To feel rubbish about this - breastfeeding groups

It is a bit cringe but I can see the good intentions of the BF woman wanting to congratulate or acknowledge the other women.

However, I would have felt rubbish in your position as I also struggled to bf my eldest and felt really embarrassed, sad and self conscious about it, especially as it's quite a popular topic of conversation at baby groups in the beginning! It is normal to feel down if breast feeding doesn't work out.
I hope the bad feelings start to go away soon. My kids are a bit older now and I honestly don't really think about how I fed them as babies much at all!

This is so true. This approach to motherhood seems to make PND much worse too. I can’t put my finger on why but it feels as though it has misogynistic undertones, telling women they should be at home and what they should do with their bodies, making them suffer through when formulas a great alternative.

This isn’t meant to sound harsh but it’s obvious from your posts you haven’t moved past it. These are things you need to explore why.

You tried, you had professional help and nothing worked, so why feel guilty? You did all you could. There’s an evolutionary instinct in some women for sure, but rationally it makes no sense in 2024. The alternative would have been failure to thrive. People subconsciously judge other women or fear being judged as a FF.

Please take it from others, this will be such a non-issue for you soon enough. You might wish you got to experience it, the same as
people whose birth plans didn’t go as they wanted and literally a million other things with babies and children as they grow.

That is not the point at all. No one wants to make breastfeeding nights feel bad or diminish what they do. FF mums support BF mums of course.

The issue is very specifically that the certificates were given out in a general mum and baby group, rather than the breastfeeding group. And the general group were asked to applaud. Regardless of the personal guilt that some mothers might be feeling. Those mothers, like the OP, didn't sign up for that.

And what do you mean by ‘celebrating’ it?
It’s very charitable of you that they are allowed to talk about it, at least. And charitable that you’ll even allow them to be happy about it! But would they be allowed to state that they are proud of themselves? What if one BF friend knew the struggles of another BF friend and wanted to pat them on the back? Is that not allowed either?

I also formula fed from birth - proud and happy with my decision. However I don’t see the point or need to celebrate how someone else fed their baby. They all got fed - end of story.

It’s a baby group. I’d expect to see mothers breastfeeding, I’d expect to hear mothers talk about breastfeeding including saying they are happy etc to breastfeed but actually celebrating breastfeeding/expecting others to pat them on the back would seem a bit odd to me.

I am not saying certificates should be mandatory for BF mothers or anything… but this thread is full of “I mean, yeah I suppose it’s fine to celebrate the fact that you managed to BF but please do it privately lest it hurt our feelings”

And a load of posts from BF mothers who are trying to massively down play it so they don’t make anyone feel bad.

I don’t think it was the breastfeeding mothers who were expecting people to clap, it doesn’t sound like they had much choice in it.

Surely it’s possible to feel happy without certificates and expecting others to clap?

I agree it was insensitive. I struggle breastfeeding my baby and that would have hurt because I tried so hard. I'd feed back to the person

Excellent post

I formula fed from birth. I made an informed decision to do so and never regretted that decision so I don't think this would have bothered me in the slightest. I don't think anyone should feel ashamed to bottle feed so from my perspective I think I would have been happy for those mums who had achieved something that they had set out to do and was likely important to them. I would not have felt any less than and you shouldn't either OP.

Exactly this. It would be weird to be extracting applause from people at a different group, regardless of what the activity happened to be.

If we're using a Slimming World comparison, one wouldn't expect to be requested to give the slimmers of the week who'd happened to stay on for the baby group a clap. If a few of the bf support group also attended a book group and it happened there, that would also be odd. It's a socially inept thing for one group member to impose on other attendees.

That’s absolutely understandable. You shouldn’t feel guilty - you tried. You really tried hard. It’s not your fault.

But please don’t let your own complex feelings stop other women feeling happy they’ve breastfed for X amount of time. Their achievement is theirs and it’s not a judgement on you.

It's saying you've breastfed. Mums who have breastfed aren't obliged to keep their BF to themselves incase they inadvertently offend mums who have FF their babies.

Even if they were, I doubt the yoga ladies would fuss about it.

They aren’t giving Slimming World certificates out at the yoga class that uses the room afterwards…

No, it’s not that. The certificates werent given to women who were able to breastfeed as a reward. It wasn’t a case of ‘you breastfed baby - well done, have a certificate’. They were given to people who were already breastfeeding as certificates for continuing for X amount of time - ie to incentivise those women who were already breastfeeding to breastfeed as long as they could.

I really appreciated my 6 week breastfeeding certificate- things had been an absolute nightmare and the thought I was recognised for making it that far even if we didn’t manage more was great in a time I felt a complete failure as a Mum. HOWEVER, I would have been mortified if had been given anywhere BUT the breastfeeding group. I’d hate to think someone like me who had tried and failed would see this and feel bad - it might even be me in a week or so! My own Mum was so teary about not managing beyond 3 weeks when she saw get farther.

How

Because it's not like a certificate for running a race or completing a training course. After having 'breast is best' drummed into you, this is basically saying 'Out of this group, only these women did the right thing, and provided the best start for their precious babies'. Surely anyone can see that this implies that the other women failed to do so, and that heaps guilt on women at a vulnerable time?

I don’t doubt it must be tough to want to BF and not being able to… but do you know what else is tough? Establishing breastfeeding in the beginning!! It’s painful, it’s tiring, cluster feeding is a mind fuck and that’s if you don’t count any other issues that may arise. So if moms want to feel proud of themselves for managing to do it, then they bloody well should. It’s not about you.

Posts like this really annoy me. They bring out all the absolute bollocks cliches that make me cringe.
Although handing out certificates for breastfeeding is cringey as fuck (and it is) I really wish that FF mothers wouldn’t blame being unable to BF their babies on mothers who did manage to BF. It is not about you. It is not an attack on you. BF mothers get loads of shit from people… at least FF mothers have solidarity in numbers as there are far more of you!
OP - it wasn’t about you.