Hibobbie 2024 State of Feeding User Guide
- September 3, 2024
- Hibobbie
Table of Contents
Hibobbie 2024 State of Feeding
Specifications
- Product Name: Feeding Guide
- Usage: For feeding infants through various methods like breastfeeding, pumping, and formula feeding
- Features: Provides guidance and tips for feeding with confidence
MORE INFO
boob, bottle, and everything in between
- As three parent-led and founded companies, we understand firsthand how daunting your feeding journey can feel.
- That’s why we’ve joined forces to change the conversation around feeding and empower parents to feel confident in their feeding choices.
- Join us as we share The State of Feeding in America and introduce an all-inclusive baby feeding guide designed with you in mind.
- The Feeding Guide is designed to help you learn about different feeding options, think through your goals and priorities, and equip you for conversations with loved ones and care providers about your feeding intentions.
- From expecting to empowered, this guide is here to help you feed with confidence.
- PRESENTED BY
- Bobbie.
- willow
- SimpliFed
You’ve got options!
- Breastfeeding: the process of feeding breast milk to an infant.
- Exclusively breastfeeding: to provide breastmilk whether it’s at the breast or expressed! Pumping: often used in combination with direct breastfeeding, pumping is the act of using a manual or electronic pump to express breast milk and feed an infant with a bottle.
- Exclusively Pumping: by either mimicking a baby’s feeding patterns or setting a schedule, women who choose to exclusively pump, only express breast milk via a manual or electronic pump and feed an infant with a bottle.
- Formula Feeding: some families choose to feed their infants with formula, which is a food specially designed for feeding babies and infants under 12 months.
- Combination Feeding (Breastfeeding/Pumping + Formula Feeding): combination feeding is the act of mixing different types of baby feeding to match a mother and family’s individual needs. Often families breastfeed, pump, and supplement with formula.
FAQs
- Q: What is exclusively pumping?
- A: Exclusively pumping involves expressing breast milk via a manual or electronic pump and feeding an infant with a bottle without direct breastfeeding.
- Q: What is combination feeding?
- A: Combination feeding involves mixing different types of baby feeding methods, such as breastfeeding, pumping, and formula feeding, to match individual needs.
- Q: How can I establish a good latch while breastfeeding?
- A: Holding your baby to your breast in the right position is crucial for establishing a good latch. This can also help maintain good posture for yourself.
PRODUCT USING INSTRUCTIONS
Breastfeeding
If you’ve chosen to breastfeed to any extent, there are a few practical tips
and tools that can go a long way in helping you establish a good routine,
mechanics, supply, and knowledge around when to get support. Immediately after
birth, any time babies are both skin-to-skin and connecting their mouths to
the mother’s nipple promotes breastfeeding.
A few tips during those first few moments can help kickstart your journey:
- Skin-to-skin contact
- Quiet time with just mom and baby
- Put baby to nipple even if not latching
- Hand express
Here are some helpful tips on hand expression.
- With clean hands, gently massage your breasts. Almost like petting a cat!
- Position your thumb and index finger in the area between your nipple and areola. They should be in a straight line.
- Press back into the chest wall and simultaneously compress.
- Repeat a few times and observe if you can express milk. If not, you can gradually move your fingertips closer to your nipple or further away to find that “sweet spot” where the milk is being expressed.
- Relax and repeat until the milk flow slows. Then, rotate and adjust the hands to a different area of the breast and begin again.
The mechanics of breastfeeding
- Babies are naturally born with a sucking reflex, but it doesn’t always feel natural. The most important part of establishing early breastfeeding is getting a good latch.
- How you hold your baby to your breast can help establish a good latch.
- It can also help establish good posture for your own back, neck, and shoulders.
- For more information on baby feeding positions, click here!
USEFUL LINKS:
Pumping
Breast pumps are a great tool to help you with your feeding goals. They work by mimicking how the baby feeds at the breast by creating a vacuum seal around the nipple, eliciting a letdown, and expressing breast milk for later use.
Pumping can be a rewarding and comfortable experience and offers several benefits to moms, including:
- Flexibility: Pumping allows you to store your milk and create a milk stash for when you might need to be away from your baby, but still want them to have your breast milk for feeding.
- Helping hands: Even if you’re not away, pumping means that others can help you with feeding the baby – and that can mean bonding time with the baby and other family members.
- Increased milk supply: Pumping regularly can help maintain and, in some cases, increase your milk supply.
- Ease and control: with so many things out of your control as a mom, pumping can mean taking more control over when you feed your baby and allowing you to track your milk supply.
Finding the right pump for you
It can be overwhelming trying to choose which breast pump is the right one for you given the different options – electric, wearable, or manual.
Here are a few starting points:
- Determine if You Need a Breast Pump
- When to Buy A Breast Pump
- Breast Pumps Covered by Insurance
- How to Get Started with a Pumping Schedule
- How to Clean Your Breast Pump
- Pumping Care Plan
MOM HACK: Breast pumps are medical devices, and must be FDA-approved to ensure their safety. Be wary of pumps that do not have FDA approval and a warranty of 1+ year as they may be unreliable and cause severe pain and/or damage to your breasts.
Feeding with formula
- Choosing the right formula for your baby can feel like an impossible task.
- Standard, gentle, sensitive? Ready-to-feed or powder? MFGM? GMO? The list goes on!
- The good news? Choosing a formula is much simpler than you may think!
- So much of how to choose a baby formula is personal.
- You can think about what price you’re able to spend, which may help decide if organic or non-organic baby formula is ideal, just like choosing brand-name versus store brand.
- With all of these choices, we’re here to help demystify the process of choosing the right baby formula for your baby.
USEFUL LINKS:
- 4 Quick Tips for How to Pick a Formula for Your Baby
- What to Look for in Baby Formula
- Special Baby Formula Considerations
- Overview of How to Choose a Baby Formula
- How to Prepare a Bottle of Formula
Is Combo Feeding right for you?
Combo feeding (also called combination feeding, mixed feeding, or supplementing) is a way of introducing formula to a breastfed baby to continually provide both breast milk and formula for baby’s nutrition.
Put more simply:
- combo feeding combines breastfeeding and formula feeding, to offer a baby both breast and bottle (or bottle and bottle, if the parent prefers to give expressed milk and baby formula).
- Combo feeding may also help you extend your breastfeeding journey, or even enjoy breastfeeding more.
- At its core, combo feeding celebrates your best, by rejecting the idea that feeding your baby looks like exclusively breastfeeding or formula feeding.
- There are many reasons families choose to combo feed…Or no special reason at all!
- You shouldn’t feel the need to justify why you use a mixed feeding method.
But here are some of the most common:
- Navigating low milk supply
- Returning to work
- Sharing the feeding experience with a partner
- Medical necessity
- To continue providing human milk even if not exclusively breastfeeding
- Reducing pressure
- Maintaining closeness
- No reason at all!
Additional combo feeding resources, from how to get started to creating a feeding rhythm.
Know the baby’s hunger cues
Did you know your baby will tell you when they are hungry? These are called hunger cues. These cues signal to parents and caretakers that their baby is hungry or thirsty.
For a complete guide to hunger cues, click here!
Milk storage guidelines
It’s important to follow guidelines on how to store your breastmilk and formula. The table below is an easy reference.
Source: CDC, https://bit.ly/2dxVYLU.
Baby feeding and advocacy
Mechanics and positioning aside, one of the best ways to accomplish your breastfeeding goal is through support. Breastfeeding is not meant to be done alone and seeking the right level of care when you need it has long-lasting benefits.
For more information on knowing your rights please visit here!
The PUMP Act
The Pump Act 101:
- Protects nearly 9 million nursing mothers who previously weren’t entitled to breath time and space to pump (companies with 50+ employees)
- Clarifies that time spent pumping counts as time worked when calculating minimum wage and overtime
- Reinforces that women need both sufficient time to pump and as well as a clean and private space (AKA, not a bathroom stall!)
- Gives employees the ability to go after financial compensation and other remedies if their employers are not complying with the PUMP Act regulations and rules.
USEFUL LINKS:
Get the support you need
Throughout this guide, we’ve mentioned advocating for yourself and loved ones, and reaching out early for support regardless of what your feeding journey looks like.
- SimpliFed
- SimpliFed is a virtual judgment-free baby feeding support system. Made up of IBCLC lactation consultants, their expert team will help tailor a baby-feeding journey that’s right for you!
- They can start in early pregnancy and are available 24/7 once the baby is home. Breast, bottle, or anything in between.
- Covered by insurance at no cost to patients. For information on SimpliFed or how to get connected to the help you need call or text 888-458-1364.
- willow
- Willow is the leading feeding company that believes that every mom deserves to breastfeed the way they want to – with clarity and confidence, and without compromise.
- Willow forever changed what it meant to pump by inventing the world’s first in-bra wearable breast pump – showing moms it is possible to pump on their terms.
- Hands-free, leak-free, and with the freedom to live their lives freely.
- Today, the mom-led company continues to double down on its mission to build solutions to empower breastfeeding moms and solve their most pressing feeding challenges. Visit onewillow.com for more information.
- bobbie.
- Bobbie is a mission-driven pediatric nutrition company that exists to build a parenting culture of confidence, not comparison.
- Founded in 2018, Bobbie hit the market with Bobbie Organic Infant Formula, a European-inspired recipe in 2021 as the first direct-to-consumer, subscription-based infant formula in the U.S.
- Today, Bobbie is proud to be the only mom-founded and led infant formula brand in the world, and the fastest-growing in the U.S. since the 1980s. For more information, visit www.hibobbie.com.