To feel that breastfeeding is undermined?

Honestly, OP, I would just have a set phrase ready to go. "Oh, I've decided that that's what's best for us". The end.

Are these friends asking or strangers?

@Olive96 well you certainly have no issue asserting yourself here to strangers on a forum including ones who have admitted they had terrible struggles with breastfeeding and feel guilty

Yeah this. Formula fed first, breastfed second, never experienced any negativity or praise/admiration for either. Can’t really say it was much of a topic of conversation at all tbh.

I’m starting to feel flat about there being no point to it at al

i don’t really understand this though. Surely the point of it is all the benefits that you say you have researched? Do you mean there is no point because there’s no praise for it? Most pregnant women intend to breastfeed based on the statistics and for whatever reasons for a lot of them it doesn’t work out and they end up FF so yes I think these mothers should be reassured by professionals and society that it is ok. That their child will not be harmed by FF. That their child is being fed nutritious safe food which will help them thrive and that is what is important because of course it’s hard for mothers when they don’t feel they are giving their child “the best”. I suspect that breastfeeding mothers don’t have the same level of misplaced guilt therefore don’t need that reassurance.

@Olive96 immature for worrying about people asking why you are breastfeeding when in reality no one actually cares. You said you would LOVE to give your reasons but won’t.. well maybe learn to be more assertive then if that’s how you feel.

I've never heard anyone say formula is just as good, I have heard breast is best a lot.
Why do you feel there's no point to you breast feeding? Are you doing it because it's best for baby or because you want praise from other people?

With respect, you're making this all about you and reading it as an attack when it really isn't. No one is saying you took "the easy way out".

You feeling guilty or whatever shouldn't mean that the OP can't say here on an anonymous forum "I'm really glad I worked hard and managed to bb my child".

That statement is about the op, not you. It doesn't mean you didn't work hard (you could well have worked harder than her!). It doesn't matter because the OP isn't actually comparing herself with you.

If I say "I'm really proud that I ran that marathon" all I'm talking about is myself and my experience. Sure, others might have tried and been unable to run, some might not care about marathons, others might have run ultra marathons, whatever, why can't I be proud of my achievement?

BF versus ff is obviously a much more emotive subject, but if we all tried to dial down the emotion then surely everyone would be happier.

I'm sure there's loads of things you've done for your child that you should feel proud of. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to share that with friends and family without being called smug?

@Olive96 you sound very immature to be honest , if this is causing you so much angst maybe you should learn to be more assertive.

I think you’ll look back at your thread and cringe in a few years OP. It’s easy to get all consumed by the bf v ff thing when you have a baby if you let yourself. In time you’ll realise that there is so much more to raising a child than how you fed them. Often these mums go on to worry overly about screen time or something else because they have to replace their campaign on breastfeeding as they feel empty.

I have a relative who ‘felt proud’ and saw it as an ‘achievement’ that she breastfed years ago. She was quite difficult to be around as no one really wanted to talk about it, we wanted to just get on with life. A few years ago, she acknowledged that she was ‘a bit of a nob’ about it all and we had a laugh.

I say that as a mum who breasted my children until they were 12-18 months. I rarely think about it now, I’ve never been asked in a medical setting how they were fed since they were babies.

Agreed. I would never downplay or criticise someone else for being able to BF, and I’ve worked through my own guilt and grief about not being able to, but yes to this. I put in endless, completely fruitless efforts — I was pumping all the time, barely getting enough to cover the bottom of a bottle, I was going out and about with a very new baby with a supplemental nursing system, trying to stimulate supply by taping tubes to my nipples (under the nipple shields I had to use because I have flat nipples) and hanging a bag of formula around my neck. I felt like a malfunctioning cyborg. It was miserable. And yes, I did have total strangers criticising me for FF.

This is the case with quite a few things in life, not just how you feed your baby. If you were successful in doing something that some people weren’t able to do, just keep your mouth shut. Otherwise there’s a risk it sounds like gloating and people don’t like that.

I’ve breastfed and formula fed and found formula 100x harder. No one actually cares how you feed your child unless you’re literally blending up kfc into their bottle. I found with breastfeeding I found the want to justify why I was breastfeeding to others, when in reality they didn’t care and usually were asking questions out of curiosity not judgement.

For what it’s worth we moved my son onto formula as he had severe allergic reactions when I breastfed which turned out to be to soy and I didn’t want to take the risk with accidentally ingesting it and causing him difficulties

People who try and justify formula feeding their baby likely started out desperately trying to breastfeed and for whatever reason, it didn't work out. They feel guilty and like people don't think they tried hard enough which only gets worse when people start talking about how proud they are of breastfeeding because they tried so hard to make it work.

I formula fed from birth so it's different for me, I never tried and never wanted to try so it isn't emotive for me and I don't have any guilt for formula feeding because it's what I wanted to do.

You’re right, I could have scrolled past but to be honest I’m glad I’ve given you another perspective. You talk about all the effort of breastfeeding as if I didn’t put that in. I didn’t sleep for weeks, I own 5 different pumps, tried everything, hired a lactation consultant and still got nothing more than drops of milk with my baby losing weight in front of my eyes. And still I’m made to feel like I took the easy way out.

OP if you've come here for validation, congratulations on feeding your baby. Just like every other mother has fed their baby, whether breast or FF.

@Olive96 maybe it depends on your circle. I know plenty of people who breastfed until 2 years and beyond and no one batted an eyelid. Why do you even care anyway ? If people ask you why you are bothering just give them the reasons why.