Feeling guilty

[jofeb04]

Hiya,
I know theres been plenty of subjects on this, but im feeling really guilty about bottlefeeding my 10day old dd.
We had an awful labour, and once she was born, she had to be fed within our hour for medical reasons. Due to the labour, i was in tremendous shock, so my dh fed her a bottle.
Since then, shes always been on a bottle. She eats her feed really well, and dh is obviously glad that he can help me.
I know i shouldnt let it get to me, but i do feel guilty about not trying breastfeeding etc, escpecially as before she was born, i was on here asking for advice about it all!
My DH is really good, and he knows im feeling awful about it all, and as he says, who cares how shes fed, as long as she is, especially as the way labour went, we could be talking about it in totally different ways.
My DS was bottle fed from a very young age, again because of medical reasons through the labour, and theres nothing wrong with him at all!!!

[KBear]

Relax, please don't feel guilty, you had a tough time and your baby is fed and thriving and as your DH says that is the important thing. I know nothing but is it too late to try - surely your milk is still there after 10 days. Ask for some help from the HV. Someone on here might be able to help but please, don't waste precious time on guilt when you could be cooing over your new baby and feeling proud of what you've done.

[Laurasmum]

There is no need to feel guilty about bottles, something I would never have thought I would say while I was pregnant but the most important thing you can do is love you child with all you heart, guilt gets in the way of that.
However I did have a similar problem and I expressed my milk for a while after I could no longer breastfeed. If you still have some milk you can increase your supply by expressing and try breastfeeding or just give your expressed milk to you baby in a bottle. I expressed three times a day and froze it in Lansinoh bags. I then defrosted one 4oz bag a day and gave it to her once daily and formula the rest of the time. My frozen milk lasted for 2 months. It eased my feeling of guilt and helped me feel I was doing everything I could for my baby. She is now exclusively formula fed and my guilt has gone completely as she is such a happy healthy baby and thriving on formula.

[Katemum]

Your hormones will be all over the place at the moment so us lot telling you not to feel guilty is probably not going to change a lot - but - DONT FEEL GUILTY!

[auntymandy]

Dont feel guilty. You did the best thing for your baby at the time. what was the alternative?
Try breast feed now if you want to. But DONT feel guilty! No need!

[saadia]

Please don't feel guilty, just try to enjoy this time with your dd as it will pass all too quickly.

[blossom2]

PLEASE PLEASE dont feel guilty about this jofeb4. it really isnt worth the hassle and stress. my DD1 was bottlefed and she is absolutely fine - listen to your DH.
there are loads of benefits to bottlefeeding and life is too short (far too short).

DD1 was bottlefed, because i found BF too painful, DD2 is BF but had a bottle of formula from 3 weeks. at 12 weeks she has just started to reject bottle and i'm thinking of weaning her off breast very soon.

hope you begin to feel better soon.

[arlynab]

Everyone is right. You shouldn't feel guilty about your decision. In my case although I did not have a difficult c-section, my babies (twins) were given formula by the nurses while I was bedridden for a couple days. Expressed some milk and asked the nurses to help me give it to them, too.

After 4 days at the hospital with no success at bf, I ended up expressing and gave my ebm in a bottle. The fifth day when we got home, I tried once again to bf. And so far have no problem bf though I have also given ebm as well as a the 1-bottle-of-formula-a-day. So far I've had no problem with the babies only wanting to be breastfed or just bottle. The reason why I am doing both is so my dh can be part of the whole experience of feeding the babies plus in case both wants feeding at the same time (in which case I can only handle one baby at a time).

[bobbybob]

You have 2 choices - relactate or continue to bottlefeed.

But you main choice is to stop feeling guilty. It's not helping you.

So make your choice and let the guilt go.

[Poochuk]

I felt guilty too, as I couldn't get my son ( now 8 weeks) to latch on . There is so much emphasis throughout our pregnancy on breastfeeding and at no point does anyone say that - 'breastfeeding can be hard or sometimes medically difficult, so bottlefeeding will be fine too.' As a result of which when new mums can't breastfeed there is a whole lot of guilt added to the difficult post-natal days already.

Jofeb04, the way I overcame the guilt was to express my milk and bottlefeed. It was at a huge emotional cost, I must have cried everyday for the first month. But I also gave a formula feed.

You will need to express 3-4 hourly for the first few weeks if you decide to go down this route but then after say about 3 weeks once the milk supply is established you can set up a routine of how much you want to/can express and how much formula to give.

Meanwhile, if you decide not to express, that is absolutely fine too. Your daughter will respond more to a loving and caring environment than the method of feeding.

[Hazellnut]

Don't feel guilty - I too had similar problems, traumatic-ish birth and dd was low birth weight so needed feeding quickly. She wouldn't latch on so she had formula. She never got the hang of latching on so I too expressed to varying degrees of success for about 7 weeks until my milk dried up. I remember feeling guilty round about this stage. At dd's 6 week check I was asked how I was feeding and I told the doc I was feeling guilty and she said 'its generally best to breastfeed but in life we always have to make compromises and if this is how you/she can feed then its the best thing for everyone. its better than her not feeding !'. She said it a bit more eloquently than that but I decided then there was no point feeling guilty and looking at dd now (9 months) I can see there was no reason whatsoever for feeling guilty.

[GillL]

jofeb04 - I've been bottlefeeding dd since she was 10 days old and I felt exactly the same. I didn't bottlefeed for the same reasons but I agonised over the decision for a couple of days before giving up b/f. Believe me - it'll pass, and as you say, your ds was bottle fed and he's fine. My dd is thriving on formula and she's very happy and very loved. I still get guilt pangs every so often but I know that I would have been no use to her if I'd carried on the way I was i.e. feeling feint, constantly crying.