'Breast is Best'

[OddSocksandRainbowDocs]

It's National Breastfeeding Week and I've seen the phrase 'Breast is Best' banded about quite a few times.

Whilst I agree breastfeeding is scientifically better, some mothers (myself included) physically could not breastfeed so chose to formula feed instead. I was made to feel like a failure by a midwife for choosing to do so.

My little one is now one and a half. She is happy, she is healthy.

I don't know who needs to hear this but 'Breast is Best' isn't always the case. 'Fed is Best' is most definitely the case. It doesn't matter how you feed your baby, as long as the baby is fed, that is all that matters

But you’re gambling your son’s discomfort on the tiny chance that society will be accepting of breastfeeding school aged children. I don’t think it will, so I don’t think he will be ‘proud’ of being breastfed as a school boy. I think you need to be a bit realistic.

There are no militant attitudes on this thread. There are some posters stating facts regarding the differences between
formula and breast milk. There have been latterly some deeply ignorant comments around extended breastfeeding and the use of foul language / offensive views hasn’t come from breastfeeding mothers or proponents of it. Oh, except of course yours!

instead of acknowledging the fact that your nasty little comments around those women in the breastfeeding cafe and their age were off you dug your heels in.
I haven’t shared much at all about my feeding choices here incidentally or my views as a mother but somehow you’ve amassed a detailed profile of me. Based on what? The fact I don’t like a couple of your posts?

Stop setting yourself up to be shot down

@EasterIssland im sorry that my opinion makes you feel ashamed but it’s how I feel about school aged breast feeding not because it’s not the norm it just makes me feel uncomfortable and certainly not because boobs have been sexualised. Buy by 4.5 he should be self sleeping and soothing and not relying on you and I’m genuinely curious at what age do you decided that it’s appropriate to swap the feed for a cuddle when sad etc ? Fwiw my best friends 7 year old who was bf till he was 2 is quite outraged himself at the fact he fed off his mums boobs full stop and gets really uncomfortable about it to a point he won’t discuss it.

I don't feel guilty. The choice for my baby was starve or formula feed. I'm grateful that I lived in a country where I could buy formula, and that I had access to clean, running water and electricity which facilitated safe formula feeding. Many women in the world don't have that. But my lived reality is that HCPs did try and make me feel guilty, and this experience is echoed by many other posters on this thread. I have consistently concurred that breast is best nutritionally, and have never suggested that the message is changed. I have suggested that women should be supported in whatever choice they make, and continue to believe that.

trust me you dont make me feel ashamed. strangers on a forum telling me how to live my life dont make me feel ashamed at all, this thread has started about how "can we have bf week, bf mums have got everything and it's ff mums who are ashamed all the time and should have the support" yet, since i've mentioned that i do bf my 4.5yo 2 posters have directed their comments at me at how i'm doing wrong, my decision makes them uncomfortable and my son will be ashamed of me.

Thats why i pointed out that we need more knowledge about bf and more support in general to those that decide to bf, so people dont feel uncomfortable or have the need to tell a stranger that their kid will resent them because of a decision that doesnt affect them at all.

The only outright shaming here is anti breastfeeding 🤷

Breastfeeding costs a lot less than formula feeding. It also doesn’t run out suddenly once it’s established forcing low income families to panic about getting hold of formula. Before people start saying they spent a gazillion quid on a lactation consultant that’s not the norm. And I’m the US mat leave is much much shorter than in the U.K. and they have far higher rates of breastfeeding.

@EasterIssland I’m glad you aren’t ashamed I don’t think you should be I was just merely stating my own opinion not that breast feeding in general makes me feel uncomfortable as it doesn’t just that bf an older child does without a doubt and I can’t help that I feel that way and honestly no educating in the world would change my mind on that. I personally feel by school age it’s inappropriate and not helpful to a child’s development and coping skills as I’ve said the exact same way I wouldn’t agree with bottle feeding a child of that age.

But that's because of society 's attitude to breastfeeding
I very much doubt that that seven year old would feel uncomfortable if all his peers had been breastfed until X age and all children around him were breastfed.

Breast feeding is a middle class issue !

If you work in the local Londis a
Few hours a week and get a UC top up to survive and have 2 other kids .. and have at most 6 weeks May leave .. (pro rata ) how the hell can you breast feed for 3 months let alone 4.5 years. ????

But it isn’t about you and your feelings, or how comfortable you feel. It is when they’re babies, but your son isn’t a baby - he’s a schoolboy and you need to look to his future a little bit, and think about how breastfeeding him to an age where he will remember it as a grown man will make him feel. He won’t have the same gushy, bonding emotions to you as an adult that you have to him as a baby or small child.

Im still a bit annoyed that my parents let me run around naked in front of wider family in the garden on sunny days when I was about 5. They would’ve called it ‘normal and healthy and nothing to be ashamed about’, but I wish they’d employed a bit of common sense and realised it was something I would’ve been embarrassed about further down the line.

Not necessarily.

If you work in the local Londis and have 3 young children, you may well end up becoming a SAHP because the childcare costs are beyond your reach. And you might also decide that you can't afford to spend ££ each week on formula and bottles etc.

How do you think he will feel when he is a grown up man? Why do you think that?

When they are 21 and deciding...... what to have for dinner, what job offer to accept, etc etc: Your'll realise how silly all your guilt is over baby feeding, of all things.

This.

It can be a real struggle to breast feed, and sometimes people need to be encouraged that it is well worth persevering through the difficulties.

No one is making women feel guilty if they don't succeed - no one but themselves.

I think breast is best but mixed fed as that was best for me. It's not personal.

Im still a bit annoyed that my parents let me run around naked in front of wider family in the garden on sunny days when I was about 5. They would’ve called it ‘normal and healthy and nothing to be ashamed about’, but I wish they’d employed a bit of common sense and realised it was something I would’ve been embarrassed about further down the line.

Sorry but this is batshit

I think this says more about your issues than her son's.

Some people breastfeed their 4 year olds, some people shower naked with their 6 year olds, some people cosleep with their 8 year olds, some people kiss their 10 year olds on the lips. If the kid didn't like it they wouldn't do it, so why on earth would they feel ashamed about it when they're older, other than attitudes like yours?

Some people breastfeed their 4 year olds, some people shower naked with their 6 year olds, some people cosleep with their 8 year olds, some people kiss their 10 year olds on the lips. If the kid didn't like it they wouldn't do it,

Sorry but that last sentence makes me feel all kind of uncomfortable. In fact, it all did, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

I shall leave it there.

In your opinion it’s nonsense in my experience it’s absolutely not. Why can’t people have different opinions without calling it nonsense it’s so rude.

You are projecting your issues on a breastfeeding mum. It’s her decision on how to feed her child.

But isn’t that just like “my granny smoked till she was a hundred, so who are you to say anything about cigarettes.”

on a population level, (I.e. where one individual doesn’t represent anything) breastfed children have fewer (as opposed to zero) health issues.
regardless of the health of your individual child, using your upset as a way to shame women who do breastfeed is cruel and unwarranted.

Anecdata is not scientific data so @FreudayNight is correct.

For the record @mummydoris2006 DD was BF but spent the first few years of her life in and out of hospital, but your DD and my DD don't represent the statistics or scientific evidence. There are always exceptions.

Nutritionally breast milk has the edge over formula. Just accept it and please don't feel that you have failed.

@SnowdropsInSpring Where? Where exactly is 'outright shaming; of breastfeeding?

I've seen some posts basically suggesting women give up breastfeeding because its 'too hard' so they 'sack it off'. Honestly, the judgement of some people is astounding.

@OddSocksandRainbowDocs

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