To feel rubbish about this - breastfeeding groups

It’s no more or less insensitive than people asking new mums when you’re ttc a second even when you know they had ivf. Or cliquing off into groups.

And it would also be bizarre to give attendees at a baby group certificates and require a round of applause for doing any of those.

In the UK most mums don’t even try to breastfeed. The people who try and fail are rarer than hen’s teeth - we just think there are more of them as they’re more likely to create threads like this. Similarly women who are infertile like me are rarer than women who aren’t but we’re more likely to seek support and so are ‘louder’.

Nobody with an age in double figures needs a public ceremony and a certificate for doing something that is very ordinary, though by no means universal.

All must have prizes.

Or none must have prizes.

I say yabu get over it. DS had severe tongue tie and I felt like I was breastfeeding a crocodile until it was snipped at 12 weeks - my nipples were shredded but I still continued. If I could get a certificate for that I’d have been over the moon.

It’s no more or less insensitive than people asking new mums when you’re ttc a second even when you know they had ivf. Or cliquing off into groups.

I am an extended breastfeeding mum and fundamentally do think that we should be able to say that breast is the highest form of nutrition for babies, and that formula is also very good but second best.

However, handing out little certificates is a really awful thing to do and I would cringe as I know how hard some of my friends tried to feed their babies.

It’s a bit like celebrating your three pushes and done birth to a mum as something you’d “trained for” to someone who also did hypnobirthing prep but needed all the interventions. It’s not always in your control and sadly some people can’t read the room.

I bf my three for (cumulatively) over a decade, after a very rough start with hospital doing pretty much everything it could to thwart it, and I'm very much of the view that the 'fed is best' culture/tendency to accuse bf women of being an attention-seeking 'mafia' is damaging, but I do think this scenario is extremely insensitive and unnecessary (as well as cringeworthy). Not everyone who is not bf is doing so by choice. I'm also ambivalent at best towards the use of the term 'achievement' in this context, although I suppose I do think I 'achieved' something by my own bf given the start we had and the sometimes hard work involved in keeping going (very much balanced out by the sheer convenience of it, though). Motherhood is such an emotionally charged and societally judged thing that it's inevitable that something like this will leave non-bf mothers feeling they haven't 'achieved'.

A random woman came over to me in Costa to congratulate me for breast feeding. Many years later I still think about what a d*ch she was for doing that. I said nothing, but my reality was that a was in fact combination feeding following my daughter being hospitalised with a serious illness.

If someone had given me a certificate for breastfeeding, I wouldn't have known whether to laugh or sink through the floor. I certainly wouldn't have wanted one, what a strange idea.

To answer your question though, it's hugely insensitive to give them out in the general group.

YABU

"I struggle seeing people being celebrated for doing something bloody hard that I couldn't do".

Basically.

Agreed
There was an article in the BBC a month or so ago about breastfeeding grief. I certainly felt it.

Lol wow. No real achievements to celebrate, clearly.

I don't know - I think a simple congratulations seems fine, after all it IS pure blood sweat and tears in terms of the effort needed to make bf a real success. Saying that as someone who is breastfeeding a nearly 2 year old, while heavily pregnant. It's tough.

At the same time, the certificate thing, particularly in front of people (new mums at that) seems quite insensitive to me, for all the reasons you've mentioned. It creates a lot of fanfare that seems to rub it in people's faces who perhaps weren't able to breastfeed or didn't want to. If I were them I'd have waited until the next class, as PP have said, to avoid seeming crass.

And there could just be no difference at all long term. The only things we know for sure backed by science is the initial benefits

Exactly ! We know the initial proven benefits only - if there was very long study following those bf / ff throughout their whole lives who knows would we see better outcomes for those ff?

Having seen so many posts here from very upset new mothers about breastfeeding not working out and the guilt attached I would think it was very inappropriate. Many mothers are having significant mental struggles about using formula.
As someone who chose to bottle feed I would have politely applauded and thought no more about it but I do agree with your point.

Urgh! Sounds like Primary School. If I was a breastfeeding mum, or a member of the mother and baby group I’d be very embarrassed by such puerile nonsense (and I bf my babies).

Breastfeeding can also be a choice? Luckily formula exists and is an amazing alternative option ?

I just find it so bizarre. Like the head teacher star of the week at school. Can I get a certificate for drinking more tea than ought to be humanly possible? For getting out of bed every day?

Anyway, I don't think it is insensitive. Once the kids are able to shovel food into their own mouths no one cares how they were given milk. I couldn't begin to tell you which of my kids friends were fed which way. Maybe next week take some good job stickers and hand them out to everyone who attends.

But in your scenario you wouldn't be standing on the podium either. The analogy doesn't work.

surely you wait until the next breast feeding class to hand out certificates? On the subject of certificates, I’d cringe like fuck at receiving something like that. It’s too much like star of the week that my p2 gets 😂😂😂