Eva Amurri is focusing on what works best for her family.
The actress and lifestyle blogger opened up in a Tuesday post on her website, Happily Eva After, about how she has begun "slowly but surely weaning" her son Mateo Antoni, who turns 3 months old on Saturday, off of breastfeeding "and transitioning him to formula."
"The decision to wean is super personal for every woman and can come with a lot of emotion — especially because each woman's decision to wean can be tied to feelings of really deep-rooted frustration, shame, sadness, relief or pressure," writes Amurri, 35. "There is no right way to feed a baby, in my opinion, and it's taken three kids for me to solidly feel the right to that opinion."
The new mother of three — who also shares son Major James, 3½, and Marlowe Mae, 5½, with ex-husband Kyle Martino — recalls weaning Marlowe at 4 months old (during which she "felt guilty every step of the way") and Major as a "result of a mental-health crisis I was having at the time."
"I wish I had felt more of a right to my feelings and opinions as a first-time mom," Amurri says. "I wish I could go back to that 29-year-old woman and tell her, 'Listen, honey. You need to do what you need to do. You need to be strong and happy to make your child strong and happy!' "
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The Saved! actress says that when she decided to have another baby, "I promised myself that I would breastfeed only for as long as it felt good and positive to do so. I wouldn't force it, I wouldn't cry over it, dread it or curse it. I would breastfeed as a beautiful experience with my child, and then when it felt good to me, I would wean him."
"While I have had an overwhelmingly positive experience breastfeeding this time (and really developed a nice routine!) I've realized that what it's taking out of me emotionally and physically is leaving me more depleted than I'd like as a working, single mama to two other kids," she adds.
Luckily for Amurri, she has "tons of breast milk in the freezer" to help with the transition, "and I plan to feed Mateo from that stash for a while as I slowly start to reduce feeds from my breast."
"He has already started taking some bottles as I begin that process, and that is going well thankfully!" she writes.
Amurri shares that her plan to wean her son "is to cut down one feed or pump every 4-5 days," which "allows my body to adjust naturally." Mateo has not had formula just yet, though, "because in my experience, once the baby tastes the formula, they do not go back to drinking the breast milk."
And despite getting "pretty emotional" over starting the weaning process, the star knows her bond with baby Mateo "is written in the stars, and not as a result of how I feed him."
"I get a little teary-eyed at night these days, feeding him at bedtime from my breast and knowing that the days of feeling the sensation of him latching on me are numbered," Amurri says. "But I also feel really empowered — that I now know myself well enough as a mom to know how I can be the best mom possible to ALL three of my kids, and the best ally to myself and my own mental health. I'm looking forward to feeding my son from a bottle with love, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he will be just as 'fine' as my other kids were."
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