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Those of us who have exclusively nursed a child know the heavy responsibility that comes with knowing that you are another human being’s sole source of nourishing sustenance.
I remember so well nursing my first son and worrying about what would happen if I was in a car wreck or got ill and was unable to nurse him for even a short period of time.
I never wanted a single drop of commercial formula to pass my baby’s lips even in a dire emergency!
While I usually managed to keep a day or two of frozen breastmilk in the freezer, I never seemed to have enough extra stocked up should an extended separation unexpectedly occur. As a result, you can imagine my relief when I discovered the recipe for a nourishing, homemade baby formula using grassfed raw milk while pregnant with my second child.
Even though I nursed my second and third children exclusively as with my first child, having the ingredients for this nourishing, homemade formula ready to go in the pantry as needed gave me such incredible peace of mind!
Motherhood has a way of really impressing upon us Moms our vulnerabilities – can you relate?
Since then, as a Weston A. Price Chapter Leader, I have always counseled nursing mothers in my local community to keep the homemade formula ingredients on hand for emergencies. I also recommend that they make the formula a few times so that they know what to do and have any other primary caregivers in the home do the same.
Homemade Formula to the Rescue!
The critical importance of having an “insurance policy” for your exclusively nursing child was impressed upon me once again while reading a recent story on the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund website.
Just last week on April 7, 2013, law enforcement officers came to the home of Colorado farmers Ethan and Renee Abbott and ended up arresting Renee for a misdemeanor offense that had occurred several months earlier.
The incident involved a breach in the Abbott’s fencing which Ethan suspected was the result of vandalism on their property that had allowed some of their livestock to get free and graze on the municipal right of way. Despite the fact that she was exclusively nursing a 4 month old baby, the officers hauled Renee off to jail for this minor offense.
Fortunately, the Abbotts were able to call the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund hotline. The attorney on call at the time, Elizabeth Rich, immediately returned Ethan’s call. Going above and beyond her duties as legal counselor, Elizabeth read out to Ethan over the phone the recipe for the homemade baby formula as she could hear the hungry baby’s cries in the background.
She then contacted the Office of the Weld County Sheriff and spoke sternly to the deputy on duty about dragging a mother exclusively breastfeeding an infant off to jail for a minor ordinance violation. Ms. Rich further discovered that there were absolutely no extenuating circumstances such as threats or disorderly conduct which could explain the severity of Renee’s treatment at the hands of the officers.
Fortunately, the deputy agreed to release Renee from custody after talking with Attorney Rich. Ethan was able to pick her up a short time later so that she could nurse her hungry baby!
Nursing a Baby? Have a Backup Plan
The moral of this story is to have a backup plan should you have an exclusively nursing infant in the household. Fortunately, the Abbotts had the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund to turn to which took care of the baby’s immediate needs as well as returned Renee to her rightful place – with her baby at home.
An exclusive nursing relationship between Mother and child is precious and yet perilous in the face of unforeseen events. Freeze some breastmilk if you are able, stock that pantry with the ingredients for the homemade formula and source out a supplier of clean, grassfed milk for your baby should the need ever arise.
And, if you have a small farm or buy products from one, join the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund to protect yourself from overzealous bureaucrats intent on trampling your rights who may unexpectedly come knocking at your door and haul you away over a misdemeanor ticket!
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Disclosure: cmp.ly/4 and cmp.ly/5
Not going to get into a breastfeeding debate, just sharing my experience. I breastfed my first child no problems for 14 months until she weaned herself. My second child was premature and after getting out of the hospital finally he would only nurse for a few more weeks. I had some freezer stash of breastmilk, but not enough for a year! I kept him exclusively on pumped milk until about month 4 and then I had to switch to formula and give him frozen breastmilk. Fortunately he was only on commercial formula for a few weeks before I found the Weston A price raw cows milk baby formula. I immediately bought all the ingredients online in bulk and started giving it to my baby. He loves it! He still drinks it, and I still have freezer milk too, but only enough to give him a few ounces a day. It will probably run out in another month but I am so glad to have the formula recipe. I make it every day and my two month old premature baby has thrived on it. He gets really excited when he sees a bottle. Breastfeeding was my first choice, but it didn’t work out like how I wanted, so it was WONDERFUL to have a healthy choice rather than the industrial waste that is commercial formula which made me feel very guilty for the few weeks he was drinking it. My guilt is relieved now that I make his formula every day myself.
Can anyone tell me? Isn’t there some kind of milk donation place(web site) where you can donate extra milk and buy the donated milk? We are considering adoption/foster and thought something like this existed.
Yes, I am not sure where you are located but I would do an online search (ie milk bank, mother’s milk bank etc.) for your area. Hopefully there is something like that in your area! In my state, there is a mother’s milk bank through a university hospital and it is wonderful–they have several drop off locations to make it convenient. I have had a large oversupply so far with all 3 of my babies and have been greatly blessed to have been able to donate my excess to help sick babies, and for situations in which a mother is unable to nurse. I would recommend looking into it!
Yep- the two big ones are Eats on Feets http://www.eatsonfeets.org/ and Human Milk for Human Babies http://www.hm4hb.net/. Both have international chapters to find local nursing moms willing to donate for free. Simply look up your area and find its Facebook page to post a need. There is also milkshare.com that you can check out. They work a little differently but same idea.
Try Eats on Feets and Human Milk For Human Babies:)
There is a lot of informal human milk sharing happening now and it is a fantastic choice for mothers who cannot provide all the milk their baby needs as long as you are fully aware of the risks. Look at hm4hb.org and search ‘eats on feets’ on Facebook. Also, milkshare.com is another one. This blogger will tell you that homemade raw COW’s milk formula is better than most donor milk, but that is her opinion, not scientific fact. Milk is species-specific!
As for ‘back up’ plans for emergencies, I think it depends on what kind of emergency we’re talking about. I can think of many situations where making formula would be very unsafe just from a bacterial contamination standpoint. If I was unable to breastfeed for whatever reason and the world was in chaos, I would hope that another lactating mom would wetnurse my baby. Whatever viruses and pathogens were in the environment would be combatted by the wetnurse’s milk. That would be true insurance.
I think donated milk is really good in some circumstances. I did use donated breastmilk for the first day in the nicu for baby until I could get some of my own milk to come in. I was thankful to have that over commercial formula. After hospital life, in my situation I didn’t want to depend on milk from someone I don’t know because I have seen other mom’s milk a lot when I spent so much time in the nicu for my baby. Some women don’t have very good looking milk and I wouldn’t want to feed that to baby. Some are very thin and pure white, almost blueish, didn’t look healthy and full of fat like a baby needs. Sorry but it’s true. Also a milk bank is usually pasteurized from what i understand. But if I had a friend or someone I trusted who I knew was healthy and had good quality milk to give breastmilk for my baby, that would be awesome.
My mother-in-law was warned by a police officer for her “misdemeanour” because she had the audacity to breastfeed her baby daughter in her car, with a nursing blanket and all the windows closed. This was in the 70’s. This country needs to show more respect for mothers, infants and their rights.
Most states now have laws on the books protecting nursing mothers’ rights. If anyone is harassed for nursing in public, just mention the law. They’re in the wrong NOT the mom. http://www.ncsl.org/issues-research/health/breastfeeding-state-laws.aspx
I am a grandma now but back in the day I exclusively breastfed my 4 children until they were about 2 years old. I always had enough milk for my babies but I certainly could not pump out any extra. I tried but there just wasn’t any more than what I needed.
I think that recipe is great insurance and could add peace of mind. As one other person wrote it is an alternative for formula, not exclusive breastfeeding.
I am tucking this away for my daughter and daughter in law who are both pregnant or nursing.
Milk sharing is my back-up plan: Human Milk 4 Human Babies and Eats on Feets. I have discussed this plan with my husband and he agrees.
I never new you could make homemade formula! I will keep this in mind for my next child!
I used the WAPF homemade formula with my first child, as I was unable to BF due to endocrine issues. I have since been able to correct those issues through diet, and eliminating allergens, but I am SO thankful for the homemade formula! My daughter THRIVED on it, and is still healthy, happy, never sick, and has perfect teeth and a lovely wide palate and round face just like the traditional peoples. She also spoke early, and had a HUGE vocabulary at a very young age. My 6-week-old son is now nursing beautifully, and I have plenty of rich, nourishing milk. I even have oversupply, which I am pumping and storing for emergencies, but I will certainly use the formula again if I ever come to need it. No hesitation whatsoever, it was amazing for our family.
I’m exclusively nursing my 7 month baby girl and am really wantin to get serious about loosing the 30 pounds of baby fat that I’m still holding on to. Any advice about how to loose the weight and keep up a quality, rich milk supply for her? I really want to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight, but don’t want to loose my milk supply.
Its not going to make a lick of sense (initially), but just eat more. If your body is clinging to weight it is because you are not getting enough fuel to keep both you and your milk supply going. Our bodies will fight tooth and nail to lose any weight if it is not getting enough food to provide all the “services” you are asking of it. You just had a baby, so you need fuel to heal from that, you are making milk, so you need fuel for that, you probably aren’t getting enough sleep, so you need extra fuel to help your body survive through lack of sleep.
This is a very exhausting time on your body and it needs the one thing we all know will heal it: Food -and plenty of it!! Just for once, don’t worry how your body looks; just love it, praise it for the miracle that it is and feed it. I swear to you the weight will begin to fall off once your body now realizes it no longer needs to store fat because of all the demands you are putting on it. If you want panckaes with maple syrup and bacon, then eat them, if you want a big old baked potato with all the fixin’s them eat it. Just eat and eat for 2 or 3 weeks. It will work. I promise you!! What have you got to lose, really. It is worth a try!
So what if an accident does happen and you have months of your frozen breast milk for babe and you dry up while you are recovering??
It’s called pump and dump to help sustain you supply.
Wow, that is a great point … had not even considered that. Even more reason to have the homemade formula ingredients on hand!
Formula is not necessary for babies over one year old. So if they’re around that age, you could probably transition to cow or goat milk along with lots of nutrient dense solids. While the immune protection from breastmilk is beneficial no matter what the child’s age, formula, especially commercial formula, is best not continued after a year since other foods can be used.
Mine year old did not eat much solid at all and there was no way to force her to eat it. Also, she is 19 months old now, but would not touch dairy milk and she is sensitive to it. I tried to mix it with breast milk. She walk up with puffy eyes and had too much gas. My son had the same problem, but now he is fine with dairy milk. He is 3.5
What could I do if I lost my milk or got in to a problem? I have no idea. My kids could not even have home made formula.
I had no idea formula was that hard on children. I don’t know as much about babies as I thought.
According to the World Health Organization, the recommended infant nutrition guidelines are first, nursing, second pumped milk from mom, third donor milk and/or cross nursing (aka wet nursing), fourth formula. While I agree WAPF formula is better than commercial, you can’t replicate immunities found in breast milk. Building a stash of frozen milk would be best. Then if that’s unavailable, finding a healthy milk donor through organizations like Milk Share, or one’s local Eats on Feets and/or Human Milk 4 Human Babies chapter. These resources can then be supplemented with homemade formula and/or nutrient dense solids once baby is six months old.
Isn’t the milk from milk banks pasturised? I’d never feed my baby pasturised milk. After a lot of research I would only consider the homemade formula as an alternative to breastfeeding myself – which I intend to do for any further babies I’m fortunate enough to have.
Milk bank milk is pasteurized, yes BUT those organizations I mentioned are NOT milk banks- they’re networks for informal mother to mother milk sharing. Someone says they have extra milk or post that they need milk and they can arrange to meet up. Sometimes the donor may have freshly pumped milk or may even offer to cross nurse. They offer guidelines on asking about medical background and safely screening donors. This is also a reason building a supply of pumped milk in the freezer should be encouraged- even if you don’t personally need it, someone else may.
That is actually true. I stored milk that I did not use. I had to pump and give milk to my baby with a bottle. She was very sensitive to my milk to food I ate and I had to find the food that cause her bad eczema and vomiting. There were many foods that mad her sick like dairy, gluten, red fruits and vegetables, nightshades, seeds, and nuts. I still breastfed and as I eliminating those foods one by one she was getting better. I kept that milk for a month and tried to give it to her. First of all, she did not want to drink defrosted milk and it was a battle to get her drinking it. It did not taste as good. Second of all, she throw up shortly after she had it. I had about 800 oz of breast milk in freezer which I could not give to my baby. I was glad to find milk sharing website. With my first baby I threw out about 500 oz of milk because I could not find a way to donate it without all crazy things through hospital or some other agency. This time I donated it to mom who needed it. Then I end up with more milk that my daughter would not drink and it could go bad. Moms were very happy with my milk. I ate very clean organic nurturing food even with limitations.
I would advise anyone in need of breast milk to look for a donor. But it is also hard to find a donor. Consider this option, but still it is good to have other options available.