Breastfeeding is such a wonderful, and stressful, part of having a baby. Some moms take to it with no issues and love their special bonding time. While other moms have a very difficult time. Some breastfeeding women may encounter milk supply issues, or they may develop mastitis, making it very painful to continue on their breastfeeding journey. However, the bond between mother and child is at its' strongest during breastfeeding.
Some moms are unable to breastfeed or simply have chosen not to. The mothers who pick formula over breastfeeding, choose to formula feed as it may easier for them. They could also choose to formula feed because they don’t have enough of a milk supply to breastfeed. There are expecting mothers who really want to breastfeed, and it may be a very sad period for them if their bodies do not make that a possibility for them.
Sometimes, regardless how some women choose to feed their baby, it can still be very difficult. If a mother formula feeds, she may have to try different formulas to find which one works best for her baby. If she breastfeeds, she will have to learn different latches and may have to deal with a lip tie or something that complicates things.
These celeb moms have different stories about their experiences with breastfeeding. While some of them enjoyed it so much, they had a difficult time stopping, others were completely miserable and decided that breastfeeding wasn't for them. Whatever the situation was, these 15 moms share their wonderful, scary, painful and emotional stories of their successes and struggles with breastfeeding.
15 Gwen Stefani
Gwen Stefani is an amazing mom. She has three sons, Kingston, 11, Zuma, 9 and Apollo, 4. Gwen breastfed all her boys and she absolutely loved it. While breastfeeding her oldest son, Kingston, she had this to say in an interview with The Guardian: “I don’t know when I’m going to stop breastfeeding... I’ll just keep going while I can — like, he’s getting his teeth so it is a little bit scary. He’s bitten me a few times!”
Gwen loved nursing so much that she was very disappointed when her, then, 1-year-old son, Zuma, self weaned. In an interview with USA Today, she had this to say: "I didn't want him to [quit]. It felt like a total rejection. It was really hormonal, and trying to stop in the middle of the tour was insane."
I know breastfeeding a teething baby is very scary, and you never know if it’s going to go smoothly or if it’s going to end in tears (from both mom and baby). However, I agree with Gwen, I would have been very sad about my baby weaning at one. Breastfeeding is something so special to me. Although some babies eventually wean themselves, it is the end of a beautiful journey.
14 Jamie King
I absolutely love Jamie King! I loved watching her play such a rude lady in Hart of Dixie, she was so great. She is a mom to two little boys James, 4, and Leo, 2. She is always so on point with these issues. On Instagram, she posted this about her, then, 8-month-old son, James:
“#JamesKnight is now 8 months old! These are the moments a mother lives for. Breastfeeding should not be taboo- and bottle feeding should not be judged- it’s ALL fun for the whole family”
This is how things should be. Mom’s shouldn’t be shamed for whether they do or don’t breastfeed their baby. They should be loved and supported, and that’s what Jamie is trying to encourage. The only time women should be judgmental to another mom is if she isn’t feeding her baby at all. That is the only time someone should say anything about a mother's choice on how to feed her baby. Anything else should be ‘great you breastfeed’ or ‘awesome you formula feed’. There are pros and cons to both, but its ultimately the parents' decision.
13 Alyssa Milano
Alyssa Milano has been in our hearts since she came into our living rooms on ‘Who’s The Boss,’ in 1984. She is a mom of two, Milo, 6 and Elizabella, 3. Alyssa has been a great advocate for women’s rights when it comes to openly breastfeeding, this is something great and so important.
Alyssa surprisingly had to defend those rights while on the Wendy Williams Show. Alyssa talked about breastfeeding her daughter at the time and Wendy disagreed saying, “I don’t need to see that”. Alyssa again went on to defend our rights as women saying: “Biologically they’re not made for sexual things, that’s what we’ve done to them,” She later goes on to tell Wendy that if her daughter was there, she would pop her boob out and breastfeed her right there.
As a mother who has had to breastfeed on the go, it is almost impossible to cover up while breastfeeding. My baby would always pull the blanket off or get frustrated with it. You have to feed your baby when they are hungry, you can’t let your baby starve just to make some people feel comfortable. I love her and her tenacious spirit. Women need someone like her because it is 100% okay for a woman to feed her child.
12 Amanda Seyfried
Amanda Seyfried is so funny. I loved her in Mean Girls and Ted 2. She is a mom to a little girl named Nina. Amanda decided to breastfeed. And while it took a little time for her to get used to it, eventually, she got the hang of it and completely loved it. On Dr. Berlin’s Informed Pregnancy Podcast, Amanda had this to say of her experience breastfeeding:
“It was a searing pain and I couldn’t get a good latch,” She says that she wanted to stop breastfeeding after five days. Amanda figured it out and I give her kudos for sticking with it. Not everyone could have done what she did by continuing to try, even through the pain. She later added, “She’s getting milk and she’s gaining weight like a champ.”
This is so great I love that she shared how extremely difficult it was to go on. I, myself, had a similar experience where I struggled with my baby’s latch, but I eventually figured it out and was so happy I could breastfeed.
11 Gisele Bundchen
is so beautiful. I was first introduced to her when she was interviewed for ‘The business of being born’. I thought what she had to say about natural birth was very inspiring. She h
Gisele Bundchen has 2 kids, Benjamin, 8, and Vivian, 5. She is also an advocate for breastfeeding. Gisele started some controversy in 2010 when she said "There should be a worldwide law, in my opinion, that mothers should breastfeed their babies for six months." She later wrote in her blog: “My intention in making a comment about the importance of breastfeeding has nothing to do with the law. It comes from my passion and beliefs about children.”
Now I am all in support of breastfeeding, but I also believe in choice. If a new mom can’t produce milk or doesn’t have the support or know how to breastfeed or a working mom who is too overworked and exhausted to breastfeed. There are so many circumstances that we can’t just sit here and say ‘by law everyone has to breastfeed for this long’. Yes we know the benefits but it is wrong to make someone do something like this. It’s a very personal choice. I know I chose to breastfeed my daughter for two years. It was very important to me. There were certainly times I wanted to quit. Making a law would have stressed me out and stress lowers milk supply.
I still love you Gisele but I’m not in complete agreement with that. New mothers need love and support for whatever they decide is best for them and their baby.
10 Pink
Pink is so fun. She has two kids, son Jameson, 1, and a daughter Willow, 6. I see her with her daughter in many images, and there is so much love and understanding. She truly allows her daughter to explore life and do what she feels is right. Pink is also an advocate for breastfeeding. In a tweet, she had this to say, “It’s time we support what’s healthy (breastfeeding) instead of judge it.”
I completely agree with Pink. I know so many moms who have been shamed for choosing how they choose to feed their baby. I’ve heard the ridiculous claim that women who breastfeed are perverts and pedophiles. I’ve heard people tell a nursing mother she is disgusting, because she chose not to cover her baby, while nursing. This kind of stuff makes me so mad, and it happens all the time. A new mom doesn’t need to be shamed or judged for how she feeds her baby. Let’s get on board with Pink and start supporting these moms.
9 Mila Kunis
Mila Kunis is seriously my favorite person ever, I just absolutely love her. She is in so many of my favorite movies, Bad Moms literally had me crying because I was laughing so hard. It is a real depiction of motherhood. Mila has two kids, Wyatt, 3, and Dimitri, 1. She is a breastfeeding advocate and had this to say in an interview with Vanity Fair:
“There were many times where I didn’t bring a cover with me, and so I just did it in a restaurant, in the subway, in the park, at airports, and in planes. Why did I do it in public? Because I had to feed my child. She’s hungry.” Mila thought it was crazy that people were so weird about breastfeeding adding: “It took us a little back because people actually looked at us in a shameful [way], and we were like, ‘Oh my God,’ because it’s so not a sexual act. If it’s not for you, don’t look.”
I love how strong this statement is. I completely agree with her. It really is very unfortunate that people think of breastfeeding as something sexual, because it absolutely is not. I have breastfed before and been in tears, it can be painful and extremely emotional.
8 Mayim Bialik
Mayim Bialik is so funny on The Big Bang Theory. She is also a mom to two sons, Miles, 12, and Fred, 9. Mayim has been highly criticized for her decision to extend breastfeeding her sons. Mayim had this to say in an interview with InTouch, “People laughed and sneered but it wasn’t wrong. Just because you do something your way doesn’t mean you can judge people who don’t. ... I don’t think I’m a better mom and my kids aren’t necessarily better off than yours.” Her son, Fred, self-weaned when he was four years old.
I love this. She isn’t judging other moms for not breastfeeding until their toddler was ready to self-wean. She is simply asking others not to judge her. She decided that’s what would be best for her kids. We should stop judging other moms. There is no need for it. It only makes the world a darker place.
7 Emily Blunt
Emily Blunt is so great, I love her. She has two little girls, Hazel, 4, and Violet, 2. Emily had a very interesting relationship with breastfeeding. She had an amazing milk supply but had some issues with engorgement. In an interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, she had this to say about her breastfeeding experience:
"I remember the morning the milk came in. It was like three in the morning, and John woke up to me—it was like something out of a horror movie—he said he just saw me creeping towards the bathroom...and he just saw my back, you know? And he goes, 'Oh my God, what's wrong?' And I went, 'It hurts.' And he goes, 'What?'.” She explains him seeing her engorged breasts “Two enormous, like, heads. Veiny heads. My boobs also thought I'd had 12 children. I could have been the wet nurse in medieval times. I could have fed the village while they all went to work. I found that, because I managed to produce a lot of milk, I don't know why, it helped me lose the weight,"
She is so funny and real. I had a similar situation. I had my milk come in and was so engorged, but unlike Emily, I didn’t lose weight. Instead, I gained a lot of weight.
6 Jenifer Garner
Jennifer Garner is the sweetest, most humble actress out there. She did a dramatic reading of the parent book ‘Go The F*** To Sleep.’ It had me rolling with laughter. She has three beautiful kids, Violet, 12, Seraphina, 9, and Samuel, 6. In an interview with Allure, she had this to say about her experience breastfeeding her oldest daughter, Violet:
"All I ever heard was everyone b**** about it—nobody ever said 'You are not going to believe how emotional this is. It's like I'll say I'm going to stop, and then I'm there feeding her."
I totally agree with her here. I know it is such an emotional bond. It is not always easy to go on, but it is not always easy to stop either. I know when I would think about having to wean my baby, I would get very emotional and start crying.
Jennifer also told Allure that she had some trouble losing the baby weight:
"It happened to a lot of my girlfriends and sisters, and I really thought, 'This is the ticket, the best diet in the world' and it just wasn't. I kept waiting, and I just didn't lose weight. It took six months before I did."
I had a similar experience I had such a hard time with weight. I just continued to gain weight. Nursing didn’t help me lose weight. Actually, it increased my appetite. I did lose a lot of weight while pregnant, so this could have just been my body going to back to what it was. But, it’s important to know that women have many different experiences.
5 Jana Kramer
Jana Kramer is known for her country music. She has one daughter, Jolie, 2. Motherhood came easily to her; she fell right into her role as a mom. But, when it came to breastfeeding, it never came. She had this to say about her experience with being a new mom and breastfeeding, in an interview with People:
"The second she came out and we got home, it was like, ‘Oh I got this!' The mom instinct just totally kicked in. [My milk] never came in. I had trouble with that...there's so much mommy shame about not breastfeeding."
Mommy shaming is so horrible. This mom literally couldn’t do anything about her milk not coming in. She did the best she could and was at least feeding her baby.
She did say that a bonus to formula feeding is that she gets more sleep. "I do the first-night feeding and Mike does the next one. We're sleeping probably like four to five hours. That's not bad."
She is so great and real. Not all moms’ can produce enough milk. I bet that Jana felt sad that she wasn’t able to have that experience at all even for a little while. But, she chooses to look on the positive; she gets to sleep more than a nursing mom.
4 Tori Spelling
Tori Spelling is known for her work on 90210, and as various characters on Seth Macfarlane’s Family Guy and American Dad. She has five kids, Liam, 11, Stella, 9, Hattie, 6, Finn, 5, and Beau, 1. On The Late Night Show With Jimmy Kimmel, Tori got real about her struggle to produce milk:
"It's been a little difficult, 'cause, I didn't know, but sometimes you don't produce. You'd think these things [motions to breasts] would produce an abundance of milk!"
I love that Tori is so real about it and even jokes about her breasts. I know that my mom struggled greatly with producing enough milk. The longest she was able to breastfeed was 6 months and, like Tori, my mom had 5 kids. She was only able to breastfeed three of us and only for a short amount of time.
3 Allison Holker
Allison Holker is mostly known for her work on Dancing with the Stars. She has two kids, Weslie, 9, and Maddoxx, 2. She made the decision to not breastfeed her son Maddoxx. In an interview with People, Allison had this to say:
“We have found our own path with our child, and honestly, the milestones he's hitting are right on target and he’s laughing and he’s giggling and he is rolling over. More than anything, he is a people person. He loves the attention, he loves people holding him,”
I love this too. She has made a decision for her baby that she thinks is the best thing for him. I am sure she received a lot of criticism over this. I’m sure that she was mom shamed for not breastfeeding her baby. But honestly, it is no one’s business to tell a new mom how she should feed her child. Formula or breast, it doesn’t matter, as long as you are feeding your baby. people As Disney’s Thumper says, “If you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all.”
2 Jillian Harris
Jillian Harris is known mostly for her work on Love it or List it Vancouver and the Bachelorette. She has one son, Leo, 1. Jillian and her husband made the decision to stop breastfeeding their son when he was five months old. They received a lot of criticism. She had this to say in an interview with Us:
"I didn’t want my baby to feel that anxiety… I was always stressed and I was always saying to Justin, ‘I have to pump, I have to pump. Nothing is coming out! I’ve got to go! Now I’m late! Now the baby is crying!’ It made life so much easier for us as a family. I still struggle with it. I have to hand it to moms who breastfeed for two years and have multiple kids.”
I love her, she is so funny. It is so stressful nursing and I, myself, hated pumping so I can’t imagine how working moms do it. I was very lucky and was able to be a stay-at-home mom who didn’t have to worry about pumping so much. We should be encouraging and supporting new moms.
1 Jenna Elfman
I think Jenna Elfman is one of the most underrated actresses. She is so funny and is in some of my favorite shows. I loved her in ‘Accidentally On Purpose,’ where she played a lady who became pregnant by a man 15 years younger than her. In reality, Jenna is a beautiful mom of two boys, Story, 10 and Easton, 8. In an interview with Celebrity Baby Scoop, she had this to say about her experiences with breastfeeding:
"There are familial barriers and institutional barriers [to breastfeeding]. In my prenatal classes, breastfeeding was talked about for five minutes. It was like, Hold your boob like this, and I didn't even know what she was talking about. And these were private lessons. My mom didn't breastfeed me. My generation was all formula-fed mothers. The first time I saw someone breastfeed I was 11 or 12. And I was like, Whoa. I thought it was awesome, and I wanted to do that. It felt so right to me."
References: www.celebritybabies.people.com, www.huffingtonpost.com, www.parenting.com, www.parents.com, www.celebritybabies.people.com, www.womenshealthmag.com, www.celebritybabies.people.com, www.huffingtonpost.com