When my son Julian was born, I knew I was at risk for postpartum depression because I had PPD after the birth of my daughter Pippa. With some help from my psychiatrist, and a lot of soul searching and journaling, I came up with a plan to keep my mental health as strong as possible:

• Zoloft!
• A night nurse!
• AND NOT BREASTFEEDING!!!

Yes, you read that right: for the sake of my mental health, I decided to forego breastfeeding entirely.

I breastfed my daughter Pippa for four months. It sucked (pun intended). I did not make a lot of milk, so poor Pippa would breastfeed for an hour and still be cranky. Then after an hour’s reprieve, she was back at my boob. In the evening, she would cluster feed, which in this case, is a fancy way of saying “breastfeed nonstop for three hours.” I spent more than half the day breastfeeding, and then in the middle of the night, I would be up for over an hour at a time just to get her fed.

I pumped to build up my supply, but it did not work. My boobs are just not programmed to make a lot of milk. in another day and age, Pippa would have been fed by the village wet nurse.

The difficulties of breastfeeding made me feel trapped. How could I leave the house if I might have to spend an hour with Pippa latched to my boob? What was I supposed to do if she got hungry at Target? Just sit down in the middle of an aisle for an hour??

When I was pregnant, I encountered numerous breastfeeding experts: a doula who taught a prenatal yoga class; another doula who taught a class on breastfeeding at our hospital; the authors of breastfeeding books that I read; and friends who had breastfed their babies. The message from all these experts was universal: Breast is Best! Breast is Best! Breast is Best!

Spoiler alert: just because something rhymes does not mean it is true.

But back in 2013, during the four months that I breastfed Pippa, I truly believed that in order to be a good mom, I had to exclusively breastfeed my baby on demand. This created a toxic belief that I had to prove my love for my daughter by sacrificing everything for her.

The more I think back on my experiences with postpartum depression and breastfeeding, the more I think that all that bullshit about “breast is best” laid the foundation for my mental health crisis.

Because here’s the thing: a healthy and happy mama, and a loved and fed baby, is best.

For some, this does mean exclusive breastfeeding. But for others, it means some breastfeeding and some bottles; and for still others, it means fuck breastfeeding, this baby likes bottles and formula.

After four months of breastfeeding Pippa, I was hospitalized in a psychiatric unit for four days. I started taking Zoloft and Mirtazipane and attending therapy. Every day, I started to feel a little better — except when I had to pump. Whenever I pumped, I felt anxious. Anxious that I was only able to eek out a tablespoon of milk at a time (how could that be enough for my baby?) and anxious that I had to keep doing this thing that did not feel right for me.

I can say that now: breastfeeding did not feel right for me.

But I hated even thinking that in 2013 because I thought it meant I was a terrible mom and therefore an evil human being.

Sometimes, when I think about the pressure to breastfeed, I wonder: what ever happened to feminism? To a woman’s right to be in charge of her body? Is there some breastfeeding exclusion that I missed?

When I was discharged from the psych unit and reunited with my baby, I tried to breastfeed her. She did this half-heartedly for a minute and then refused. Even though she was hungry, she went on breastfeeding strike for several hours until I realized something important: mother does not always know best. In this case, my four month old baby knew better. She knew that breastfeeding was not working for us. She preferred the milkshakes in bottles, thank you very much. At first, I was heartbroken but then I realized bottles and formula really were better for us. My daughter was happier, and I felt more connected to her as I fed her bottles, and gazed into both her eyes, than I ever did when her face was mashed against my boobs.

Pippa is healthy and exuberant, beautiful and brilliant. I don’t care what any expert thinks. For us, bottle and formula were indeed best.

So when 2015 rolled around, and I was pregnant with my son Julian, I knew immediately that he would be a bottle baby. After my c-section, a nurse urged me to breastfeed him.

“We just need a bottle, please,” I said. “I’m not breastfeeding him.”

“But don’t you want to give him the benefits of colustrum?” the nurse pleaded.

There were a hundred reasons I could give the nurse for my decision to skip breastfeeding entirely. But what did her opinion matter? I did not need her approval to do what was best for me and my family.

So instead of telling her the story of a mom who felt destroyed by breastfeeding, I smiled and said, “We just need a bottle, please.”

If you are interested in learning more about my postpartum adventures, check out my memoir, Adventures with Postpartum Depression!