Chrissy Teigen Shares Support to ‘Normalize Formula’ After Personal Admission of ‘Shame’

Chrissy Teigen shared a long Twitter thread Sunday morning in an effort to normalize baby formula because she felt “way more shame” when she struggled with breastfeeding. Teigen, 34, said the barrage of comments from social media users who said breastfeeding was the best option for her children only added to the stress. The Cravings author and her husband, singer John Legend, are parents to daughter Luna, 4, and son Miles, 2.

“OK I’m gonna say something and you all are definitely gonna make it a thing but here goes: normalize formula,” Teigen began Sunday. She called normalizing breastfeeding a “huge, wonderful thing,” but it comes with a drawback. “I absolutely felt way more shame having to use formula because of lack of milk from depression and whatnot,” she explained. “People have surrogates, people have trouble breastfeeding, and all you hear as a new, anxious mom is how breast is best.” Normalizing formula is “great too,” Teigen wrote, noting that a baby will be “BEAUTIFUL, PERFECT, AND OKAY” if a mother uses formula.

Teigen then detailed her struggles with breastfeeding. She was “pumping my ASS OFF, highest mode, so often, because I didn’t trust milk was going into their mouths if I breastfed. it drove me mad to the point I could only get an ounce. An ounce!” That stress, combined “with the guilt” that she could not do “nature’s most natural thing for your own baby” was “too much,” she revealed. “I dunno why this is my crusade now. I just remember the sadness I felt and want you to know you are doing it right if your baby is fed, mama,” she wrote.

Many of Teigen’s followers praised her for opening up with her crusade. “Amen sister,” actress Olivia Wilde wrote. “Normalize people minding their own damn business!” one fan added. “I say we take it a step further and try to normalize not giving a f— about what other people want to do with their lives as long as it’s not hurting anyone else,” one fan wrote. “truly, IN EVERY ASPECT,” Teigen replied. “‘Normalize minding your fucking business as long as it is not hurting anyone else’ needs to be a t-shirt lol.”

Teigen also opened up about her “grief depression” last week, following her miscarriage in September. Teigen suffered several pregnancy complications and was hospitalized before she told fans on Sept. 30 that they lost their third child, whom they named Jack. “I’m not tweeting much because I’m honestly in a bit of a grief depression hole but do not worry as I have so much help around me to get better and I’ll be fixed soon,” Teigen wrote on Nov. 25. “They’ll call when I’m better and ready for pickup and u can swing by and grab me ok? thank u and love you!”

Teigen reflected on the last “brutal, exhausting, sad, physically challenging, mentally painful b—es of a couple months” in an Instagram message on Nov. 27. “I already see the leaves as orange instead of grey, realized the sky is indeed blue and not black and horn honks on my forced morning walks only bring me to my knees half the time,” she wrote. “I can make it up my stairs only stopping once or twice instead of every other, and can get out of the bathtub all by myself as long as I have the promise John will dry me off.”