Celebrities who formula feed their babies

Celebrity Moms Who Use Baby Formula & Don’t Apologize For It – SheKnows

Ah, the age-old breastfeeding versus formula feeding debate. The way in which a mother decides to feed her child is an incredibly heated topic — even though it’s an extremely personal choice that is not only different for every woman, but also for every child.

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While society largely touts breastfeeding as a priceless bonding experience and the healthiest method of feeding a child — you know, the condescending and stigmatizing “breast is best” motto — many, many women face mentally taxing and painful challenges when it comes to breastfeeding. This is of course a conveniently ignored attribute, because a mother’s strife is a noble sacrifice for the sake of their infant not having to consume formula. (Society actually ignores women’s entire existence and autonomy past the function of being a caretaking machine after they become mothers, but that’s a whole other conversation.)

It's #BlackBreastfeedingWeek! From Serena Williams to Michelle Obama, these celebrity moms have shared the ups and downs of breastfeeding. https://t.co/fqhu5fzwMr

— SheKnows (@SheKnows) August 25, 2022

Extremely common side effects of breastfeeding include clogged ducts, mastitis, low-to-no supply, chapped and calloused nipples, and engorgement, to name just a few. According to a study performed by UC Davis Medical Center, per NPR, 92% of new mothers reported having difficulties with breastfeeding, and just 13% managed to breastfeed exclusively for six months.

Regardless of the overwhelming majority of women who struggle in some way with breastfeeding, the CDC reports that “the American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization recommend exclusive breastfeeding for about the first 6 months, with continued breastfeeding along with introducing appropriate complementary foods for up to 2 years of age or longer. ”

.@hgtv star @ErinRNapier received lots of love for sharing an IG post about being pro-formula-feeding. https://t.co/VJolFFQdKa

— SheKnows (@SheKnows) June 4, 2021

But wait, wait, wait — let’s not forget that while society shames women who don’t breastfeed, they also shame those who do breastfeed, especially in public — because, you know, feeding your hungry child the way in which tell you you have to is apparently gross and inappropriate. Make. It. Make. Sense.

Contrary to unbelievably popular belief, women should not and do not have to subject themselves to the physical and mental struggles that often occur while breastfeeding when bottle-feeding baby formula is a completely safe and healthy alternative. In fact, Mount Sinai, one of the highest-ranking medical facilities in the United States, reports that “infant formula is still a healthy choice, and your baby will get all the necessary nutrients [that they would via breast milk]. ”

.@ashleygraham's latest billboard promotes both breastfeeding and formula feeding your little ones. https://t.co/y9FslAl5Jk

— SheKnows (@SheKnows) September 9, 2022

If breastfeeding is a breeze for you, that’s beautiful and amazing and great! But if you’re a mom who isn’t able to breastfeed with ease, formula feeding is also beautiful and amazing and great because it means your baby is fed, happy, and healthy. Formula feeding your child does not make you a bad mom. If you’re facing the wrath of mom-shaming and guilt, we want you to make that your new mantra! Say it with us: Formula feeding does not make me a bad mom.

If you need a little extra reassurance, take it from some of the world’s most well-known moms who’ve opted to formula feed instead. From Ashley Graham to Chrissy Teigen, the following celebrity moms have vulnerably shared their personal experiences to help destroy the ridiculous stigma surrounding formula feeding and assure other mothers that they are not alone in the often harrowing breastfeeding experience — because fed genuinely is best.

11 Celebrity Mamas Normalizing Formula

Because there's more than one way to feed a baby.

By Heather Marcoux and Ayana Herndon November 30, 2020

Chrissy Teigen/Twitter

Breastfeeding is beautiful and should be normalized but formula feeding is also an amazing way to feed your baby. There are benefits to both, but society has made both options hard for moms— and turned feeding your baby into a polarizing issue. “Breast is beast” is a great slogan, but it lacks nuance and it’s time to recognize that, actually, whatever works best for a mom and her baby is what’s best.

That’s the energy Chrissy Teigen brought to Twitter when she tweeted “ok I’m gonna say something and you all are definitely gonna make it a thing but here goes: normalize formula.”

She continued: “Normalize breastfeeding is such a huge, wonderful thing. but I absolutely felt way more shame having to use formula because of lack of milk from depression and whatnot.”

Teigen wants moms to be less stressed about feeding, and recalls how she was pumping her butt off because she was so stressed out about breastfeeding, and how that probably didn’t help her postpartum depression.

There’s more than one way to feed a baby, and we’ve got 11 more celebrity moms who prove it.

Jenna Dewan

A great thread for mother’s…I too had trouble producing milk second time around with Callum and wasted too much t… https://t.co/IXjuSeKZ5w
— Jenna Dewan (@jennadewan) 1606678032.0

Mom of 2 Jenna Dewan agrees with Teigen. She says she regrets the time she spent feeling guilty over formula feeding with her youngest, son Callum (who is now 8 months old).

Tia Mowry

Mowry planned to breastfeed her oldest son, Cree, for longer than she did, but her body had other plans.

“Wasn’t able to breastfeed Cree for long because of low milk supply! However, this time around I have plenty,” she captioned a recent photo of herself and baby Cairo.

Mowry believes “lots of teas, water, #fenugreek, and a high protein diet” are helping her out this time around (but researchers don’t put as much stock in fenugreek ‘s milk boosting power as Mowry does).

Coco Rocha

Coco Rocha intended on exclusively breastfeeding her first child, Violet, but switched to formula after having low milk supply.

In a 2015 Instagram post, she clapped back at her negative followers who had an issue with her decision. She stood up for all the mama’s out there, saying, “This is not a democracy, everyone doesn’t get a say.”

“Not that this is anyone’s business – I loved breastfeeding Ioni for the first 5 months of her life and then one day my milk went dry,” the supermodel captioned the post. “She’s been on formula for a few weeks now and seems to be doing just fine”.

Kelly Rowland

After the birth of her son, Titan, back in 2014, Kelly Rowland had the intention to nurse her baby through breastfeeding. But in 2017, the songstress revealed to Parents that she switched to formula.

” I had my heart set on breastfeeding, but I wasn’t producing enough milk ,” Rowland said. “I got down on myself, which I think was mentally limiting my supply.”

After the loss of her mother three weeks after Titan was born, Rowland had to focus on what nursing method was best for her mental health.

She switched to formula because that was the right choice for her.

Jana Kramer

Jana Kramer felt guilty and received shade from her followers after choosing to formula feed her second son, Jace, back in 2018. She told Us Weekly that truthfully she had trouble breastfeeding from the first day.

“I guess I’m saying this to, also, the moms out there that feel this way too,” Kramer explained. “Let’s not feel like we have to defend our decision. Let’s just be the best moms that we are.”

The country singer shut down the shamers and instead made nursing her own private and personal decision. It was especially not a big deal for Kramer considering that she was formula fed as a child.

Khloe Kardashian

When baby True was born, Khloe breastfed like her sister Kourtney, but eventually followed in Kim’s footsteps and switched to formula.

She revealed the change during a Twitter conversation with a follower who asked if she pumped while at work. “I had to stop breastfeeding,” Kardashian responded . “It was really hard for me to stop (emotionally) but it wasn’t working for my body. Sadly.”

She shared some more details that many mamas who’ve made the switch can relate to. “I fought and fought to try and continue but then when I actually stopped, I didn’t realize what a relief it was for me to not stress and worry anymore,” Khloe wrote. “Any sec I had of downtime I was stressing to produce more for the next feeding.”

Without that stress, Khloe was able to spend her downtime enjoying her time with True.

Elisa Donovan

It’s been 8 years since the birth of Elisa Donovan’s daughter and the actress opened up about her struggle with nursing on her blog on People .

Not only was it not working, and excruciatingly painful for me beyond anything imaginable ,I also realized that I hated it” said the former Clueless star. “My guilt was so enormous and so complete, that I l felt like I would be catapulted into a special place in hell reserved for bad mommies who don’t breastfeed.”

Shortly after making the decision to use the formula, Donovan was reassured by her doctor that she and her daughter were going to be fine.

Emily Maynard Johnson

The mom of four spoke before about the difficulty in breastfeeding multiple kids at once, and feeling ashamed to tell others that she used formula.

“I didn’t want to tell anybody that I quit,” said Johnson. “I was trying to hide the formula”

Back in 2017, the star shared with People that after the birth of her fourth child, Gatlin, she stopped breastfeeding after developing a condition.

“I breastfed Ricki, I breastfed Jennings for a while and then Gibson, it’s so hard with other kids running around”the former Bachelorette star said.

“And then I got mastitis (a painful infection of the breast tissue) which is like the worst, worse than childbirth I feel like.”

Jessica Alba

The Honest Company founder started off breastfeeding all three of her children before eventually turning to formula to feed each of them. In July, she told Motherly breastfeeding her new son Hayes has been especially challenging due to milk supply issues.

“I felt like I had the most milk with Honor and then it got less with Haven and even less with Hayes. And so that was just tough for me,” she explained.

Demanding work schedules were a factor in Alba not being able to breastfeed any of her kids for as long as she would have liked, but she did what worked for her family, and she wants other mamas to recognize that in themselves, too.

In her book, The Honest Life: Living Naturally and True to You , Alba writes: “Whatever you do, trust that you’re doing the best that you can for your baby.”

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Kim Kardashian

The mom of three has been open about how breastfeeding became difficult as she was transitioning from being a mom of one to a mom of multiple kids. It can be difficult when your attention and time are divided, and in 2016 Kim shared how she stopped breastfeeding her second child, Saint, pretty early as she worried her oldest, North, was feeling left out.

It just goes to show there are a lot of reasons why a mother may stop breastfeeding, and no reason should be judged.

Whitney Port

Whitney Port posted an emotional 8-minute YouTube video about the pain she felt while breastfeeding her young son, Sonny.

“I just hit a breaking point,” the star explains through tears, “and [I] said, ‘I can’t do this. It feels as though someone is slicing my nipples with glass.'”

The physical pain she experienced was challenging for Port, and so was the emotional pain, because reality wasn’t lining up with Port’s expectations. “I tried and tried and suffered from that self-imposed guilt from quitting that so many of us new moms suffer from,” Port later wrote on her blog.

“For some reason, I told myself I wanted to make it to 6 months, but 5 months came and I really couldn’t do it anymore. I was sacrificing too much of myself and it was only at the expense of me. It was at the encouragement of my husband that I finally decided to stop torturing myself and find an alternative route that would nourish Sonny just as beautifully,” wrote Port.

Mamas, though it may feel like everybody around you is exclusively breastfeeding, remember that is not always reality, as these celebrity mothers show.

Whether you exclusively breastfeed, exclusively pump, supplement with formula or feed only formula, you are feeding your baby in the best way you can. That’s what matters.

[A version of this post was originally published August 9, 2018. It has been updated.]

Star mothers who flatly refused to breastfeed

Celebrities

Doctors say that breast milk is very good for the health of the baby. It’s hard to argue with this - just not all mothers agree to breastfeeding. Including the stars. And, for completely different reasons.

Beyoncé

Photo: Getty Images

The singer breastfed her daughter Blue Ivy for 10 weeks. And then I switched to blends. She said in an interview that she enjoyed the experience of breastfeeding, but she works too hard to do it all the time.

Molly Sims

Photo: Getty Images

During an appearance on Anderson Live, she opened up about her transition to bottle-feeding her first child. According to her, the star did not expect her baby to be born ... with teeth.

“I used a nipple guard, but it still hurt terribly. I felt like a little vampire was clinging to me. I end up not breastfeeding and proud of it,” Molly said.

J Lo

Photo: Getty Images

Jennifer was very clear about why she chose not to breastfeed her twins Max and Emma: "My mother didn't breastfeed me and I grew up to be a beautiful healthy baby." Despite the fact that her twins did not suffer at all from the lack of mother's milk, the haters reminded her of this position for a long time.

Eliza Donovan

Photo: Getty Images

“I didn't have much milk,” she said a few years after giving birth. - Not only did the child simply not have enough food, I was also excruciatingly sick. I hated it all." At the same time, Eliza admitted that for several months she still did not switch to mixtures, because she was simply ashamed.

Coco Rocha

Photos: Getty Images

The supermodel began to get hated on social media when she shared with her followers that she was formula feeding her six-month-old daughter. But Rosha quickly put the spiteful critics in their place, noting that this did not concern them.

“Not that it's any of your business, but I'll tell you: I loved to breastfeed Ioni for the first 5 months of her life, and then the milk disappeared. It happens to every mom at different times. My baby girl has been weaned for several weeks now and is doing well. In the last 4 weeks she has gained another 2 pounds and has grown another inch. Anyone who writes a negative comment about how I am raising my child will be blocked. "

Jessica Alba

Photo: Getty Images

Jess breastfed her first two children, but quickly transferred her third to artificial nutrition. “I felt that he (son Hayes) wanted breasts around the clock. And it was very difficult, given that I was trying to get back to work, Alba said in an interview. “But I got a lucrative job offer and could no longer sit on maternity leave. Besides, my milk supplies were running low. I felt that with Honey (first child) I had the most milk, with Haven (second) I had less, and with Hayes even less. So after three weeks, I switched him to formula.”

Kelly Rowland

Photos: Getty Images

In her parenting book, the star detailed what happened to her breasts as a result of breastfeeding and led her to a plastic surgeon. “My breasts were so long and elastic that sometimes I felt like I could throw them over my shoulders. So I stopped feeding pretty quickly.”

Kim Kardashian

Photo: Getty Images

Kim gave birth to two older children herself, rather quickly transferring them to mixtures. And then Kim and Kanye already resorted to the services of a surrogate mother, so the star did not have to feed. And she did not hide her joy. “I will say that when it came to breastfeeding, I realized that surrogacy was the best decision I have ever made. It's great that I don't have to breastfeed every few hours. Thanks to this, I can spend much more time with older children, ”she admitted.

Angelina Jolie

Photo: Getty Images

Shiloh Jolie breastfed her first biological daughter. But when the twins Vivien and Knox were born, things didn't work out. “I tried to practice simultaneous feeding. But basically, I fed the children in turn - first one, then the other. It took a very long time and was much harder than they write in books about motherhood, ”she said.

Jessica Biel

Photo: Getty Images

“It was very difficult for me to establish breastfeeding, and besides, my milk was not nutritious. Our nanny reassured me by saying that sometimes artificial feeding is the best choice for both mom and baby, ”the star recalled. By the way, now, according to rumors, Jessica became a mother for the second time. I wonder if she will put this baby on formula too?

More interesting materials about stars and their children - in our channel on Yandex.Zen.

Lida Buslaeva

Samoilova and other celebrities who breastfed their children in public process under other circumstances.

It is no wonder that the pictures of the heroines of our article at one time caused a powerful resonance on the Web. And star moms adequately responded to critics.

Grazia

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Oksana Samoilova

The wife of rapper Dzhigan gave birth to a son, David. This is the couple's fourth child - their daughters Ariel, Leia and Maya are growing up. Oksana also breastfed her son, as she fed her daughters, and Dzhigan once shared a touching video of this process.

Anastasia Kostenko

In October 2021, Dmitry Tarasov and Anastasia Kostenko became parents for the third time. The chosen one of the football player breastfed two daughters and a son. Once she even admitted that she did this for up to six months.

Mila Jovovich

In 2020, Mila gave birth to her third daughter from Paul Anderson, naming her with the long sonorous name Oshin Lark Elliot. She admitted that she did not plan this pregnancy, but the surprise was pleasant. Mila was happily breastfeeding her newborn. The eldest daughters - Eva Gabo and Dashiel - were glad to see their sister.

Ashley Graham

Ashley Graham is already a mother of three. And all three of her heirs are sons. She breastfed her first child not only at home, but also in public. And now he is posting touching shots with the twins.

Regina Todorenko

TV presenter on the first birthday of her son Misha, December 5, 2019, showed subscribers how she breastfeeds him. The boy's father, singer Vlad Topalov, was moved to tears on this solemn day for the couple.

Daria Melnikova

The "Daddy's Girls" star gave birth to her youngest son, Mark, in December 2018, and in August 2019, without hesitation, she showed her subscribers how she breastfeeds him while sitting on an iron ladder. Subscribers were delighted, some were surprised, but Arthur Smolyaninov's wife found something to say to all the negative comments!

Kate Upton

In an effort to draw public attention to the problem of bodyshaming of women who have given birth, in January the model showed how she breastfeeds her one-year-old daughter Genevieve. Upton believes that every woman has the right to look as she wants. The model's husband is American baseball player Justin Verlander.