How to get over not breastfeeding

[Dovetale]

My baby is 6 months old, she is bottle fed. I intended to breastfeed but we had a lot of problems which can be summarised as she wouldn't latch and I couldn't express.

I still can't get over it. I give myself a hard time about it every day and it is clouding my enjoyment of these early months. If anyone felt similarly and has moved on can you tell me what helped you.

[mummytopoppy1]

i felt similarly when breast feeding didn't work out for me and my daughter. I got over it when i realised she is healthy, thriving and happy on formula milk. I also give her every ounce of my love, care and attention and meet her every need - to me this is more important than what type of milk she drinks and helped me to move on knowing I do my best at all times. Your baby doesn't mind what she drinkss- as long as she us fed and loved

[CalpolInMyEar]

Hello. I felt the same. My DS either screamed until I felt my brain vibrate or latched but wouldn't suck, and expressing got only an ounce of milk at a time until two weeks when my supply went completely. DS spent time in SCBU with low blood sugar and had repeated blood tests to make sure it was improving and he was taking in enough oxygen.

I gave myself a very hard time, I felt guilty and like the worst mother in the world.

Then I spoke to one of the breastfeeding peer supporters at my local hospital. My DS was about ten months old at the time, and I happened to meet her at a toddler group. She told me that formula isn't poison, it is the best alternative to breast milk, and that she had met women in my situation and seen first hand a baby that would not feed and been
stumped as to how to improve the situation.

[stargirl1701]

I felt the same.

I found it helped to read, and read, and read lots about bf so I could understand what happened. I also realised that it wasn't my failure. We weren't supported by the NHS.

I'm more prepared for next time if we have another baby. I will hire a lactation consultant.

It still hurts when I see a bf baby.

[CalpolInMyEar]

Sorry, posted too soon.

Knowing I wasn't alone really helped, as did watching my son grow and thrive. I feel it also helped me get over other obstacles in our way (we had to wean early on medical advice, he took a long time to eat well, sometimes we still struggle to get him to eat and he's now approaching two)

He's now a funny, bouncy, gentle and kind toddler who has hit every milestone and on a good day will eat like a horse. I reckon I did a pretty good job really.

[xTillyx]

Sorry you feel like this, I think you're being really hard on yourself. I tried to breast feed but after a few days DD was admitted to hospital with dehydration and jaundice. The lovely nurse there told me she fully intended to breast feed her own baby but if she couldn't she knows she'd still have a happy healthy baby.

There are some lovely midwives and I think the breast feeding support volunteers are great, but when I had my DD I was very much bullied into continuing to breast feed, then ended up with a poorly baby. I wouldn't give bottle feeding a second thought if happened to me again because seeing my DD like that was awful x

[HerrenaHarridan]

In therapy days of breastfeeding I remember feeling like my whole success as a mother was registered here. If I could do it I was a good mother, if I couldn't I was a bad mother.

It's not true it's really not. Parenting is about so much more that this.

Forgive yourself, you have done the best for _your_child

[HerrenaHarridan]

Therapy = the early

[Squigglypig]

You did your best. I tried and tried for 4 months and in the end I went to see a Consultant who told me that if my daughter's weight carried on as it was she'd be admitting her to hospital with a drip in a month. I'd been to see everyone, lactation consultants etc who'd all told me latch was fine and not to give up. I had driven myself crazy reading articles and breastfeeding websites and wondering what was wrong with me. The Consultant also told me that if you breastfeed for a month then that is pretty much all the antibodies a baby needs to have and anything after that is a bonus but not that necessary. She just said ultimately your baby just needs calories and formula is fine. My now toddler took to the bottle and fed and fed and caught up in no time. She's incredibly bright, active and actually rather tall for her age. She's hardly ever ill.

Breastfeeding is a way of feeding your child and so is bottle feeding - that is all. It has no bearing on your mothering skills nor will it affect your child.

[lauren6283]

I am a mum to be and I plan on breast feeding but am not too worried if I can't because I don't think it matters as much as we are led to believe.
Thing is, if you struggled your baby would have been starving and probably screaming the house down, I can't imagine many new mothers could put up with that for long, especially when perfectly good milk is available in the shops.
You don't see murderers or rapists on trial saying, "Well, Judge, my Mum didn't breast feed". You are doing the best you can. Try to remind yourself of that :-)

[stowsettler]

I feel a bit like this sometimes. I bf for just 4 weeks and gave up because we just couldn't get a latch which wasn't mortal agony for me, and where DD didn't keep slipping off every minute or so. DD took to the bottle wonderfully and is a huge eater (now 17 weeks) and FF certainly hasn't hindered either her mental or physical development so far.
I am much, much happier FF than I was BF and I am sometimes incandescent with rage at the passive pressure I felt from HVs to continue BF, but with very little help to actually do so. But I still feel sad about it. She is likely to be my only child so I'm probably never going to get the chance again.
Intellectually I know that it doesn't really make much difference in the long run. Emotionally I'm sad about it.

[Dovetale]

Thank you all for your kind words. I'm going to come back and reread them whenever I am giving myself a hard time. I guess I thought I had prepared myself (been to NCT read The Food of Love) but I hadn't.

One thing which is still bugging me is if my milk ever came in. I wonder if anyone can offer their opinion. NCT told me that on day 3 or 4 my milk would come in and that my breasts would be full and painful.

My understanding of this was that it was the placenta detaching that caused a rise in progesterone and it would happen whether you were breastfeeding or not. That never happened to me, I had one night where they were a bit warm but that was it.

My baby was small and had low blood sugar at birth. They put the baby on a 3 hourly feeding schedule of putting to the breast and then topping up with formula. What would typically happen is that she would have a couple of sucks at the breast and then stop (cue blowing in her face, tickling her feet, stripping her off to wake her up but it didn't help)

Because my baby wouldn't latch (maybe because she preferred the bottle?) I was advised in the hospital to use a breast pump which I did on their pump but never got a drop out. On my last day in hospital I went to the baby cafe and they told me to hand express, so when I came home I was hand expressing and then using my Avent pump after each session. On day 7 the most I could hand express was 3mm from both breasts.

So my question is did my milk come in but I just couldn't get any out with the pump and if my baby had latched on and fed properly she would have gotten a proper feed? Or did I have nothing to give her and that is why after a few days of this she would struggle and cry when I tried to put her to the breast?

[Dovetale]

thats 3ml not mm!

[HerrenaHarridan]

I had no symptoms when my milk came in either. I was never really a leaker and worried endlessly there wasn't enough (slow growth etc)

Some people just can't express. I struggled on and on never getting more than 5ml combined for 3 weeks then one day suddenly there was 20ml and it gradually started to increase.
The pump does not stimulate your milk production as well as the baby.

From your last post I would attribute the distress on being placed at the breast to the stress and pressure placed on you.

Stress is a major inhibitor to milk production (handy eh )

Your dc being topped up with formula will have been a factor in slowing down your production but it was deemed necessary and was therefor best for your baby.

Bfing doesn't always work out. You tried everything you knew to try.

What more could you reasonably expect from yourself?

[SavoyCabbage]

My milk didn't come in and I didn't managed to feed dd a drop.

I was devastated. I felt like I had utterly failed her.

My mam told me to get a hold of myself as this was only one of many many things I would do for dd. It just feels like everything at the time. There's teaching them to tell the time, learning their lines for the school play and driving them to swimMing lessons every week for years till they can swim if they fall off a boat to go yet.

[HerrenaHarridan]

I had no symptoms when my milk came in either. I was never really a leaker and worried endlessly there wasn't enough (slow growth etc)

Some people just can't express. I struggled on and on never getting more than 5ml combined for 3 weeks then one day suddenly there was 20ml and it gradually started to increase.
The pump does not stimulate your milk production as well as the baby.

From your last post I would attribute the distress on being placed at the breast to the stress and pressure placed on you.

Stress is a major inhibitor to milk production (handy eh )

Your dc being topped up with formula will have been a factor in slowing down your production but it was deemed necessary and was therefor best for your baby.

Bfing doesn't always work out. You tried everything you knew to try.

What more could you reasonably expect from yourself?

[CareerGirl01]

Dear Dove I felt bad for years because I didn't bf DD1 - I was ill after having her and my milk never came in. I am bf feeding DD2 - but she is a different baby and I'm five years older as well as being 43!. DD1 is healthy happy and about to start school . You did your best and that is ALL you can do.

[noblegiraffe]

Colostrum is yellow and thick, milk is, well, milk. When you expressed 3 ml, if it looked like milk, then your milk came in, as in, your body started making milk.

If no milk was then removed from the breast, by expressing it or by baby drinking it, then it may have dried up, as presumably it does for mothers who ff from birth (I'm guessing, I have no experience of this).

[GiveMumABreak]

I'm sure you feel cheated, but you are the best mum your DD could ever hope for - and she wouldn't change a thing! Trust me! A calm and guilt free mum is much more useful to her than one who feels guilty / sad. Formula milk is fantastic these days, and bottle feeding can be a wonderfully special and close time for the two of you!

[HandMini]

You're feeding your baby.

Your baby loves you. You are her whole world.

In six months time, she'll be shovelling down a fish finger and you'll be taking a photo!

She will not remember not being breastfed.

Formula milk is safe, nutritious and will make your baby healthy and strong.

[noblegiraffe]

If your baby wouldn't latch and you couldn't express (I can't express either) then what were you supposed to do? It's horrible to have had that decision about whether to bfeed or formula feed taken away from you, but you had no choice, your baby needs to eat.

I've read on here about other babies that refuse to latch and the mums end up expressing for months, but you had a double whammy of problems, events conspired against you. As there was nothing you could do about it you really shouldn't beat yourself up about it.

My DS got group B strep after birth, ended up with horrible medical interventions and in hospital on antibiotics for a week. I had it, and I gave it to him, and he was poorly. That was events conspiring against us too, we met none of the risk factors and he was a c-section so it was very unusual.
But no one has suggested that it was my fault. I certainly don't blame myself, that would be ludicrous. With hindsight, I could have been tested in pregnancy, but I wasn't, and that wasn't my fault, I didn't ignore medical advice or do anything differently to lots of other women, just as you didn't. These things happen. What matters is that he is happy and healthy. In my case, because of what was going on in my body, DS got antibiotics and medical treatment, in yours, your baby got formula. Not what we'd hoped for, but that's how it goes.

[jaggythistle]

Also every 3 hours isn't often for a newborn, especially if giving big top ups. Agree that it would not have helped supply at all for you.

[Startail]

The glip answer is you have another baby.

It's the honest answer too.

From the first time I held DD2 to my breast it was just obvious she knew what to do. She found breast feeding the most natural thing on earth. DD1 found bottles far nicer. I don't think I ever had much choice my DDs choose how they wanted to be fed themselves.

As your DD gets older you will realise parenting is often far more about being organised by her than being in control.