Aibu? to be pissed off at this: "The cost and social implications of using an infant milk should be considered when deciding how to feed your baby."

[Selyna]

WTF do Hipp mean by social implications?

Both methods of feeding a baby are acceptable so fuck off with the whole acting like ff is poison! my dd is perfectly fine but i hate this constant making me feel like a failure because i failed to bf although i tried so so hard!

Exactly what Talhot said, word for word.

I agree with karmabeliever: I think FF is (generally) seen as lazy/chav/uneducated choice, where BF is what "nice" people do, and that attitude absolutely it does make us "failed BFders" feel crap.

There definitely has been offensive stuff on both sides of the debate, though.

I found it socially easier to bottle feed.

I could go out and have a drink and leave dc with their Daddy. Maybe thats what they mean

If this is on the side of Hipp, which is a company which makes formula then I'm a bit as to why it would be a dig at those giving formula to their babies.... Surely it is more of a carefully veiled dig at those mums who bf??

Not sure... and I think that the fact we're all a bit means that it is just confusingly worded!

Agree with bump and karma. That's exactly how I feel. DC2 is 6 weeks old, and for various reasons, including a crash section..BF was a nightmare for us.

I am totally devastated and feel like I am in a pretty dark place at the moment because of it. Of course I feel guilty, because not only am I feeding her in a way I don't wish too, but because I live in a very pro-BF area. Everyone does it, and without doubt there is a un-spoken opinion on FF'ing.

In fact we're not going to toddler groups for DC1 anymore because the though of FF'ing in front of certain people feels me with dread and I can't help but get tearful.

"It is an incredibly clever statement designed to throw confusion into the mix of motherhood. Confusion leads to insecurity which leads to self-doubt which leads to formula.

The formula companies say nothing, do nothing and release nothing that hasn't been checked and double-checked by very highly paid social manipulators psychologists."

This ^^
Tried and tested manipulation. Formula companies are out to make money. Nothing more, nothing less.

OP, FWIW, you didn't fail at all. It sounds like you had terrible support, but seriously, you didn't fail. Feeding your baby is only a tiny part of being a mother. You have no need to feel guilty.

Joyful I know several women who were unable to start/continue to breastfeed and rightly or wrongly were upset about it. They do not need to be made to feel worse.

Midnight

Because Stranded many women are FF'ing even though they really wanted to BF.

You want to let everyone you see know that FF'ing it's your first choice, its not what you planned to do. You want people to know that you went through hell to get to this point. You want people to know that every time you give a bottle you feel sad and a failure.

It frustrates me so much that in pregnancy there is so much emphasis on BF, how natural etc it is. The minute you have that baby...the support drops off the edge of the earth.

I think FF is (generally) seen as lazy/chav/uneducated choice, where BF is what "nice" people do, and that attitude absolutely it does make us "failed BFders" feel crap.

In the past anything that showed "leisure time" was seen as higher status, given that most working class people have always had to work. Today that means they can't bf for as long. Maybe bf is now moving into that sort of "leisure" status category (in which case ebf is possibly an "extended leisure" status marker)?

Not sure how weklfare - aka "state funded leisure" fits into this though.

Sorry Joyful I may have got you wrong there.

Was just trying to explain that some women aren't happy with their method of feeding and are being made to feel worse by insensitive pro-bf messages.

If the are legally required to put this on the packaging, it seems odd that they are required to stress the social factors and there is no mention of health benefits.

I think the responses to this show that interpretation is down to how you feel about each feeding choice.

I read it as Cost = FF is expensive, Social Implications = BF'ing in public.

The statement is perfectly correct in that those are things to take into account when making the initial decision about feeding.

I really don't understand why people let themselves get so wound up by other people's opinions about how they feed their babies - formula is a perfectly acceptable alternative to breast milk.

I can understand an element of personal regret if you really wanted to bf, but really don't get why anyone wuld put themselves through such an emotional wringer over it.

As I said to a friend who expressed sentiments of deep regret about failing to bf her older DD now that she is successfully bf'ing her son - life is too short to regret things like that. As parents we do what we think is best at the time and there will be plenty of other things to regret as we raise them. Being a parent is a difficult job and it is impossible to be perfect all of the time. It is perfectly ok to do some things that are good enough, even if they are not the best. Save your regret / guilt for when it's needed, because as parents, there will be plenty of opportunity to feel those emotions!

Midnight, please don't feel bad. My siblings and I were all ff and turned out fine. My own 4 dc have had a bit of bf and quite a lot of ff - they too are healthy. And before some smug bf Nazi comes along and says the oft quoted 'plural of anecdote is not data', FF has been around for a long time - if there was anything damaging about it, it would have been definitively proven by now.

It's a perfectly legitimate choice.

Claire, people probably wouldn't put themselves through the wringer, if other people didn't deliberately set out to make them feel bad for something they either can't help or chose to do for perfectly legitimate reasons. It's very hard not to get upset when someone implies that you love your baby less because of how you feed him/her.