to point out that formula feeding doesn't necessarily require you to be sterilising bottles and scooping out powder in the middle of the night...

[itsakindarabbit]

Keep seeing this on threads which mention ff...how people couldnt be doing with getting up in the night andstsrilising bottles/making up feeds.

I bf and ff but found ff no problem at night - i would take up a carton of ready made formula and a pre sterilised bottle and i could feed without getting out of bed.

And yes, i know ready made formula is expensive and not everyone uses it. But some of us do/did.

I typed a very long reply & my phone lost it, annoying.

I'm off to drink wine & chat with my lovely DH.

babies how would you even know which people 'really tried' and which didn't? do you ask them?

Oh god I came back and checked. Gah!

I'm just really tired of hearing that people tried but couldn't. Oh how difficult for you to hear that. My little heart is breaking for you. Have you any idea, any bloody idea what it is like to flog yourself for weeks and weeks trying to feed and express for hours on end to find your breasts completely empty. To listen to all your NCT chums going on about how the stuff is squirting out of them and feel like a total failure because despite being determined to BF there's just nothing there. Then to be subjected to tuts and stares and nasty comments and sanctimonious bullshit like yours.

Oh and where do you get your stats from? Nobody recorded what happened to us in any kind of statistical analysis. Just more twathattery to beat up FFers and feed your inflated sense of self-worth. Well done. Your tits produced and mine didn't. Have a bloody medal, you clearly think you deserve one.

Don't you dare come on here, where several women have shared personal and distressing information about their inability to feed and whinge that you're sick of hearing it. Absolutely pathetic. Insulting and pathetic.

Why do you all let one stranger's opinion rile you so much?

If you know you tried, and your baby is thriving and it doesn't bother you, why do you care about one judgmental person.

Tbh I've never met anyone in real life who is judgmental about bf or ff. it's such a forum thing.

C this thread isn't about your struggle, or your unnecessary judginess about other women's reasons for stopping or not BF. It's pointing out that for women who doformula feed, it doesn't have to be a bloody faff in the middle of the night"

Thankyou fissplaps this exactly.

I started the thread after reading a thread on cloth nappies,actually...someone had spouted an aside about how they couldnt face ff as they would have to faff about with kettles, sterilisers and scoops of powder in the middle ofthe night.

It just struck me that it was a representation of ff i didnt recognise.

Fwiw i bf my first til 6 months. I co slept and fed in my sleep! I was alwYs too nervous to put the baby between dh and i so ifed from one side. Ended up with one massive boob and one that never got used at night and was tiny by comparison. I reme,ber being pawed all night during growth spurts.

Ff at night, a faff? Nope.

babies I hope you are having a nice time drinking wine and you do have a right to express your opinion.

I do still disagree with you though- I don't think a woman who says she can't do it without having an abscess or spending hours at support groups or whatever does denigrate what I and other people have been through.

I think whatever happens it's a really hard decision and extremely emotive and I would never do a mental comparison to see who had had a tougher time and really given it some welly. How would I know and even if they hadn't it's really not my business.

If you haven't FF its probably hard to believe the constant judgements you have to face and (like caesareans) it's really annoying having to justify your decision all the time - like you can't be trusted to make the best decision for you and tour family and your judgement should be constantly evaluated preferably with gory medical history included.

Babies, your attitude stinks. Who are you to judge?

Are you saying that I failed to bf because I didn't try hard enough? That it wasn't important to me?

I haemorrhaged after giving birth, the midwives told me I had no milk supply as I was too anaemic to make any. Nothing made any difference to my milk supply. Nothing. And yes I tried. I expressed, I took fenugreek, I went to a bf clinic. Instead what happened was that my baby lost a shed load of weight and fell asleep on the boob as there was no incentive to suck, because there was nothing there.

So don't give me that sanctimonious bullshit that not being able to feed is just an excuse. You have no idea. How dare you.

Bf was always my plan, so when it didn't work out I felt like I failed. I failed my child. And yet you come on here and make people like me feel even worse. What gives you the right to be insulting and judge others? So you managed to bf, what do you want, a prize?

Get off your high horse, you just look like an idiot.

I second everything ChairmanWow has just said.

Oh bloody hell! I have the triple whammy!

I ff (tried bf, wasn't good at it, had no support from MW/HV or family, had no clue what I was doing and had very hungry twins). I used disposable nappies (no washing machine until kids were 4 years, no heating just a gas fire and so nowhere to dry nappies). And I had a caesarian (both twins breech and was told there was a 1/100 chance that one would die if I tried a vaginal delivery).

Please come and judge me.

Personally, I think that if a mum has intended to FF from day one, and then says that they couldn't breastfeed, it's because they're worried about people like babies making all sorts of judgy comments if they're honest.

Implying that a lot of mums who say they had problems breastfeeding are lying and just couldn't be bothered is just going to upset all the mums who wanted to breastfeed and couldn't for whatever reason.

C this thread isn't about your struggle, or your unnecessary judginess about other women's reasons for stopping or not BF. It's pointing out that for women who doformula feed, it doesn't have to be a bloody faff in the middle of the night". You're right Rabbit.

It was just such a stress that having to read some of this stuff is upsetting, and I guess I'm nervous because my next baby is imminent and feeding is already worrying me. A stranger's opinion shouldn't bother me or anyone else, we're not going to change anyone's minds by arguing on forums and this has ended up detailing the thread. Sorry for my part in that. I think I'll step away from feeding threads!

not detailing.

Yes but, Chairman, here should be the perfect place to ask questions and be reassured by other people.

it's all part of the propaganda innit. How difficult it is to FF and how easy it is to BF PLUS the weight just drops off you.............Arses

YABU. There is a Bf/Ff topic which I have HIDDEN.

formula back pack with a tube by the nipple. What the actual fuck is that all about? Oh and I tried in a really lame might have lost my mind if I had carried on kind of way. But obv my sanity is far less important than BF my child. lol

Well I hated breastfeeding. I hated everything about it from the feeling, to not being able to share night feeds with dh, to the endless hours of feeding to establish supply and so on. But I'm not ignorant. I know breast milk itself is better but breastfeeding wasn't better for me as a mother.

So I gave up with dd after 6 weeks and I bottle fed ds from birth.

I pre make all my bottles with boiling water. I cool them in ice and put them in the fridge. Both of my dc have slept through from 12 weeks but if they did need a night bottle I'd use the microwave and swirl vigorously.

Do I care if others breastfeed? Nope. Not my baby. Not my body.

Is formula feeding abusive? No. The health differences can be argued non stop, ironically dd was breastfed and had non stop ear infections, ds touch wood has had nothing wrong at all so far. I was breastfed and I am riddled with immune problems. It's not clear cut.

So who gives a monkeys what people do? It's crazy.

Formula backpack with a tube by the nipple - took quite a lot of googling as it isn't mainstream. One of the great things about FF is that DD was no longer attempting to shred my nipples for the milk that just wasn't there, so I have no idea why you would want to formula feed with the baby still sucking your nipple - but each to their own.

I wasn't able to bf as my heart stopped during em-cs and they broke two of my ribs getting it started again. We used the cartons of formula the whole time, because we were lucky enough to afford it and it was much less of a faff than powder. DS still wanted it warmed up though.

I breastfed ds1 for 10 1/2 months until 2 months pregnant with ds2, I breastfed ds2 for 17 days, and I put ds3 on the bottle straight away. I had a condescending midwife tell the entire ward that I was artificially feeding ds3. (I had 3 ds under the age of 3).
In my day all bottles of milk were made up once a day and kept in the fridge.

Ds 3 now aged nearly 22 ,all 6 feet and 15 stones of him, has been safely delivered to his new home 150 miles away today.

Do whatever you can, BF if you can, FF if you can't. You need to be able to cope with your child.
After raising three ds into adulthood and being on my own pretty much for most of it, do whatever you need to that gets you through the day without weeping, and if you do weep, give yourself forgiveness.

Before you can turn around, they are adults leading their own lives.

breathe is the backpack not a supplementary nursing system? It can be used to top up breast milk when a baby appears not to be thriving.

Anyway. I thinks honest threads where people can find information on FF are vital. It can be a very lonely experience establishing feeding with a newborn - no matter how it is being done.

It is sad really that any discussion on managing FF always becomes a bun fight about BF.

Also, I think the stories people have are completely heart-wrenching. It does make me cross however that people are made to feel that they must justify how they feed their child.

I have NEVER met anyone in RL who is remotely interested in how I feed my child. I have only met one or two people in MN who have made me feel bad about it.

It's a tiny minority.

When you're stressed and unsure, it's the loud minority that you hear though. It's just really shit that some people forget that there is a person behind the keyboard and that that person might just need a bit of reassurance and thought.

And yes, of course this is AIBU but still there is no need to be a preachy judger, it really isn't helpful.

Booy, Chairman, Fut, Rabbit, Pobble, and everyone else, you all did what was best for your babies. You did your best and found the best way for you and your babies.

Brilliant.

But making any decision for your children is hard. He'll you just have to look on MN to see that. One size does not fit all. You all found the best fit. Please pat yourselves on the backs.

It sounds as though Babiesinslings experience has hurt her and this is what comes across in her posts. It sounds like she went through a lot and has been left embittered by the experience.. She is striking out.

Seriously women, go look at your beautiful, loving, children and raise a toast to yourselves. You did your best and they're a credit to you.

Passmethecrisps - no idea what it is for, but it clearly isn't widely available and widely recommended, but FunnysInLaJardin mentioned it and I was curious.

When it comes to BF vs FF, please just tryand remember that you do not have to justify your feeding choices to anyone. Anyone who gets arsy and judgemental about it is, quite frankly, not worth talking to.