Reply #165: I did not intend to give any supplemental feeding

[Ms. Toad]

- including water - until my daughter was at least 6 months old. Aside from the 2 bottles of water the hospital and my mother insisted she have, she didn't have anything else until around 10-11 months, when she started being interested in real people food (we never did the pureed food - she went straight from breast milk to adult food, and continued nursing until around 18 months). In deciding not to provide supplemental feeding, however, I did not have a clue that giving an infant water could be critically dangerous - I was solely trying to make breastfeeding a success. (Since it is easier to drink from a bottle, adding bottles early on often results in babies who are too lazy or don't know how to exert the effort it takes to nurse.)

My point is that even the two bottles of water she did have, at least according to current thinking, were dangerous AND they were pushed on her/me by physicians and current and former nurses who apparently did not know they were dangerous. If medically trained people do not know that providing supplemental water (either alone, or mixed with formula at higher than the designated ratio) can cause an immediate and life threatening condition, why would we expect the mother in this case to know.

(Again, that doesn't excuse the mother for not understanding that cutting her son's food down by 11% - or more - would cause malnutrition.)