To say if you don't want to bf then fine but don't lie that you can't

[Lily1986]

A friend is ff her baby son. She tried to bf but gave up after a few days. Privately she told me that she didn't like having to bf and wanted her dh to share the load. To everyone else she is saying that she didn't produce enough milk and is seeking sympathy from others that her body wasn't able to provide for her baby. Really laying it on thick.

I really don't have a problem with how anyone chooses to feed their baby.

AIBU to feel angry at this friend trying to make people feel sorry for her?

Wheres but the vast majority of babies are healthy in this country so the any "risks" from ff if you follow guidelines are absolutely tiny particularly if they're not predisposed to ear problems which can be due to genes.

I'm going to say the scaremongering word now!

Another thing is that if people like the op's friend lie and say it is lack of milk it is feeding this lack of correct information about bf and milk supply and that the fact it takes a while for milk supply to establish is utterly normal and natural and designed for a baby - ie: little and often. Too many women assume or fear they won't/don't have enough milk when that is simply not true in the vast majority of cases!

Lilicat - I hope I didn't come across like that to you. Yes, the vast majority of women will have milk but there are obviously cases where it will be extremely difficult or virtually impossible. You didn't have great support by the sounds of it and to be told that 'everyone can bf' is not on. I work closely with mums to help them bf and have never heard anyone say that - please do try your local bf support group/the LA Leache League for support this time and hopefully that can help you. X

Babies are all different, ds1 was 11lb 2 and wanted lots and often.

I think women are able to find information out themselves. I don't know anyone that decided not to bf because someone else had trouble with supply or because they didn't have information available to them.

OP I dont think YABU, although I can understnad why women say it (pressure to breastfeed etc).

I had this with one of my friends - I had given up breastfeeding basically because I hated it, it was really painful and it was making my life miserable - I lasted 3 weeks. My friend gave up because she 'just didnt have enough milk' and she made a big song and dance about it. The actual case was that because she had not fed her DS regularly enough in the first few days (she had had no support so didnt really know about demand feeding etc) her supply just had never really got going and because the HV had made a comment to her quite early on about the baby being too hungry to cry she had freaked out and broken out the formula because she thought she didnt have enough milk.

But it did piss me off a bit because she was able to go on and on about how she 'had' to give up because she didnt have enough milk, and it left me looking a bit selfish because I had more than enough milk, I just didnt want to breastfeed any more!

Maybe she's telling people this to avoid being judged.
I bf my babies for a couple of weeks before I went on to mixed feeding. I really didn't want to exclusively bf, and it was nobody's business but mine.

Karma and moomin - yes it is about persevering a lot of the time and baby does have enough - little and often is far more natural for a baby than a bottle of formula. My first baby fed Continously and it was physically and mentally exhausting but he was getting enough, it was just very very hard. There is so much ignorance and innacurate info on bf. Giving a baby breast milk - that is designed for a baby's needs and changes to adapt to that growing baby is almost always best for a baby and for their health - that is a FACT and not said to judge. How come we cannot even state facts anymore!

No flanggg, I won't stfu for having the opinion I have, just because I think women should bf if they CAN it doesn't mean I don't sympathise with women who have problems. One of my friends who I have recently met and who is becoming a very good friend gave up very quickly on bf because she found it very overwhelming and she didn't have any support or advice. I don't judge her, but I think it is a shame she didn't have more support or the right info to continue. just because I have the opinion Of bf if you can, it doesnt make me judgemental.

gimme what, so if you ff you can't do it little and often? Most people ff on demand little and often if that's what the baby wants. You make it sound like they're force fed a bottle of formula!

Have you ever tried to force a baby to feed when it doesn't want to? I have as I've had two prem babies who needed to be fed a certain amount every couple of hours in order to gain weight and be able to control their body temp.

It takes patience, time and perseverance. Mine were on a feeding schedule of ever two hours and took up to an hour to feed each time. Not as simple as sticking a bottle in and them drinking it all, that's a myth.

Well Gimme if you are choosing to judge and shoot your mouth off despite knowing that it causes ff women to lie, you are part of the problem you claim to be concerned about. Clearly you care more about telling others what to do than you do about stopping bf misinformation. Otherwise, you'd stop. And saying that women who can bf should very definitely is judgemental.

Lily 1986. I haven't read the whole thread, but completely aside from the bf issues [which will get 11pages of comments, it's so emotive], I would go off a friend with so little integrity.

People lie about loads of things to do with parenting. Ok, maybe not out and out lying, but certainly gilding the truth. Sleeping through, weight gain, taking to solids, to name a few. Granted, none are so loaded with guilt as bf, but why oh why do we put our fellow mothers through this torment? Why can't we accept our experiences are different and support each other? Why does it have to be like a bloody competition?

We do it all our lives. Who is the prettiest, thinnest, has the most desirable boyfriend etc. it is torturous and especially so when it comes to our children.

Have not read the whole thread but the op and some of the pro bf comments afterwards made me feel very angry. YABU. I had no milk for the first 5 days, not one single drop. I mix fed because I had to give my DD something. I was determined to bf and I worked really really hard to rebuild my supply. I never managed to ebf. I mix fed until 21 months and it was all hard work, though I enjoyed it once I got to the stage where the bf was essentially for comfort, not food.

I look back and I really wonder whether it was worth it. Formula is an excellent high-quality alternative and babies thrive on it. There is enormous pressure to breast feed. I utterly disagree that 'almost everybody' can breast feed. What counts is that babies get the calories and nutrients they need to survive. If formula were such a poor alternative the effects would be discernible in the people around us.

My experience with breastfeeding, and with being a wannabe bf success story and evangelist, has actually made me want to strongly advocate choice in feeding. Your friend should do whatever she wants. How she explains it to people is her business.

Gimme isn't judging. She is entitled to an opinion and it is a shame that she is getting so much abuse for thinking that babies should, where possible, be fed using the product that is perfectly designed for their needs.

Moomin I have seen plenty of babies basically being 'force fed' in as much as I have seen mums with a crying baby, stick a bottle treat in their baby's mouth, baby continues to cry, starts to cough on the milk, becomes more hysterical etc. It's not for me to comment so I don't but I have seen this situation plenty of times - and thinking about it I can think of a fair few who have done this and also told me at some other time that they didn't have enough milk.

I love this 'everyone can breastfeed' malarkey. Reading some of these posts, I can only assume that 1% of women - or even less - is such a small figure that those women are statistically irrelevant and, in fact, don't exist.

How many women are there on MN? How many would 1% - 0.5% - be? Yet there are women on this thread looking at them and going: yeah, right. It is incredibly rare for people who can physically produce milk to not produce enough for a baby, you know. You must have been doing it wrong.

Since when does 'incredibly rare' mean non-existent?

Tosh Nosey-you've seen babies "force fed"-really!

Babies coughing and spluttering whilst crying and have liquids shoved down their throats would be drowning.

You know us ff mums want out babies to be happy just as much as bfing mums.

To infer that ff mums are some kind of bullying monsters who shove a bottle in whenever they feel like it is discraceful and utterly incorrect.

Well Polka I have seen it quite a few times. I put 'force-feed' in inverted commas. What I described is what I have seen - or are you calling me a liar?

Nobody said Gimme wasn't entitled to an opinion, nosey. However, she very definitely is being judgemental. Let's look at some online dictionary definitions of the term, and go through why they apply to her.

Oxford dictionaries defines it as 'of or concerning the use of judgement'. Holding the view that women ought to bf where possible is a judgement (just like my view that other women's feeding choices have fuck all to do with her). Wikipedia defines it as 'a value judgement as to the rightness or wrongness of something'. Well, Gimme clearly thinks that it is right to bf where possible and, by definition, wrong not to. I could go on, but i think I've made my point. Gimme is being judgemental, according to dictionary definitions of the word.

Incidentally, I can speak only for myself, but the abuse I've given her isn't for her view that babies should be bf'd where possible. She can think whatever she wants. It's for her insistence on telling the rest of us about it, despite the fact that views like that lead to ff women lying and that she apparently wants ff women to stop lying. She is contributing to the problem she says she is concerned about, and when this is pointed out to her she refuses to modify her behaviour. Oh, and if we're sharing horror stories about women's harmful feeding habits, some women with HIV bf and pass it onto their babies that way. Irrelevant? No more so than your account of ff babies being force fed.

"BF Nazis" What a truly horrid expression. Why? Why the defensiveness?

Flange I would argue that given your definitions you are being judgemental too. You have an opinion, therefore you are judging her.

Please explain the HIV comment - are you saying that women with HIV put there baby at more risk if they breastfeed? I may be mistaken but I think that research has shown otherwise -I'd have to look it up though.

Edma why dont you read the thread-the title might give you a clue.

PMSL your post must be the daftest post I've read all year!

Would you prefer me to video it next time just to prove myself. I'm not going to engage with you anymore.