To think people should stop telling me how to feed my baby!!

[Writerwannabe83]

I have an 11 day old baby who is exclusively breast fed and I've just about had enough now of people offering their 'opinions' as to why I should start giving him bottles of formula.

I've had it off my mom, my MIL, the lady who lives next door and this evening my FIL also gave me a great uninformed speech as to all the benefits of giving a bottle and why I should consider it.

Nobody's reasons include any benefits for the baby but more about why I should do it for the benefit of either me, my DH or them!! I was actually a bit rude to my FIL tonight but he really pissed me off with his implications that I'm selfish for choosing to breast feed because how is my DH supposed to bond if he can't give bottles, and he also implied I was controlling because I was choosing to breast feed so nobody else could look after my baby!

Since when did it be ok to start criticising a mother's choice and why can't people just accept that I'm breast feeding because I want to - not because I'm being forced to against my will, and they should all just leave me to it!!

yes I er 50 and bf all of my 4 and so did all of my contemporaries and so did my dm and mil.

please stop with the sweeping generalisations.

many young mums choose to ff/bf it's nowt to do with age.

writer I am flabbergasted.

if I were you I would absolutely draw a like in the sand and tell your rels any more lip and you don't visit with baby and they don't visit you.

you have the cards and the power. use them babe.

as for mils first walk? what the fuck are they on.

Well done to you OP! Those early days are exhausting and the last thing you need is people putting a downer on your BF! I had to ff dd1, and am EBF dd2 (8weeks) having done both I would 100% recommend sticking with BFing as long as you like. Tell your family in no uncertain terms its not their business and you are quite happy with your choice. My mums only issue with my BFing is that she can't take the baby to let me have a lie in/go to bed early like she used to with DD1 when I stay over

I'm a young mum and people assumed that I ffed. Just after I gave birth I mentioned something about how often my newborn DS woke up in the night and a friend said "oh my baby slept through by 4 weeks, just give him a bit of water in his bottle at night instead of milk." When I replied that I was bf she seemed stunned! I think I'm part of generation of formula feeders. (And my DS was 7.14 when born and weighed in at 13.5 by 9 weeks, solely on breast milk!)

Keep at it and don't let anyone tell you what to do. Breastfeeding is an amazing experience.

Where I work (9 miles from where I live) the BF rates are really low. Last year's statistics showed that initiation rates in hospital were only 11% and by the time those babies reach 6 weeks only 6% of them are still being breast fed. It is very rare to see young mothers breast feeding so I can understand why you came across such reactions diepeppa - I think it is a common assumption that young parents give bottles and it is the older mothers who choose to breast feed.

Christ almighty! Ignore, ignore, ignore. You are not being selfish. there are lots of ways to bond with a baby - feeding is only one of them.

I have found that women of our parents generation find our choice to do something different to them as challenging - they made a decision based on the information and advice at the time - now that we're making a different decision based on different advice they feel (in my experience) that we are criticising their choice. This isn't the case, but that could be where some of it comes from.

FWIW - I had to formula feed both my DD's and one of the positives I took from it was that other people could have the joy of feeding my babies (I know my MIL who exclusively BF her boys for longer than the advice at the time, loved it and was very grateful for the opportunity - but she would never have criticised me either way!) But you are not selfish for breast feeding. I suppose the point I am trying to make is that it isn't black and white (there are positives and negatives to both) but it is not something that anyone else should voice a judgement over. talk about rude and horrid treatment of a new mother.

What is the big deal though about giving a baby a bottle??

It's just a bottle?

And I mean that in the sense of why are other people so desperate to give a bottle to someone else's baby??

When I had my first child my mother thought I was crap because I only lasted a few weeks bf then her preferred children had their babies and went straight to Ff so then I was mad/crap for bf subsequent babies.

She's gone a bit odd recently as she's doing this stiff upper lip thing and steadfastly NOT saying anything at all that could be viewed as negative. She used to make snidely comments all the time now she try's very hard not to make faces when asking about the 2yo and with the baby she's so normal about not noticing its freaky.

The one that annoyed me the most from grandad was "your feeding her again!!!"

One day I accidentally screamed at him "YES yes I fucking well am do you have a bastard arse problem with that fuck face" strangely he apologised to me

Op,

It's an extension of playing dolly

yes it's because when you bf the baby is inevitably do ending long periods attached, literally, to you.

if you ff then other people can take over more easily. so to their mind anyone can take care of your baby!

ridiculous as if you ff you should do it anyway.

I must admit I loved that about bf.

Writer there is no way to say this without it sounding a bit harsher than I intend, but imo it's not about the act of giving baby a bottle, it's about the fact that a bfing mother has more control over the baby and it's an attempt to undermine that and assert more importance in the baby's life. For example, whenever we arrived at my MIL's, the baby would want a feed straight away - after the journey and also probably to help him feel secure in a new environment. She would be desperate to take the baby asap and would hate sitting there waiting. If she had been able to give a bottle, she could have had him straight away and it would have given her the ability to soothe him, which only I had as the sole person who could feed him. She wasn't nasty or horrible, she just desperately loved the baby and wanted to play an important role - which of course she does - but it's easier to establish that with food than to wait and build it up in other ways. I see this with my parents now I have a toddler - my mum puts a lot of effort into playing and interacting with him which is harder work whilst my dad takes the shortcut of plying him with biscuits and cake.

When they are tiny, there isn't much you can do that is so attractive as feeding them. The mother is of such central importance and I think if people are able to take over on the feeding, they feel like they are important too. It must be frustrating if you bottle feed and don't want people jumping in, that's partly why I loved breastfeeding so much, because I could hold onto my baby when I wanted to!

There is also the odd insistence (imo) on getting the baby to themselves. I had a cast iron excuse not to leave him with anyone. I don't understand why some people are so keen to get the baby on its own but, again MIL wanted to have him by herself and bfing prevented that. So it's another reason people may be keen for you to bottle feed.

Lots of good points jelly and I definitely think that when it comes to the IL it is about them wanting to be alone with the baby - prime example being MIL wanting to do baby's first outing in his pram. They have 2 other grandchildren but they live in America so they don't really have a relationship with them - so in a sense this is their 'first' grandchild where they can play a role in its life and they probably hate the fact they can't do even the basic of things like give him a bottle or babysit him. Maybe they think that if I BF for quite some time they are going to be denied an active role in this grandchild's life too?!

Yes, definitely. They just need to see there are other things they can do and that they don't need to have the baby alone in order to bond. My mum had an amazing connection with ds when he was tiny - she could soothe him straight away, he would beam with joy whenever he saw her - she just put the effort into bonding with him without ever wanting to feed him or take him away from me. I think because she wasn't pushy he responded much better to her than any relatives who wanted to grab him the moment they saw him!

I had all this negativity from MIL with DS1, so I took her to the bf support group I went to and gave her the leaflet for grandparents regarding bf. Now with DS2 she is much more supportive (still asks when he's due a feed though!) but it's SIL who is being negative (in a wanting me to disappear out of the room to bf kinda way).

I think the ILs believe I'm some sort of tree hugging hippy - I bf, sling my babies, weaned DS1 using homemade purée at first then just mashed up what we ate (didn't use jars basically). I'm doing it all so differently to how they do things they really can't comprehend so they think I'm criticising and get all defensive. I'm not. I would just like to be respected for doing thing the way myself an DH see fit is all.

And I mean that in the sense of why are other people so desperate to give a bottle to someone else's baby??

No-one should be nagged at to feed a baby a particular way.

However, I do love being able to feed my DGC. There is something lovely about the connection. I have felt that way about every baby I have been able to bottle feed and I have appreciated it very much when I have been permitted to do it. Not desperate. Just appreciated.

I get this negativity all the time. My Dm today tried lecturing me as ds was crying in the carseat. Her response was "you need to get him on a bottle." when I explained he was crying because he didn't like being strapped in his carseat she still retorted that a bottle would fill him up. He's hardly emaciated. He is 13 weeks tomorrow and fitting snuggly into 3-6months clothes. If my dmil says to me once again "well he's had a good start now, you can put him onto a bottle" I will seriously scream. Yes my little one likes comforting on my boob but I don't care. Piss off and leave us be!!
I was shocked when On maternity ward. It was full and there were only 2 of us mums breastfeeding.

Yes, it is just as bad here in Mexico, my daughter got loads of criticism from her father's family for breastfeeding and they kept on saying the baby wasn't getting enough even though she was on her weight with baby chubbiness.
I Wonder if part of the reason might be that people who bottlefed their own children feel threatened.

I think next time my IL (most likely FIL) mentions bottles I'm just going to ask him outright why a) he is so keen to push for them and b) why he thinks my milk isn't adequate.

I will also ask him which of his 'reasons for giving a bottle' are actually for the benefit of the baby as opposed to the benefit of someone else.

You just do what you want to, OP. People are weird about bf. I had a friend - who actually bf all her children for 4 months - who came out with a gem when DD2 was 3 months old: "You're not still demand feeding her, are you?"

To which I responded: "No, I just like to air my boobs."

She never said anything again.

Honestly, OP, I would tell him that even if you gave the baby a bottle he would only find fault with something else. The feeding is a red herring - I live in an area where everyone EBFs, I did bloody well to manage to mix-feed and every time I got a bottle out in public I got horrid tuts and looks. But, every time I was breastfeeding in front of a certain family member, I got the eye rolling and funny comments from them. It bothered me at the time (on both sides) but I knew I had done my best for my own child and in my own situation. People can think what they like.

Now I'm FF, and funnily enough, the eye rolling is still there, but it's about weaning/slings/sleeping. Whatever is topic of the month. This isn't about your milk. It's about someone sticking their oar in, and they will continue to do so long after your little one has stopped boobs or bottles, if you don't, with a huge smile on your face, tell them where to go.

Not sure about very anti-breast feeding culture, when I (desperately) tried to feed DS1 I was in hospital for 3 weeks (he was early I was ill) I was told to feed him formula would be like feeding his poison by a midwife. Needless to say I made a complaint once I had recovered from the awful depression the whole situation resulted in. I hadn't even considered formula feeding, I was devastated and this was said to me despite the fact they knew I pretty much tried to feed, expressed (getting nothing) and supplemented for a long time and was put on domperidone to bring milk in which didn't come in and had a parade of endless breastfeeding consultants manhandling my boobs. It was all very demoralizing indeed. I ended up having to formula feed much to my disappointment as the milk just wasn't coming. I had plenty of anti-formula feeding comments from people - it works both ways. I cried a lot, for a long time.

Anyway, the upshot of all this tale of woe (sorry OP ) is that I do not think ANYONE should be telling ANY mother how to feed their baby whether it be pressure to breastfeed OR bottlefeed. I applaud you OP for breastfeeding be proud of yourself and ignore everyone else it isn't their business at all. You carry on as long as you want to/are able to. Nobody should be made to feel bad/inferior/wrong for how they feed their baby - folks should just butt out.

Tch apologies for the extremely long sentence in my above post.

YANBU. I am also ebf DS3, who is 6 weeks old. While I haven't had any negative comments about doing so, even in public, a lot of people have expressed surprise that I bf. Even a fairly close, young relative, who is a mw, asked me what milk he was on, and seemed most surprised when I replied 'Breastmilk'. This is all despite the fact that I ebf DS1 & DS2 to this age & then mixed fed until weaning, so they were both bf up to 5 months-ish

OP, please don't invite a discussion with PIL about their views on feeding. It just looks like you feel the need to justify your choice. You DON'T - that's the point, & you don't want to have to go through this about every decision you make as a parent.

Your PIL must be aware that breast milk is best for your baby - I don't see how it's possible for anyone not to know that these days. I only managed a few weeks BF my twins FWIW & totally support any woman's right to feed her baby in the way she sees fit.

But your PIL sound bloody weird & the key issue you need to sort is that you don't want their unwanted advice about any of your parenting decisions. Tell them you're not going to discuss it any further. It's disturbing, TBH, that they feel that their desire to have certain experiences with your baby should be an influencing factor in your feeding choice. You need to establish some boundaries.

Needs, did you really say that to your grandad?