To feel upset about sil not breastfeeding?

[wheelygirl]

hi, new here so pls be gentle!

My dh's brother and his wife had a baby boy four days ago. She said she had a lovely birth and was out of hospital the next day.

We visited them yesterday at home and sil was bottle feeding. Now, I don't give a shit how people feed their children, I don't have any kids (am pg)But I got quite upset because her ds kept trying to breastfeed from her. He was refusing the bottle and kept nuzzling into her chest. Her breasts were leaking as well and she told me she was hand expressing and chucking it away. I asked her why she didnt give it to her ds and she told me that she doesn't want him to get used to breast milk. He had the formula milk then vomited it back up five minutes later. He was really crying and it made me feel awful when he was turning his head to her breast and opening his mouth.

She then went on to tell me that he hasn't even had colostrum because it was too much of a faff to get him to latch on. Colostrum is the important stuff right?

Why do I feel so upset about this? I felt her ds was doing something so instinctive and she should at least have tried to breastfeed. I understand that some women have great difficulty breastfeeding and formula is a more than adequate alternative but at least try and do it.

Aibu?

Merely an analogy indicating the worthlessness of anecdotal evidence JamieAgain ..... the fact that it appears to contradict such strong evidence as the detrimental effects of smoking and drinking merely enhance my point I think....

I didn't mean to imply you were Fifis, I apologise if it came across that way. Your post seemed to imply to me that you thought there was no difference between how you fed your dcs and breastfeeding....

Ome babies cannot breastfeed tiffin.

Its a choice you make whilst pregnant and i believe i made the best choice. I didnt want to breast feed and couldnt even imagine trying it. I wasnt going to be made to do something i wasnt comfortable with. If i had not felt like that i may have given it a go.

Thats what i said. Nothing to do with BM being inferior to FM, obviouslys its not.

FF mothers are repeatedly being told that BM is superior to FM, i am saying yes i know it is

what i have repeatedly asked is for hairfullofsnake to tell me how her DC are superior to mine.

Ok, I'm sorry if my analogy was inappropriate - it wasn't a comparison with FF and BF - it was as I have said before just a way to illustrate that anecdotal evidence is worthless.

Perhaps I should have kept to the same theme and said that stories of FF fed children with no allergies and BF children with allergies do not actually change the weight of evidence to the contrary, yet they are continually banded about on threads such as these.

I will try and keep my points simpler....

Why do people care what other peoples cnildren are fed? I dont.

bumbley - your weird obsession with donated dairy free bm for my lo is laughable. my son was very very ill when he was rushed back to the hospital as a newborn just days old and the peadiatrician was GLAD ds was bottle fed. that peadiatrician was a hero, he saved my ds and if he's glad so am i :)

I dont, i would be concerned if another mother was trying to push her boob into my dd's mouth just as she would be if i tried to put my bottle full of formula in her babies mouth

Nobody in their right mind claims formula is "dangerous" or "bad". The billions of healthy people who drank only or nearly only formula milk as babies (I am one) prove that any such claims would be untrue.

But by the same token, anyone who claims that formula is as good as breast milk must surely also be bonkers (I know many formula feeders DON'T explicitly claim this, but many imply or assume it).

Human breast milk has, like the milk of other mammals, evolved over millions of years into a substance that (in most cases) perfectly fits the bill in terms of nourishing an infant. We are very lucky that an acceptable alternative exists in the form of formula, but ideally, from babies' perspective, formula would only be substituted when breastfeeding was for whatever reason shown to be impossible. Why would we want to deprive human babies of what is usually seen to be the birthright of other baby mammals?

Breastmilk also changes in composition and taste depending on what the mother has eaten. Hence breastfeeders sometimes avoiding cabbage, lentils etc to prevent repercussions for the baby's digestion. This variation in flavour effectively means a BF baby gets a slightly different "meal" each time it is fed (hopefully, anyway - will depend on mum's diet).

Contrast this with bottles of never-changing formula. These are the equivalent of giving a child the exact same meal multiple times a day - for months on end. The child shouldn't suffer healthwise, because the manmade formula has been designed to include the necessary nutrients. BUT if this idea is not something we'd accept for ourselves or our older children (school canteens serving the exact same meal each day to our kids, a meal made of highly processed combinations of ingredients we couldn't even identify if faced with them), then why would we want it for babies?

Granted, none of this is up there with the world's greatest crimes and injustices. But breast milk and formula are not equivalent and interchangeable.

ClareinFrance That gets my vote for post of the day.

Wheelygirl, you can feel sad, but you can't say anything about it, the baby is not yours and is not being harmed.

claireinfrance i agree with the first paragraph that no one in their right minds thinks formula is bad and dangerous, there is many crazy people who think it is

and formula at this present time isnt as good as breast milk but there will come a time when man will be able to recreate something very akin to breastmilk im sure its just not yet x

If I had continued to perservere with bf my dd would have died from starvation. Despite repeated attempts to get her to latch on, countless hours trying to hand express and even more hours attached to a mechanical breast pump I never succeeded in producing milk.

Fear of failing again and memories of the MW screaming at me and telling me what she thought of me whdn I asked for help with bf did make me have doubts about trying again.

Meant to add while formula isn't as good as bm for my dd it was a damn sight better than fuck all.

salad - that (making substitute breastmilk as good as/akin to the real thing) will not happen ever. It would be the same as making blood. No one would ever really bother trying.

It's possible that the formula in current use could improve of course, but not to that extent. The real difficulty would be replicating the 'living' aspects of it, such as the antibodies that are produced in direct response to the baby's needs.

Right with you there, Mrsxstitch.

Oh dear.

No one suggests that babies who are not breastfed (for whatever reason) should not be given formula. Of course babies need formula if they are not able to have breastmilk!

These arguments are just very defensive and prickly!

Unless you have got a totally healthy mummy 80% of the time, then no one can say breast milk is best.
And as for using someone elses OMG you just wouldnt... You have no idea who it has come from.. Breastmilk changes all the time the slight change in the women effects it. Formula no change full nutrition no worries. :)
Thats why i FF because MW adviced me to as i have health issues (not serious) but just would not be sure from day to day so better safe :)
I m not a fan of FM or BM after weaning though i dont see why they need it when they are getting the nurtrition from a balanced diet and can drink proper milk for calcuim ect but that is just my view.

To the OP

Here's a thought, maybe your SIL was giving a bottle because there were 11 people sitting in the same room, her feeding was not well established and she simply didn't want to have the experience of trying to get a child to latch, and stay latched while coping with spraying from let down?

I had a forceful let down and over-active supply and for the first month of feeding I had to completely undress my top half and hold a towel to my spare boob. I once held a bottle underneath and collected 7ozs of leakage from one boob! I would never have breast fed DS in a room full of 11 people all watching!

I am not going to get into the FF/BF argument.

are you teling me that no one will ever try making something very alike to breastmilk in a day and age where people can be cure of alsorts, the marvels that is medicine, there will come a time, maybe in 100 years + that it will possibly happen

"defensive" "prickly" er how exactly?What exactly has anybody got to be defensive about?

I'm bloody sick and tired of a whole host of women's comments and pov being dismissed with "defensive".

You can't be defensive if you have nothing to defend.

This is a forum for mums who quite frankly are the experts on their babies. Belittling posts with the "defensive" word is akin to the "ishooos" word of old that I thought we'd all moved on from.It's patronising and rude.

Nobody is being defensive just simply stating valid points of view.

To be frank if anybody is "defensive" it's the very pro bf posters on here who just can't cope with mums choosing to ff and not wasting time worrying about it.

Please dis-regard my above post - I clearly did not read the OP correctly

happy4eva - the only illness which would make formula feeding a better choice for the baby would be HIV/AIDS (and even then it's not cut and dried). A mother does not have to be healthy to make perfectly fine breastmilk. This does not mean that all individuals have to make the same choice - there are (for example) mental illnesses which might make breastfeeding very difficult. Also, there are a (very) few drugs which make breastfeeding unsafe.

mila - when I say 'defensive' and 'prickly' I am meaning posters who say, in an outraged way, 'my baby would have starved if I had breastfed' because they were unable to breastfeed. As if anyone is saying 'it would be better that a baby starves rather than have formula' - a tad defensive and prickly, yes?