You probably haven't lactated. It's not that simple -- once a baby accepts formula, it's nearly impossible to breast feed.

That's a big reason why breastmilk companies are ready, willing and eager to "help" with sample product. Hell, somehow two of those companies were able to estimate the birthdate that our child would have likely had if my wife hadn't miscarried early. They go to the expense of mailing 10 lb boxes of product with a retail value of around $75 to people -- it's almost an "addictive" product with ROI high enough to justify that large marketing expense.

In third world countries, they go so far as to send people dressed like nurses to provide samples and "help".

> once a baby accepts formula, it's nearly impossible to breast feed.

I'm male, but I'm a parent and remember dealing with this stuff.

In addition to difficulty getting the baby to latch after feeding formula very early, there's also the issue of building and maintaining supply. The first few days of life are important for both mother and baby - there isn't a lot of milk being produced at first, and the child's attempts at nursing encourage milk production to begin in earnest. The natural course is that the mother's milk comes in to meet the baby's growing need. If you "skip" a day or two in the beginning, even if you get the kid to latch there isn't going to be enough milk to satisfy them. This leads to supplementing with formula, which in turn solidifies difficulty latching and further delays milk production.

I remember having to be very firm with hospital staff to under no circumstances feed our first daughter formula. In the first couple of days they really pushed us to, justifying it by saying "Momma needs her rest!" and "Dad should experience feeding the baby, too." We had a good experience overall with both our children, but in both cases I had to really take command of the situation to ensure that our wishes were followed. In a couple of cases that was even "against medical advice".

I'm male (Father) of three daughters who all breast fed. They also occasionally got formula when it was not possible to breast feed them but it did not change their breast feeding at all.

There is a lot of noise around breast feeding on the Internet but if you've got references to something other than apocryphal about formula preventing breast feeding I'm sure my daughters would like to know about it.

The key is in the first few days to teach mother and child how to latch to the breast.

If your wife and daughters breastfed in the hospital or immediately thereafter and then supplemented, that is different (and lower ROI) scenario.

There’s a ton of published material on the topic.

Breast feeding is preferred but not always possible for a variety of reasons. Having to fall back on fucking Coke is a pretty grim reality to contemplate.

I agree. I once saw a woman feeding a chocolate hostess cake to her <6 month old baby on the subway in NYC and it made me feel sick. This was while I myself had a similarly aged baby.