To think a judge should not be able to stop a mother from breast feeding?

[HolidayArmadillo]

m.wfmz.com/Judge-orders-Northampton-Co-mother-to-stop-breastfeeding/-/15946050/22880612/-/1yrm3wz/-/index.html

If this is true I think this judge has been wholly out of order. What about this child's rights? And any father worth their salt would not demand this.

So what should the judge do?

A) Baby does not stay with her father until fully weaned, which no one can predict. She loses valuable contact time with him and makes it more difficult to adjust to overnight stays.

B) Judge puts time limit on mother saying you can breastfeed for another 6/7/8 months and then you must give up.

Rock and a hard place.

My DS was breastfed till 2..Did initially take a bottle of expressed milk ...then I got mastitisus( 10 weeks)..stopped expressing to get milk supply right he never took from a bottle again... He did move onto water although I almost despaired trying to find a cup he would drink from this took a good couple of months and never slept through till 4.

My friend has a 7 month old who was going away for the night short term ..Her DH had never put baby to bed, she did night feeds, yet he has bonded with child just how it works in their family.

I don't think you have to have overnight care to bond...When a bay wakes at night you shouldn't be encouraging them to be awake.

Ultimatelty as parents of newborns we are not equal and especially in breastfed babies...

Formula and bottles cost money.

If the baby start refusing the breast I hope he steps up and pays for all this for the mother.

From that very short piece it sounds as if the parents have probably been in dispute about the baby for most of it's life, so I doubt very much that there is an easy option for them now. Which is obviously sad. Of course the parents should together have figured out the best way to manage contact.

I'm not sure you can take what she says about the judge, the father or the baby as the entire truth either. Given that she breastfeeds and thinks that's very important (both of which are commendable) I'm not sure that she would have tried vary hard to get the baby to take a bottle - especially if that facilitates the father looking after his daughter, as that may well be the last thing she wants (for good or bad reasons)

The thing that struck me in her interview was that she talked about her right to breastfeed but never once said 'I've offered day time contact' or any mention of what she has offered as a compromise.

Why cant the father see his daughter during the day when she's awake? I doubt at 10 months that she's having many feeds during the day at that age anyway?

Breastfeeding is best for the baby and lets be honest, she wont be breast fed for the rest of her life!

SaucyJack - of course a child wouldn't starve itself in such extreme circumstances, but it would become very distressed in the process. Of course if it's mother had died there would be no alternative, but in this case the mother hasn't died has she?

She isn't dead no, but there isn't an an alternative here either to the ruling as the parents have split up and clearly can't or won't co-parent together under the same roof.

I really, really, really, truly think society needs to move away from the current view that in the event of a separation, fatherhood is something that need only be there when it suits him, or that fathers are only there for the fun Saturday afternoons and it's the mothers job to do the real work of raising and paying for the child. The whole Disneyland dad approach really is so incredibly and painfully damaging to the child.

If the court case was instead about the father saying he didn't want to pay, or to see the baby you'd all be queuing round the block baying for his blood as the baby is obviously just as much his responsibility too. Well, I for one respect the judge for giving the minority of fathers that do want to do the mature thing, the legal right to do so.

saucy you're suggesting that the mature thing to do is......the thing that is the least beneficial to the health and well being of the mother and baby?

Really?

Also just because someone has a right to insist on over night stays, doesn't mean that it is RIGHT to insist on it.

The ideal would be that Mum continues bfeeding quite happily. baby continues to benefit. Dad collects baby and has quality time during the day offering water and solid foods and returns baby for night feed and bedtime.

How is that detrimental?

Imo being shipped from pillar to post is unnecessary and the father has plenty of opportunity to bond in the daytime. Same with gp's or anyone else
How can you compare him to their grand parents? You wouldn't say this if the baby was 'being passed pillar to post' to its mother would you?

How is spending time with your dad being shipped from pillar to post anyway? Babies don't generally spend all their time in one location - it would probably be very bad for them if that was the case. Having two homes is normal for children with separated parents.

Saucy jack I could not agree more with you about father's roles not being appreciated by society but also I feel the value of bf to a child is completely underestimated in modern society. It is a question of balance and causing least harm to both the bf baby and the father's relationship, let it be to the detriment of 2 parents who are adults, but not to the detriment of the child.

But neu that is bias in the option that not bf for 48 hours at 10 months is more detrimental to bonding and attaching with the father, which simply isn't true.

Why can't she express the milk? Sorry,but the mother sounds like the controlling one!

have you ever expressed, music? perhaps you found it easy - plenty don't. I wouldn't have been able to have expressed enough at 10 months.

but even if she could physically express enough - why should she have to?!

But neu that is bias in the option that not bf for 48 hours at 10 months is more detrimental to bonding and attaching with the father, which simply isn't true.

48 hours presumably weekly is very damaging to bf at 10 months though. Why not try to accommodate both. Both are important to a 10 month baby.

Because it might be the compromise required in this situation? Split parenting comes with many compromises, it's just how it is. Not saying that expressing is easy, I completely failed at it.

Waking up with your mum,your dad collecting you and doing something with you for a few snatched hours, then returning for the night feed (only to do it all again the next day) sounds more disruptive than just cracking on with it. Maybe he wants to bond with his dd, play with her, feed her her dinner, get her bathed and ready for bed and put her to sleep in a cot in the next room, knowing that she'll be there bouncing up and down when he sticks his head back round the door. Fair enough. She'll have to be apart from her mum someday, and if she's practising AP that might be challenging at any time.

The Mother could legitimately use the BF reasoning for years and he and his DD could miss out on all that. When is it ok for someone to intervene and tell her BF is not enough to prevent overnights? 18 months? Two years? Whenever the WHO recommends we wean?

Clearly they've been arguing over the baby for a long time, and it's got to court. The fact that the child may need to be apart from it's mum isn't a surprise to anyone. Perhaps she should have taken that into account (getting into an expressing routine or limited use of formula), or tried to make a compromise agreement before having her arm twisted like this.

To be fair music, even if the mother did express it won't mean the same to the baby, especially since she has been ebf up until now. Bf is about a lot more than simply nutrition and a baby who has been used to gaining comfort and security from it won't be comforted by a bottle, not matter what it contains. Also, why should the formula be forcibly introduced? The mother may not want to give her child formula and I understand that especially if she's invested 10 months in ebf.

It is a shame that both these parents have got to the point where neither of them are able to make the personal sacrifices needed to ensure the comfort of their child comes first. I'm sure if they both worked together they could achieve a balance which doesn't involve distressing their child and it's sad that this doesn't appear to be the case.

You don't understand it, till you have EBF. I have now for over a year. I was fully prepared to express etc and be off BF by now, but its just carried on.

As others have said its so much more than just a way of feeding, so much more, comfort, reassurance etc etc etc.

After FF first, this has been a revelation to me.

Anyway hopefully she can appeal.

As for the father, he can see baby for more shorter periods.

Ludicrous!
What benefit is there to a 10 month old child to sleep overnight with the father? The father could put the child to bed at 7 and then be there the next day at 7 and not lose out one bit!
To stop a mother breast feeding her child is an infringement of human rights - both the babies and the mothers. To ask the father to collect the child at 7 am is NOT an infringement of his rights.

craic have you much experience of breast feeding or of co parenting? Expressing was a nightmare for me and dd rejected bottles completely. So I didn't bother, she went from the breast to a cup. I know a lot of mothers like this.

I also know a lot of fathers with fantastic father-child relationships who don't have their children over night or who didn't for a length of time for various reasons,

Ultimately what each parent 'wants' is irrelevant. The baby will want her mothers milk and will be distressed of she doesn't get it.

The recommendation is that bf continues until 2 years if poss, I reckon that's the cut off for this situation

elf there's plenty of people on this thread who have breastfeed and agree with the ruling.

and your last comment about the father is really really dismissive. Almost like the father is the second thought in all this and isn't worth thinking about.

^Ludicrous!
What benefit is there to a 10 month old child to sleep overnight with the father? The father could put the child to bed at 7 and then be there the next day at 7 and not lose out one bit!
To stop a mother breast feeding her child is an infringement of human rights - both the babies and the mothers. To ask the father to collect the child at 7 am is NOT an infringement of his rights.^

You're assuming he doesn't work, what if he has to work during the day?

Actually lioness said it better!