty scary and basically one whole side was not really expressing milk I could tell I had a clogged duct I called my OB GYN and she immediately told me that I definitely had had mastitis and she gave me a prescription for an antibiotic I took it right away I have to say it worked right away so within 24 hours of that the pain was gone and everything was kind of flowing like normal but that bout of mastitis definitely dipped my Supply a little bit it was nothing major just like a little hit but I think I was able to get my Supply back to a normal place but then the thing that really hit my Supply again is when I decided that I wanted to cut out one of my feeds so basically I decided that you know at this point my body was expressing milk at 7am 11 A.M 3 P.M and 7 pm and I was also pumping myself one more time around 9 or 10 p.m before I went to bed and I decided that I wanted to cut out the 11 A.M session meaning on days that I was with Milo I wasn't going to nurse him at that time instead I was going to give him a bottle and meaning on days when our Nanny was here and she was giving him a bottle I just want wasn't going to pump at that time and so I slowly weaned myself off that 11 am feed just by pumping and pumping for fewer and fewer minutes until eventually I just skipped over that pump session all together and that was the first time that I noticed my Supply across the board definitely was dipping a little bit but it was really important to me to cut out that pump time because if I'm being really honest as a mom who had a full-time job it was really really difficult for me to have my nanny here three days a week but still need to pause my work day two times to pump being a pumping Mom for me at least meant that I had very little flexibility in my work days even the days you know even days I had our Nanny here I felt like I couldn't go anywhere it was really difficult for me to be on the go and go shoot things out and about because I always needed to pause at these two times to pump even though it seems like not a big deal because I had these portable pumps it still was a lot of work and then you have to store the milk and label it and if I was on the go I would have to bring freezer bags I was kind of building my whole life schedule around pumping so I sort of wanted to get to a place that I have seen other mothers at where they were able to breastfeed their baby at 7am and 7 PM but then not express milk any other time in the day and I thought that seemed like the ideal place to be where you were kind of just nursing your baby morning and night still giving them that breast milk only had to do it twice a day and then all night you could sleep and all day you could do whatever you wanted that felt like magical to me I knew that my next step if I wanted to get to that was to cut out the 3pm session also because then I would basically be going from 7am until 7 pm and not pumping in between so I weaned myself off that 3 P.M feed as well and that is really where my Supply took the biggest hit now at this point I knew that I needed to make a choice because I could have gone in one of two directions at this point I could have said wow my Supply is dipping time to start power pumping time to show my body that the baby's still here let me add these pump sessions back in and really get my Supply back because I'm confident I would have been able to get my milk supply back if I really wanted to then the other part of me was thinking this might be a good time to just start weaning all together you are already getting a taste of what life would be like if you didn't have to pump all day and you're really loving that and you know you've already been giving this kid breast milk for eight or nine months he seems to really enjoy when you give him formula and you found a formula brand that you trust so it's time to just wean and I decided to go in that direction I understand not everyone would make that same decision and I understand that some people might find that to be a selfish decision personally I felt like it allowed me to do a bit of a better job in my role as a mom because I wasn't quite as depleted all the time from needing to work my entire day schedule around this feeding schedule before that I had arbitrarily said that I wanted to try to breastfeed him for one year and at this point I was at the nine month mark But I just knew it was time actually at this point the fact that I had cut out those two middle of the day pumps had caused such a dip in my Supply across the board that even in the morning and the evening when I was nursing Milo the milk just was not flowing like it was before and I think that was a little frustrating for him because he was used to getting on the boob and then having a very big letdown and that wasn't happening anymore so he was actually starting to look around for the bottle and he was actually starting to prefer the bottle a lot more so I felt really good about ending our breastfeeding Journey at nine months and at that point I just slowly weaned myself off of the other few pump sessions in the day focusing on one at a time and just by slowly cutting out the amount of minutes that I was pumping for now we are at a place where Milo is 100 formula fed so the milk that we had stashed away in the freezer went very quickly it probably only took three weeks for us to run out of of all the milk we had and now all of our milk is gone and Milo 100 drinks Bobby here's where this all started I was just about to make a bottle of Bobby here's a clean bottle Milo has actually preferred a cold bottle since the summer time we tried giving him warm milk in the summer and he was not having it so we've actually been in cold ever since and I think he likes it more so I'm about to make a six ounce bottle so we just pour this right from our filter to the six ounce line perfect it comes with this very easy scoop and you kind of just like swipe it along the edge to scrape it off like that and it's two ounces of water to one scoop of formula so for a six ounce bottle of water you're gonna add three scoops one two three now I cap it shake it and I'm just gonna store this in the fridge for his next feed we've been teaching Milo the sign for milk and now whenever he's drinking his bottle he holds it with one hand on the other hand he just goes like this and he also knows the word milk so much that now we can't even say the word without him getting so excited we also can't say the word bottle so we've started saying B but I think he now knows what b means so anytime we say anything like that he starts going like this let me pop this in the fridge there are a couple questions here about what our plan is for the future with Milo he is turning one November 21st and at that point we're gonna have his one year checkup with the pediatrician and see what the next steps are my understanding is that you give formula until a year and then I think they recommend that you switch to some form of regular milk we still haven't figured out exactly what we're transitioning to but for right now he's still 100 on formula I have a couple questions here about how Milo's bottle habits changed once we introduce solids and what I will say is at four months we introduced some purees and baby oatmeal and then at six months we introduced real solid food right now we offer him at his four feeds a day eight ounces six ounces six ounces and eight ounces and because he also has two meals scattered in there he doesn't necessarily finish the bottle every single time and I think our pediatrician is probably going to tell us to start cutting back on how many ounces of formula we're offering or how many ounces of milk we're offering eventually because he's going to start adding another meal every day and he's just gonna start eating more solids but my understanding is that before the baby is a year old their primary form of nutrition is coming from the formula or the breast milk even though you might be adding solids in there it's still important for them to get a certain amount of the milk or formula so thank you so much for watching this video I really hope it answered your questions for any parents out there who are curious about Bobby and who maybe want to give it a try but aren't ready to commit to the subscription I'm going to link for you down below the Bobby starter bundle so the link is going to give you a bundle deal on two cans of Bobby that you can get to either use immediately or just keep on hand if you have a baby that is exclusively drinking formula the bundle is good for about one week of formula if you're giving a baby about 32 ounces a day but if you're just supplementing with formula it will last you a little bit longer than that and keep in mind it could take babies between five to seven days to adjust to a new formula if you are switching from something else and then if Bobby does work for you baby you should definitely sign up for their subscription we love them so much and I'm really grateful to share them with you all today and thank you so much for coming back to our Channel I really love sharing as much of this journey with you as possible I have to say it was a little difficult to do this video because even though I just went through this process this year I feel like everything goes in and out there's so much knowledge and information and different topics that come along with having a baby that as soon as you're out of a phase you just forget what happened even though like a month before you were deep in it and felt like you knew everything so I hope I captured everything but if I missed anything let me know I'll go back I did keep some notes on my phone so it's always good to reference them I love you all sending you guys so much love thank you for following Along on my journey and I'll see you next time bye [Music]

Channel: Lucie Fink

Views: 26,162

Keywords: refinery29, lucie fink, r29, bobbie vs similac, bobbie vs. similac, bobbie formula vs similac, bobbie formula review, organic baby formula, whey to casein ratio, USDA organic formula, non gmo baby formula, baby feeding schedule, pumping schedule, dropping MOTN pump, mastitis, how many times a day to pump, weaning off breastfeeding, weaning journey, bottle feeding, bottle feeding baby, breastfeeding baby, breastfeeding, nursing, weaning off nursing, newborn feeding schedule

Id: 6GtH5Vnuj7c

Length: 21min 12sec (1272 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 25 2022