Ashley Tisdale is getting candid about her difficulties breastfeeding. The 35-year-old actress welcomed her first child, daughter Jupiter, in March. Now, three months later, Tisdale details why she has decided to give her baby girl formula instead of breastmilk.
On her website, Frenshe, Tisdale begins by writing that she wishes someone would’ve told her how hard breastfeeding really was.
“You see your friends who are new moms feeding their babies make it look so easy. But no one tells you how hard it really is,” she writes. “I think there’s this pressure around the subject of breastfeeding and that those who do it are the best moms, but that’s not true. Our journey started on day one in the hospital when Jupiter was having trouble latching.”
From the get-go, Tisdale writes that she could tell her daughter was “frustrated,” noting, “This made me upset because I just wanted to have a good experience with feeding her for the first time.”
She then turned to pumping and wanted to give her daughter breast milk by the bottle. “Thankfully, she LOVED the bottle. That was the moment I realized that maybe breastfeeding isn’t meant for us,” she shares, adding that she never looked forward to pumping and told her husband, Christopher French, “I feel like we’re striving and not thriving with this breast milk situation.”
“I was determined to make it work, but all I truly cared about was Jupiter having a good experience with feeding and getting the best nutrition,” she explains, opting to switch to formula. “The thing about formula is that you still have that same special moment with your baby that you do with breastfeeding. You’re still looking into your baby’s eyes, whether it’s with your breast or a bottle.”
The former High School Musical star then details how she and French “did a ton of research on the important ingredients she needed to support her brain development and immune health.”
Tisdale previously revealed in another blog post about how she doesn’t “feel comfortable” with her post-baby body. In the post, she touched on comparing herself to other moms and not feeling happy in her own skin.
“There are so many models and influencers that I’ve compared my own personal journey in ‘bouncing back’ to,” Tisdale shared, noting that Instagram can be a major cause of these unhealthy comparisons. “And then, I’m like wait they just had a baby and they look like that??”
Amid it all, she’s been working hard on losing the weight and get back to her fitness routine. For more on Tisdale, see below.
