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?

[treas]

claraschu - are you medically trained? If not your talking bollocks!!!

Having tried to breast feed a ds who was continually loosing weight and on the verge of being hospitalised and then eventually getting shingles due to the stress of it all - people making flip judgements like yours get right on my tits!

[FreudianLisp]

^^
What treas said.

[Fancydrawers]

Can people not just worry about their own lives? Fucking hell. I formula fed. So fucking what. Bloody hell you'd think it was only bf mums who love their children. No wonder formula feeders get defensive.

[wheresmespecs]

so .... how do those of you who DID struggle with low supply, and who had anxious and traumatic times because of it, feel about those women who lie about it?

[echt]

What BeerTricks said.

[ICBINEG]

My expectations going into BFing where completely skewed by the people I knew who had babies before me. Two friends, one of which claimed she couldn't BF as her milk ducts weren't connected and the other that "ran out of milk at 4 months". My DM who claimed she "ran out of milk with me and my sister although not my brother.

I spent a lot of time stressing and worrying that DD wasn't getting enough milk and religiously plotting her weight on the charts to make sure she was okay.

In reality the first friend BFed her second child making the whole physically incapable story look a little ridiculous. After training as a peer supporter it is now clear to me that the whole running out of milk at 4 months thing is due to babies demanding more feeds suddenly. This means they want (and of course get) more milk. It doesn't in any sense mean you are running out...quite the opposite in fact if you feed through you get bulgy boobs afterwards when the growth spurt is over...supply and demand etc.

So all 3 of them supplied me with faulty information that made my first months with my DD far more stressful than it should have been.

People banging on about running out of milk, or lying about not being able to BF really are doing a lot to undermine other BFing mothers....

[echt]

And MorrisZapp

[ICBINEG]

beer yes a shitstorm follows on MN but I have never EVER seen anyone ask someone else why they FF let alone pass judgement on it in RL.

[ICBINEG]

So if you do the right thing and say "I chose not to BF" then what? Someone is going to have a go? in RL? seriously?

The only people I know having a go at people are grandparents/husbands having a go at people BFing for being "selfish" etc.

[fedupofnamechanging]

When I had my 4th baby, I consider that I did not produce enough milk to satisfy her needs. Given that she was my 4th, I was not ignorant as to how often babies should feed and I'm pretty certain that I wasn't doing it wrong.

I don't consider that anyone knows better than me what my body was doing and whether my baby was satisfied or not.

Now it could have been that I wasn't getting enough rest or milk production would have upped eventually, but in the mean time my dd was hungry and I consider that introducing formula was the best thing. Advice form the HV was to for to bed for a couple of days and just eat and feed the baby. She didn't say what I should do with the other 3 kids, oddly enough.

Breastfeeders, should just concentrate on their own kids and leave everyone else be. I think your friend just wants to avoid the judgy attitudes people have towards ff.

[WorraLiberty]

The Mum in question is not responsible for undermining anyone else for goodness sake.

She's just had a baby, she'll be tired and no doubt emotional. She's being judged by nosey fuckwits.

Does anyone really think her first thought is going to be, "Oh I'd better not tell them I'm not producing enough milk because I have a responsibility to not perpetuate a myth. Therefore in my tired and emotional state, I'll just let them judge me and make me feel like a huge pile of crap".

[fromparistoberlin]

yanbu

I see this alot

I have far more respect for people who say "I dont want to BF", fair enough

but I know alot of people that lie, and as others have said its annoying as it perpetuates a myth

I think we are all likely very biased on here, MN has made me a bloody lactivist!

But FACT, most people that want to BF manage it, yup its hell on earth for a few weeks but you get there

[OutragedAtThePriceOfFreddos]

Wheresmespecs, a friend of mine who truly struggled to BF her first child (and is now a BFing counsellor) has told me it frustrates her when she hears people say they don't have enough milk when it's more than likely that they do, or that they didn't put in the effort to build up their supply in the early days.

She is someone I met at antenatal classes when we both had our first, and I remember her tears when she just couldn't do it, and her unreasonable but understandable jealousy towards those of us who could. It was partly down to the lack of support the first time round that led her to become a bf counsellor, as she managed much better the second time when she got proper help.

A lot of problems with bfing are down to a lack of good, experienced advice. Anyone who insists that they didn't make enough milk when actually they could have bfed just makes the problem worse, by making mothers who are worried about making enough milk believe that they might not be. It is not a harmless lie to tell, it has consequences.

[ICBINEG]

Basically it isn't really okay to undermine other peoples experiences and chances of BFing just to protect your own back against potentially fictional attacks...

If you make a choice, then at least own it...

[sleeplessinsuburbia]

clipped summed it up beautifully.

[Lia87]

Could it be she actually did struggle and just wanted to make out it was a choice at first because she was upset?
She shouldn't feel the need to lie, but don't judge her unless you know her reasons 100%, maybe she changed what she told people after a judgemental comment

[echt]

ICBENG so you were stressed by tales from other women's experience which proved to be untrue. For you.

You don't deal with why they might have lied.

Extend the same rationale in the other direction, why don't you?

[ICBINEG]

worra but she doesn't have to say anything at all! It isn't anyone elses business. The OP doesn't say people asked her about it and she responded, the OP says she is actively out there trying to get sympathy.

Just shutting the fuck up would have been the better option!

[MorrisZapp]

Icbineg, what utter rubbish. If your friends had said 'babies like eating jelly and ice cream' would you have ignored your doctor, midwives, and the tsunami of scientific evidence against that?

Of course you wouldn't. You made your own choices. Nobody undermined you.

[wheresmespecs]

Agree ICB.

Before I had DC, I heard quite a few mothers talk about 'no milk' and took it face value and never thought any more about it.

It didn't affect me personally as I never had a supply problem.

But having met lots of other new mothers and shared a lot of the difficulties and shock of those early days of motherhood - I'm sorry to say it, but a lot of them gave up bf-ing for various reasons, which were NOT lack of milk - but this was the line they subsequently gave out.

Like I said earlier - on a personal level, I don't blame anyone for lying to avoid possible conversations they don't want to have about bf-ing. BUT it is creating a widespread myth - and now when I hear a mum say 'not enough milk', I think - yeah, maybe.

Sorry, but that's not me being cynical or judging - it is having realised that some women do lie about it.

(I also know some women who thought they had supply problems when I don't think they actually had, they were just trying to bf with very unrealistic expectations of what it was like - "he wants to feed all the time, he must be starving" etc - and that's damn sad, because they got so anxious and ff when they really didn't want to. That makes me angry on their behalf)

[ICBINEG]

echt at least one friend lied. The others just fell victim to the same myth currently being spread by the OPs friend for the dubious aim of gaining sympathy.

The friend that lied is a total drama queen and lied about a whole made up medical condition. The truth came out when she got pregnant and we all realised she was just making it up. (she did admit this in the end). So I guess she lied because she wanted attention and sympathy - just like the OPs friend.