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?

Ps I breast fed both my dc's but couldn't care less whether my friends bf or ff, it's the judgemental attitudes and smugness around these issues that really get my goat. Motherhood is so hard and as women, we should be supporting one another, not judging. Anyway, too much wine for me so I'm signing off now, but we need a little more peace and love on mumsnet.

Haha, its ok Beagle, I do have ishoos, like having too much wine and thinking 'lifeoutcomes' is an actual word

Beagle Please quote anything I said that told anybody what they should be doing.

You seem to come down like fury on everybody that does not criticise BF, without actually reading the posts or trying to understand what they are saying. I don't know what your problem is, and why you are so agressive.
It really doesn't matter, I guess.

gimmecakeandcandy Fri 23-Nov-12 18:03:28
"YaNbu at all. An extremely high precentage of mums will produce enough milk to bf with perseverance - over 95%, but it takes perseverance and TIME. Supply can take many many weeks to establish so I wish women who choose not too and haven't been medically diagsnosed as not having enough milk wouldn't keep saying they didn't have enough milk."

And what if your baby loses the strength to suckle in the meantime? As it so happens, I had plenty of milk, but dd was hypotonic and unable to suckle effectively. The less milk she was able get, the weaker she got until she ended up in hospital aged 4 weeks. This had nothing to do with me being impatient; things weren't going to get sorted if I just waited; she was losing strength by the day and at increasing risk of infection.Photos taken at the time show her little ribs sticking out. The paed at the hospital took one look when I undid her sleepsuit and then stretched out his hand for the phone without a word.

Looking back, I can't believe I let that happen to her, just because I was so convinced that there couldn't be any problems if you breastfed on demand.

I could imagine something similar happening to a baby who isn't getting enough milk because supply takes longer than normal to establish. Once a baby starts getting weak they can go downhill very quickly and won't necessarily have the strength to just recover on their own.

Yes, statistically I know dd should have been healthier than my friends' babies who were formula fed. Is that a lot of comfort when in actual fact she ended up in hospital with malnutrition? (and no, I never did give up breastfeeding, so no axe to grind in that respect)

gimmecakeandcandy Sat 24-Nov-12 16:08:13
"Well cory obviously you had genuine problems with bf! You didn't just give up !"

Are you congratulating me on that fact? The point I was trying to make was that if I had just given up, dd would not have ended up in hospital with her ribs sticking out.

I persisted because I thought I was doing the right thing and all that time I was putting dd at risk- I don't like to think what would have happened if she had gone down with a bug. If you think I'm telling this story to pat myself on the head for the right decision, you need to read my post again.

With my second baby, I did "just give up" and offer top-ups the moment I noticed he wasn't feeding effectively. His picture show a healthy chubby wide awake baby obviously in the best of health.

But the point is, if you had asked me, I would have told you that I had failed to breastfeed. My answers would have been vague and unconvincing and I am sure you would have told me in very outspoken terms that you didn't believe. Because how could I come up with a convincing explanation when I had no idea what was going wrong? My children were not diagnosed until pre-puberty and even then nobody thought to tell me that this would have affected breastfeeding. Dd was 10 when an occupational therapist mentioned that in passing- I nearly burst into tears from relief.

there's nothing wrong with someone saying "I had problems BFing and I decided that it was more important that I wasn't stressed than that I BFed"

I agree, OP, I don't like it when people say they didn't have enough milk etc, when it was most likely to be myriad other reasons.

However, it's a shame she feels she has to make up an excuse.
not least that she's doing it deliberately (seemingly) to get sympathy for it!

cory - i'm sure that's not what was meant - you did your best, you did what you thought was best for your baby, and you did do what was best for your baby.

The problem is that these days, there is so much pressure to BF, but little or no support (which we've heard time and time again), that if you had been told "just feed her formula" you would be right to believe you weren't getting the support you needed.
that's the problem, the fact that the people who should be helping are far too quick to say "formula" than to actually give real, genuine help that you would feel even worse giving formula.
As it happens, I have a friend who nearly killed her son putting him on formula top-ups when he was TT, because it turns out he's also CMP allergic.

But how do they know, nickelbaum? I had no idea what the problem was: my explanations were probably wildly out, but it wasn't making up excuses, it was trying to explain things to myself- and getting them wrong.

no, :(
it's so hard to diagnose something like that, isn't it?

it's hard to tell whether it's the baby not being able to suck or whether it's the woman not producing enough milk.

but I know your point - it's so much easier to say "i didn't want to" than to say "I couldn't" especially when you know that you could, but she couldn't. :(

"The problem is that these days, there is so much pressure to BF, but little or no support (which we've heard time and time again), the fact that the people who should be helping are far too quick to say "formula" than to actually give real, genuine help that you would feel even worse giving formula."

Actually that depends on where you live. I don't think anyone could want for more support than I got. I gave birth in a very breast-feeding friendly hospital, the breastfeeding supporter went round the next day asking each mum how she intended to feed and giving positive feedback when they said bf; I had a midwife ready to help me to latch on at every feed if I wanted to, when dd started to lose weight the HVs (who were very well trained) came round every day to support me to continue bf'ing, when I went into hospital I had long sessions with the breastfeeding counsellor (lovely lady) and when I was discharged she came to see me at home.

In fact, I think it was the masses of support that made it so psychologically difficult for me to give up- that and the fact that none of us had an idea of what was going on. If someone had been able to peek into the future and say: "actually, you know, by the time this child is 10 she won't even be able to walk, there will be hundred of ordinary healthy things that children should be doing that she will miss out on, you just need to let go and plan for a different scenario", then that would have helped.

But since that was not available, I think it was just as well that noone was around who was too picky about the way I described my situation- because I genuinely had no clue!

What got me about this thread was the suspicion aimed at any mum whose diagnosis of her situation might not be 100% medically accurate. Considering how many qualified doctors misdiagnosed dd, I don't think I could be blamed if I also got my explanations slightly muddled. The point is- we were none of us liars making up excuses on purpose. Not even the doctors.

"Worse the friend is perpetuating a damaging myth that people don't produce enough milk and undermining the confidence of the people she speaks to who may yet BF and have those anxious "are they getting enough" moments. It is rare for people to physically be incapable of making milk. It is incredibly rare for people who can physically produce milk to not produce enough for a baby, or twins or triplets etc. "

Not a myth in my case. The scale said otherwise. DS could feed and feed and had his latch checked, blah blah blah. He ended up in hospital for FtT a very sick and underweight little boy with a big bloated belly.

cross-posted, Nickel

in fact not even this part applies in my case:

"it's so much easier to say "i didn't want to" than to say "I couldn't" especially when you know that you could, but she couldn't. "

I had no idea until that meeting when dd was 10 years old that it wasn't me who had failed at breastfeeding. It took me long enough to realise it wasn't my fault that she seemed so lazy, that she could never walk or run like the other children, that she was always falling and hurting herself- but the bit about the breastfeeding just didn't click at all until somebody else pointed out. I really, really thought it was all my fault. (dd says it still is, because her disorder is genetic, and what do I think genetic means)

I had lots of support too. The community midwives were still visiting at 6 weeks and I had health visitors too. Our lovely GP would come round and change his nappy while I cried. I had lactation specialists etc etc. I also had plenty of bf friends.

About the only non-supportive environment I had was when I went to LLL, the mothers were very rude and nasty about me mixed feeding, despite my explanations.

Op I've read thread and still don't get it. . Why is it your business what any mother does. ..

I understand, cory.
i bet you're relieved that it's not your fault (cory's DD - not her deliberate fault )

Cory I'm not sure why you are so convinced I would have acted a certain way and you have taken my reply and read a lot into it - all I meant was that your situation sounds like you did your best and came to a decision based on your circumstances. And I have always said most women will have enough milk, I didn't say most women will be able to bf. I know many women who could not get their babies to suckle/attach so they kept their flow up by expressing. My initial point was that most women will have enough milk.

Bigbird - just because a few of us said it was rare to not have enough milk it doesn't mean we don't know that there are women who don't produce enough. Of course in your case this is what happened - of course it happens and I'm sorry to hear you went through this but all some of us were saying is that it is not as common as is thought. If anything, the fact that sime women throw the 'I didn't have enough milk' line around so easily when it wasn't the case takes away from genuine cases like yours!

I didnt produce milk. My GP ordered me to stop trying after two weeks of struggling to get my flow going. I followed all of the specialist advise, expressed in between feeds to try and improve things and all I got was a big fat nothing. I didnt even get the rock solid boobs that people describe when they stop bfing - probably because there was nothing there. I was utterly devastated. For some of us, 'low milk supply' is very real. I really wish people would accept that.

Of course it is real mamabear which is why it is even more annoying that people use this very valid problem as their reason for stopping but they are lying! It is disrespectful to people like you who were diagnosed as having this problem and for who it was a real problem.

Same as you Mamabear, I didn't have milk either for DD1.I was very well advised and prepared but the milk was just not coming. I tried and tried and tried. I gave formula through a special dispenser which was like torture in the middle of the night. I could not believe that it could happen to me as I was so motivated. I ended up mixed feeding for a long time.
Had no issue for DS and DD2.

The thing is though, is that it is being said on this thread that unless you go to a doctor and have low milk supply formally diagnosed, then women are either lying or mistaken.

I think, given they were my breasts, that I was able to judge quite accurately whether enough milk was coming out to satisfy my baby.

It was my fourth time being a mother and I had successfully bf in the past, so I was pretty confident.

Just as an aside, my doctor knew very little about the realities of bf. At one point he was asking me about bf because his wife was bf for the first time. Why would I ask him to tell me what I already knew?

Well it's no ones business why she stopped breastfeeding, though everyone will ask. So really I think it's fair enough she doesn't share the real reason if she doesn't want to.