Breastfeeding isn't easy for all mothers...?

[faithfulbird20]

What do you think? I honestly find it the most hardest thing in the world...finding the right tops, cloths, you're feeding one side the other side decides to leak a waterfall, baby doesn't want to latch properly, mild tongue tie, sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's hard and annoying, breast milk has leaked on baby's clothes, baby needs changing. Breastfeeding in front of other people, family etc...

Am trying to continue and hope it gets easier

It absolutely does. One day you’ll wake up and it’ll just be like turning on a tap, it’s that easy. For me, it was at the 6-8 week mark with both babies.

@Italiandreams

I am proud of my degree but wouldn’t go on about it in front of my friend who didn’t go to university due to caring responsibilities. I am proud of getting a promotion but aware of not saying that infront of the people who didn’t get it. You can be very proud of things while people aware of people’s feelings and difficulties.

I agree, but general pride in yourself or on a thread about breastfeeding is fine. I wouldn't say it personally to someone who'd had a shit time and felt bad. But some people want all women silenced about it all of the time

Not my experience, and I have no issue with hearing about it now. But being lectured when I had made the difficult decision that for my own mental health and that of the baby that formula feeding would be best was not helpful. Luckily most of my friends and family had far more support and compassion. I was in a bad place and people not caring if they upset me because they were proud would have broken me for a couple of months. Lots of friends breastfed for a year or more, they were proud and I was pleased for them, but there was a point in time where they were sensitive about my feelings and I was grateful for that fact.

We had a shit time - be as proud as you want james

The more women who are able to feed their babies as they want to the better.

My point is nothing wrong with pride in this thread but there are people in real life that I met that do make a big point of it when people are having a bad time, and I’m just raising awareness of how people can feel.

But how is someone else saying "I'm proud of my choice" lecturing you @Italiandreams or why would that even upset you? It's nothing to do with you and your efforts

Oh my GOD. This is so TEDIOUS. Boobs or bottle. Baby gets fed. We all win!

When it’s something you really wanted and someone is going in about how important and easy it is when you have tried everything. I didn’t need to hear how amazing someone was for doing something I had been desperate to do when I was in such a low place. It’s just not what I needed to hear at the time, I am fine with it now but those few weeks post birth are really hard. I’m sure you can remember.

They definitely are. Ds is 3 months and I still feel sad about not feeding him as I wanted. But I don’t think anyone saying it was easy for them means they think it’s easy for anyone - it’s the same with childbirth, isn’t it?

I think it was ok to feel how I felt then, I don’t feel like that way now . People can be equally insensitive about birthing stories too though. I am just always sensitive to what other people are going through

If it was so hard, the human race would have died out well before the invention of formula.

Of course it's time consuming and a commitment, but breastmilk is designed specifically for your baby, so why would you not make that commitment?

It’s smug, judgemental shitty comments like this that mean I still feel guilty that I couldn’t make breastfeeding work and my son is 7. That’s 7 years not 7 months!

My son needed formula shortly after he was born due to low blood sugar (I had GD which required insulin)

Once my milk came in pretty quickly I had plenty of it but I could not get him to latch on. Midwives and HCAs on the ward would help but then leave the room and he would come off and I couldn’t get him back on again. He would then scream his head off because he was hungry, fell asleep with exhaustion and then wake up screaming with hunger

I expressed and he had mostly breast milk for the first month and then part breast milk/formula for the second, as it became harder to express the milk he needed.

We just couldn’t reliably latch on so bottle feeding, which turned into formula, became the best way to ensure my baby was fed and content
Despite this, I still feel guilty 7 years later

We had the same problems with latching

If it was so hard, the human race would have died out well before the invention of formula.

That’s a deeply unhelpful comment. And I’m someone who’s very pro bfing.

The demands, expectations and support available to women in the modern world doesn’t compare to the situation across our history.

Our ancestors would have had far more bfing knowledge in the community, far more hands on support, far less messaging from a consumerist society that preferred for them to use formula and get on with it. Wet nursing was a well established way of supporting struggling mothers/babies. And let’s not forget that plenty of babies died because their mothers couldn’t feed them.

We must take the demands of the modern world into account when supporting mothers who want to BF. There are many challenges.

@Italiandreams

I think it was ok to feel how I felt then, I don’t feel like that way now . People can be equally insensitive about birthing stories too though. I am just always sensitive to what other people are going through

Yes it's absolutely fine that you felt that way - and I know what you mean now you've explained - some women just need to be told "it's fine to give the baby a bottle" even if that wasn't their choice, rather than "have you tried the rugby hold" 🙄

James, you’ve missed the point ever since we started exchanging messages.

Be proud. I don’t feel breastfeeding is an achievement, but I respect that other women do.

But your ‘and I don’t care who I upset’ was shoehorned in to deliberately infer that others should feel upset, because the only person suggesting such a thing was you. It was a nasty little jibe and totally needless.

Very strong advocates of breastfeeding are so weird. In one breath they’re all ‘it’s what nature intended, it’s best for baby, it has incredible qualities, it gives you the best bond, it’s an amazing start in life’ then in the next ‘but do what’s right for you hun’. Well, how can someone not feel bad about bottle feeding after that?! And when you mention it they’re all ‘I’m sorry if the facts upset you, we can’t pretend otherwise blah blah’.

Yet when you try to neutralise it a little by pointing out the ‘amazing’ qualities of breastfeeding actually only have a negligible difference in terms of the baby’s long term health, they get furious and make silly accusations like ‘You’re just trying to silence breastfeeding women’ or ‘you’re just trying to undermine my achievement’.

There’s a really horrible mindset around all of this Earth mother competitive parenting shite, yet when you query it they all bat their eyelashes and do the ‘woman supporting women’ act.

@Italiandreams I understand how you feel. I wouldn’t, for example, show off about the fact I own my own home in front of a friend who was financially struggling, even if it took hard work and determination to get there. If asked I would say yes I’m proud, but I’m happy being quietly proud of myself and don’t feel the need to outwardly brag.

@Wondermule It's not negligible and you are doing this site and many mothers a great disservice by keep posting all over threads that it is. Do you think you are somehow helping ('being kind') mums who have been through all sorts to feed their babies by telling them it was all for nothing? Whatever the agenda here, it's starting to look a bit sinister.

I didn’t get milk for nine days after giving birth (c section). So there was no chance for me!

[quote LimpLettice]@Wondermule It's not negligible and you are doing this site and many mothers a great disservice by keep posting all over threads that it is. Do you think you are somehow helping ('being kind') mums who have been through all sorts to feed their babies by telling them it was all for nothing? Whatever the agenda here, it's starting to look a bit sinister. [/quote]
Please show me any statistic which shows breastfeeding has anything more than a negligible benefit to a child’s long term health.

And to reverse your point, do you really think mums that couldn’t bf should upset themselves thinking their child missed out on all these amazing health benefits?

I don’t feel breastfeeding is an achievement, but I respect that other women do.

No you don't respect it - you've mocked and sneered anyone being proud of their a achievement this whole thread. And it's not up to you to decide what other women should be proud of.

But your ‘and I don’t care who I upset’ was shoehorned in to deliberately infer that others should feel upset

You have, once again, misquoted me completely and you've once again misinterpreted why I said "Im bloody proud and I don't care if that makes people feel bad" - it's to pre empt over a wait I've wilfully ignorant players like you who'd have jumped all over my post had I not said the last part

Very strong advocates of breastfeeding are so weird

No they're not, I find it so weird that you feel advocating for breastfeeding is strange and contradictory

There’s a really horrible mindset around all of this Earth mother competitive parenting shite, yet when you query it they all bat their eyelashes and do the ‘woman supporting women’ act.

Why are you associating breastfeeding with the 'earth mother' cliche? you've done it a few times on this thread. Weird generalisation. And NO ONE is competing with you - that's what YOU think because of YOUR insecurities and issues. Literally no one is competing with you or anyone else.

I don't think anyone should upset themselves. I'm not digging out all the zillions of studies for you, I've seen several threads where you ignore every poster who does. Who's got time just to be ignored? The point is you keep on hammering home the same mistruths, you look like there's an agenda. What do you think is the benefit to promoting formula in comparison to the benefit of promoting breast? Who makes more profit out of women's bodies?

This study is the only one I could find which looks at the overall benefit of breastfeeding in the long term. The study used sibling comparisons to adjust for socioeconomic/environmental factors, and concluded that the long term health benefits of bfing are overstated. So the individual statistics are very impressive when they are phrased in a way like ‘reduces the risk of X by 40%’. But in real terms, the difference is indeed negligible.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4077166/

No doubt everyone will now get angry at me because of the results of the study 🤷🏼‍♀️

@LimpLettice

I don't think anyone should upset themselves. I'm not digging out all the zillions of studies for you, I've seen several threads where you ignore every poster who does. Who's got time just to be ignored? The point is you keep on hammering home the same mistruths, you look like there's an agenda. What do you think is the benefit to promoting formula in comparison to the benefit of promoting breast? Who makes more profit out of women's bodies?

From the Nation Institute of Child Heath and Human Development:

Other studies suggest that breastfeeding may reduce the risk for certain allergic diseases, asthma, obesity, and type 2 diabetes. It also may help improve an infant's cognitive development. However, more research is needed to confirm these findings.

@LimpLettice isn't wrong. Breastfeeding has some minor benefits but it is absolutely not overwhelming. In developed countries, where formula is prepared safely, the difference is negligible.

@wondermule isn't wrong! Sorry, I tagged the wrong poster!

What, and the hardcore bf promoters don’t have an ‘agenda’? ‘Agenda’ is used on here interchangeably with ‘having a strong opinion’. It means nothing.

My only agenda is to neutralise the debate and relieve mums of bfing guilt by pointing out that while there are health benefits to bfing, they are tiny, so they don’t need to unduly worry about the effect on their child.

However this angers bfing mums because they feel it’s ‘undermining their achievement’. Well, I’m sorry if the facts upset you (which is usually a phrase they use to ff mums!)

What is their agenda, please? What possible benefit do I get out of asking you to not to keep on hammering to belittle the benefits of breast milk? Hardcore? What does that mean? I don't know you, I'm an old gimmer steadfastly feeding my third and your opinion is 🤷🏻‍♀️ to me. If you think that's my only achievement in life, well, I'm glad I don't know you. Where's my profit? Your opinion profits milk manufacturers, those pushing to disassociate motherhood with female biology, mine doesn't. You aren't neutralising debate at all! If only.