Mother-in-law wants me to formula feed and let her feed my baby

Tell her it’s the best for the baby , it’s your decision and that’s it . Set your boundaries now or you will regret it later

And what age group is this?
I am 65 and I and most of my peers breastfed.

I wonder if this is more to do with education culture or class?

My late MIL also breastfed (she would be 95 if she was still alive).

Yeah I massively agree with you. I found all the bottle comments came from a certain age group. Mother, MIL, aunt etc. They seem to assume the natural normal way babies all ought to be fed is bottles. Boobs make them confused and awkward as they are ‘for your husband’

and all the normality of breastfeeding from my mum peers.

Wow that’s awful. For what it’s worth, I absolutely loved breastfeeding so much. It was one of my favourite parts of having a newborn, if someone had taken that away from me it would have really upset me

OFFS!
That generation - and I'm at the front of that- breast fed! Most of my friends did. One of my friends was at the forefront of feeding whenever the baby needed it and wherever she was! (bearing in mind there were no baby rooms so many used the loo ) And to hell with anyone who didn't like it
And with my DDs and DiL - one bottle fed, two B/F

You just know a lot of people who didn't

Maybe it's a class thing? (See how judgemental that is?)

So stop with the generalisations and ageism

I could have written this. My MIL even went as far as to send a bottle steriliser in the post. She bought a cot and created a nursery in HER house and I was just undermined from the get go. It was very stressful and I stuck to my guns and breastfed exclusively and kept her at arms length tbh, bc I felt she would try and take over. During my 2nd pregnancy she told my BIL that she was attending the birth. I only found out about that bc he said to me one day "it'll be easier for you this time bc Mum will be there..." WTF.
I had to put my foot down and just told her she wasn't coming to the birth and can't invite herself.
Please draw the boundaries now. And maintain them with your OH. No compromises.

The main reason people don’t breastfeed is misinformation.

you don’t have to feed a baby to bond with it.

introducing a bottle too soon can lead to bottle preference, and affect establishing a supply.
pumping is 3x the work. It doesn’t help to increase supply as much as breastfeeding does. Psychologically it can be detrimental as many women can’t express leading them to think they have no milk. To keep up supply if you bottle feed you should pump at the same time to maintain supply, you might as well just feed. No point someone else feeding while you faff round pumping- 2 people to do one persons job.

night feeds release hormones that increase supply. Many people express or give bottles at night, this can affect supply detrimentally. Stick with night feeding and ask your “helpful” person to watch the baby another time so you can catch up on sleep. A night feed is often wake feed sleep- a night bottle is much more faff, you wake anyway, and now you’re missing a vital night feed which increases supply.

you don’t have to introduce a bottle. Combi feeding ime is twice the work, and can mean you affect your supply. My second I told everyone to fuck off with the “advice” about needing to give bottles or it would be too hard for me, I’d never be able to leave them etc. utter bollocks. We were properly in the swing by 3 months so I could take short breaks, by 6 they were weaning and I could leave them for longer periods and feed when I got back. 7 months I went back to work, nursery gave solids and cup drinks, I fed around that. Much, much easier.

oh and my top tip- and that of my HV, you don’t have to get them weighed. If all markers are normal and you have no concerns, weeing, pooing, sleeping well etc then don’t bother. It’s just an extra level of stress as most hcp are used to formula weight gain and start advising top ups, pumping, strict regimes etc to keep up with ff weight gain instead of just feeding as much as possible.

bf is all on you, and people will frame it as only doing it to help. It doesn’t.

Compromise is key here- let her change the nappies😆

You are not being unreasonable and need to put those expectations in place now. What you can say though is "there will be plenty of time to feed the baby once ive established my milk and can start pumping but that wont be until a couple of months. However once i am pumping of course you can feed the baby, but we don't plan to use formula" Few things I will say though, no one can ever take your place as mother so try not to feel like that its a common thought most of us have myself included with my first. BF is also very intense, it feels like they are on you 24/7 those first few months and its all on you until you can pump and dad can help out with a feed or 2. What i did was say to myself im gonna BF the first week, then when i got to that goal and things were OK and we were both happy i set a new smaller goal so that if things didnt go to plan i wouldnt feel shit about myself. There's absolutely no shame in formula feeding your baby either if it doesnt go to plan but hopefully it will. My first was BF and my 2nd wouldn't latch for 10 days so I pumped but by the time he would latch he wouldn't wait on the slower flow of breast then my milk dried up quicker than expected and there is absolutely no difference between them physically or from a development point of view. My BF baby has also had an ear infection long after, my formula fed baby hasn't which is something I was told BF would prevent in later years so be kind to yourself. None of my family BF either and any issue with my first everyone kept suggesting it could be my milk but a good guide/ reply to those suggestions is their nappies. If they are doing plenty of wet and poos every other day your milk is totally fine. Best of luck with your new baba. Enjoy every minute as it goes depressingly quickly.

This also helped me bond with the child.

There are many, many ways to bond with a child, and feeding is a poor excuse to prevent a woman from breastfeeding.

Tell her you plan to EBF unless theres a medical reason not to, but thank her for asking (!)
You need to get the balance right between thanks but no thanks....and if I need you I'll ask.
Dont burn your bridges yet..if you cant breast feed for some reason, or chose to move to mixed feeding later then having someone who is happy to help out could be a godsend.

From labour to breastfeeding your plans can always change and you will always need people around you. Could you find her a 'job' to do instead to make her feel.involved ?

Having had a laid back MIL and one who was a PITA , guess which one I needed, in the end ? ( yes I had 2 as well as my own dear mum)

You aren't being unreasonable however. You need to be open to the idea of both boob and bottle. My 1st was prem and my wife had to express so ds could feed will she slept. This also helped me bond with the child. The sooner the bottle is introduced it will be easier in the long run. Just remember normally there are reasons why people don't breast feed and it's not normally laziness.

How disgustingly selfish of your MIL!! There are so many other ways of bonding with a baby (cuddles, going for a walk, nappy changes, reading stories and singing etc). She has had her time as a parent and needs to step back. How you feed your baby is your choice as a parent!!

Plus, why does she specifically state 'formula' - breastmilk can be expressed (and many mothers do express milk to feed their babies.)

No wonder the breastfeeding rates in the UK are the lowest in the world with attitudes like this!!

Stick to youth guns!

I'm guessing that your mil didn't breastfeed and is jealous of you. It can be highly emotive. When I had my first dd we stayed in hospital for the first five days. You were "allowed" to feed your baby for one minute each side every four hours on the first day, three minutes the second day and so on till you got to ten minutes each side every four hours. Can you imagine? A recipe for disaster. My mother said that I clearly couldn't make enough milk and, like her, would have to supplement with the bottle. Fortunately dd1 refused the bottle, I threw out the clock and the bottle and we found our own way. Both dds were completely breastfed, but my mother felt jealous that I had ignored her advice and done it.
You also have to find your own way. When your baby cries, snuggle up with a cuppa, some music and take your time. No-one else can do that for you, but they can help by giving you space and cups of tea. Gently tell your mil that, but please be aware that she is being difficult about this because her own feelings may come from problems she had with breastfeeding, and an underlying sense of failure. Let her be a success at supporting you.

I felt even more determined to breast feed, when I was presented with similar conditions. I hope that it all works out well for you and that you’re able to exclusively breast feed, as you desire. I have two children now and I think that it’s also important to remember that as you mention, there are occasions where it doesn’t work. Tongue tie, low milk supply, or a host of other reasons. The reason I mention this is that you may not want to simply refuse on the (very fair) grounds that you’re going to EBF, but even if you do need to give your baby formula milk, you’ll do it. My thinking is that no matter what, you’ll probably want to feed your baby?

my cousin was told to give her son a formula bottle and not breast feed, so to allow the paternal grandparents to feed the baby. Their reasoning was that they wanted to bond with the son of their only son, and also that when my cousin returned to work, they’d be caring for him. My cousin lived with her in laws at the time, she obliged. She’s now divorced, due to their coercive behaviour overall.

Mine was the opposite, I didn't plan to breastfeed, mil was mortified that I was going to formula feed my baby even though I needed to go back on medication that passed through breast milk. I was very firm from the off, my baby my rules, my way. For the first months, I got the odd comment or she disagreed with me when I said DD was tired but she soon stopped when I told her very bluntly to stop it and accept my way. We get on fairly well now. Nip it in the bud now, before it gets worse..

Inthis case - Yes.

Is kind another word for pushover?

No.

those of us in our 50’s were still having children 10-20 years ago. My youngest is 15. Breastfeeding was very much pushed as “best”.

it’s mostly cultural and lack of understanding. It started longer ago than you think. My mum’s generation having babies in the early 70’s were told formula was scientifically superior, cleaner, more hygenic, you could monitor and control how much the baby had. No doubt pushed by heavy marketing.

as a result we lost our cultural experience of breastfeeding. Most people only have experience of formula- breastfeeding is a different beast and much more organic, feeding on demand, cluster feeding, frequent feeding. Bottle feeders see this and think there’s something wrong, that the baby isn’t getting enough, or is “starving”.

then there’s the whole attitude around people wanting to “help” by feeding the baby. Then getting pissed off when they aren’t “allowed”. Whinging that if you’re tired you should let others bottle feed to give you a break etc.

i also think the push for people to breastfeed over the last 20 years or so has been detrimental. No one feels able to just say “I didn’t want to” without being judged. So you get long tales about how the baby wouldn’t sleep through, cluster fed, or other normal behaviour meaning there was not enough milk. New mums listen, realise their baby is the same, and think it means they’re starving their baby too.

most people in this country give up bf by 6 weeks. I’d say a lot give up because the generational knowledge is no longer there. I still hear people talking about rusks and weetabix in bottles because their mum or aunt has told them it will help with sleeping or frequent feeding or some such. even HCP’s go to is formula top ups for any issue, or complicated regimes of expressing and feeding, when the best way to increase supply is to just feed more.

i always say if you want to bf do. Feed, feed, and feed and much as possible. Expressing is a pita so avoid if you can. If it’s too hard, or you don’t like it, or you just don’t want to, then have no shame in switching to bottles. The more complicated you make it the harder it is and the less chance it will work.

Another one that agrees it’s just you. Take your ageist bullshit elsewhere . I breast fed and my dil conclusively breast feeds and it’s never once entered my head why she isn’t bottle feeding . Don’t be so ignorant.

It's you. I'm in my early 60s and I breastfed all three of mine, first two for a year each, third for 22 months. I was breastfeeding until I was coming 43. Sister in her 50s also breastfed, as did my friends of a similar age, and my cousin.

So you can take your ageist bull and shove it.

52 and was bf at 43/44....

Yes it's you. You can do one with your ageist comment!

I'm 65 and breastfed DD.

Is it me or is that generation (aged 50s-70s) obsessed with formula feeding? I felt like everyone kept saying it to me when I had a baby last year and they couldn't understand why I breastfed. In comparison everyone at the nct class breastfed. Is it a generation thing? A class thing?

No no no no no and again no! Cheeky bloody MIL .