To hope that I can ask about FF without being shot down in flames?

[Darksideofthemoon88]

I'm interested in WHY people choose to FF if not for medical reasons (ie they can't because of medication they have to take, or because their baby was very premature and is unable to suckle) - I've seen a lot of threads where people assert that FF was best for them/their family/their baby or that they chose to FF without trying BF, and I'm curious as to why. Genuinely curious I'm not interested in fighting with anyone about what's best or right; I'd just like to read about why people FF because I honestly don't know. In the interests of full disclosure though (I know how MNs feel about this! ), I am a breastfeeding mother.

I had no desire to ever BF but after reading about the benefits of it I thought I would give it a go and if it went well would continue. Well as I had a elcs I clearly wasn't producing milk or even colostrum for a few days so the baby needed formula and tbh I was quite relieved that the decision was made for me. When I did begin to produce milk I used a pump and expressed for about a month. That suited me. I had never wanted to all of the night feeds, get my boobs out in front of others (regardless of whether it was friends, family or strangers) or have a baby stuck to me.

I don't care about other people's choices. I made the right decision for me and would not hesitate to FF again. If BF suits then great but FF works for many as well.

I tried to BF each of my three DCs. It didnt work for me. Also I was going back to work shortly after each birth so there was never going to be enough time to establish BF unless it worked instantly.

One of the things I really disliked was the feeling of being exposed to feed DCs. I am quite private about my body and BF just left me feeling horribly exposed.

Only experienced one negative comment. While in the waiting room with DD1 at the doctors a woman came in with her own DC and asked how I was feeding DD. When I said FF she started going on about how she couldnt understand how anyone found BF a problem as she found it really easy.

I didn't like it.

I did it for two weeks with my youngest and the weirdest thing used to happen. When she first suckled I had a massive wave of dark depression sweep over me that made me want to lash out.. not at the baby but just in general. It only lasted a minute at most but it was such an awful feelings of darkness. It felt like grief or something hitting me square in the stomach.

That was enough for me to stop.

Well as I had a elcs I clearly wasn't producing milk or even colostrum for a few days so the baby needed formula
Xenadog just to point out (in case this worries anyone due to have a cs) that having a elcs does not necessarily lead to no milk production. Why would it? There were problems in your case but it is not universal.

DBro and I were FF because my mum flat out refused to consider BF. Her reason was "small breasts", but she does have some odd body issues and I think this is part of that.

I certainly managed to BF both my own DCs, but it's all down to choice as no two people are ever alike.

Iggi999 Sat 23-Aug-14 21:45:20
Well as I had a elcs I clearly wasn't producing milk or even colostrum for a few days so the baby needed formula
Xenadog just to point out (in case this worries anyone due to have a cs) that having a elcs does not necessarily lead to no milk production. Why would it? There were problems in your case but it is not universal.

Just saw this and my own experience was that my milk came in about a day later than it would have done with a VB. Although, I'm partly deaf and missed the bit where I was apparently told this could be the case.

So got quite distressed at DD's constant feeding attempts on day 3. Lucky for me, an older experienced midwife gave DD a small bottle, calming her down enough for me to calm down too. She told me my milk was coming in, but the constant feeding attempts from DD was not allowing my body time to build a supply at that point, she also said pumping would not have helped at that point either.

DD was cup-fed in the nursery overnight as I was too tired, fell asleep and DP got very protective over me needing sleep. It's on my record that he refused to allow the MW to wake me up to feed DD. Next morning, 7am, I was full to bursting and never looked back, no trouble feeding at all.

I wanted so badly to bf all three of my babies but it just never happened. All 3 latched perfectly and everything seemed fine. With the first two I thought the issue was that the milk never came in. All 3 lost loads of weight and were nearly readmitted to hospital. I lasted 3 aka mixed feeding with DS1 until he took a chunk out of my nipple. DS2 lasted until 2 days after getting home from hospital when I had to put him on formula. With DS3 I had thought we were doing well but he kept losing weight until I introduced formula. I tried everything to boost my supply, saw loads of professionals for advice and it wasn't until I spoke to someone on a helpline that it was suggested that I had hypoplasia. None of the people who had actually seen me feed him had suggested this. DS3 is 16 weeks now and has made up for lost time in the growth department but it still upsets me that I couldn't feed him, or any of them, myself. I think there's too much pressure on women to breastfeed their babies especially for those of us that physically can't no matter how badly they want to.

My milk didn't come in. I couldn't understand why the other mothers of new born babies kept fiddling around with breast pads or needed maternity bras as my breasts didnt change shape or increase in size after the birth. My DC was vomiting up blood after every attempt as that was all that my body was producing. After a frustrating and painful week I decided not to bother which was the right decision. Bottle feeding worked brilliantly and my lovely DC is now a happy, healthy adult.

Breast feeding is brilliant when it works out but what actually matters is a healthy baby and happy mother. Far too much pressure is put on new mothers by the breastapo.

Not bf is not a new phenomenon in Victorian times and earlier rich women would hire wet nurses to feed their babies when they couldn't / didn't want to this practice has been overtaken by formula in more recent years but its not a shocking new practice as some people on this thread have implied.

I do find it odd especially considering how forward thinking mumsnet is with regards to feminism / womens rights that even on this site women feel like they have to justify to other women how they fed their babies and why. Then in return expect other mothers to justify their choices too.

I find people with opinions similar to minifingers just mini dictators tbh. I don't get why some women get so obsessed with bf that they become the bf police and presume they have the right to to tell other women how they should be using their own breasts. Absolute craziness and I am writing this while bf! Would you also judge women for not using any other part of their anatomy for its original purpose? The answer is no, but for some reason women seem to think its ok to tear into other women to for different feeding styles.

Some people don't want to ff, some women don't want to bf we are lucky enough to have choices. My dm ff me and bf my sister, I don't resent it, I don't feel like my life has been affected by this, I don't feel like I missed out on a thing.I couldn't give a flying fuck to be honest

As long as babies are being fed and have families who love them do you really think they care how they are being fed and will it really influence their lives?

I ff dc1 as I needed resuscitating when I had him, had retained placenta, he got jaundice and needed lots of fluids and I lost 3000mls of blood. I actually never got any milk ever not even colostrum. But women from the bf police were on hand to make me feel like the shittest mum ever for not bf and to tell me a bit of skin to skin would get my milk to come in. It didn't.
I now wish I'd been confident enough to tell them to fuck off mind their own business.

I was lucky enough to manage to bf dc2 but also don't feel I need to justify why I didn't bf dc1 to anyone and nor should any other woman.

I wanted and intended to bf with both my children, but with my first he lost a lot of weight and I eventually switched to formula at 8 weeks. That week, he finally regained his birth weight, the poor soul. Latch was fine - he was an enthusiastic feeder, but my supply was rubbish due to hypoplasia. With my DD, I did lots of prep to help overcome the supply issues (hand expressing colostrum from 36 weeks; pumping with a hospital grade pump between feeds; taking domperidone and herbal remedies and eating loads of food and drinking loads of water). Exact same thing happened, except I wasn't so naive as to wait until 8 weeks before switching to formula. I'm truly grateful for the option of formula - my two dc would probably have been very ill/underweight/slow to thrive without it, and I would probably have ended up weaning them on to solids at three months to make up for it. I do think more midwives and hvs and lactation consultants need to be made aware of hypoplasia and what to look for. I was seen breastfeeding by several people, but ended up diagnosing myself via Google!

It's amazing how long babies can last without getting milk - I really don't think DD got anything for 5 days when we got her some formula.

How can any woman feel like a failure for not being able to breastfed? There is a choice & baby will be fed, therefore looked after properly. It is not wrong to give your baby formula.

I feel in some parts of the country it is almost like peer pressure, some women are feeling like this due to expectations from midwives/NCT/health visitors. Luckily I only came across one midwife like this & thankfully I didn't let her get to me.

I breastfed my two for 13 and 16 months respectively. I didn't feel any external pressure to BF per se, but the amount of pressure I put on myself was immense, and obviously the need to apply that pressure came from somewhere. I know a lot of it was tied up with the fact that my Mum, who died 11 years ago, breastfed us at a time when it wasn't very fashionable, and so I wanted to do it too.

I think it contributed to me skating on the edge of PND, in both cases. I don't look back on the baby years with much fondness at all [/understatement]. I had my two in quick succession, just to get it over and done with. The thought of getting pregnant again now (DC are 5 and 4), and going through babyhood again fills me with horror. And that's not right, surely.

I had absolutely no idea what I was going in for. The utter dependence of a breastfed baby on its mother for everything. I found it overwhelming. In hindsight, if I'd been able to share the load more - especially night-time feeds - I'm sure I'd have coped better, and been a nicer person to be around.

My two didn't sleep through the night until 7 and 9 months respectively, so that period of tortured, broken sleep, taken on by me alone, was horrendous.

This is a controversial thing to say, but I almost think human beings have evolved too much to successfully breastfeed (en mass, at a population level, that is), at least in Western culture.

We are simply not used, and many case not able, to be so utterly available, 24/7, for another human being, even our own baby. We go back to work, we have lives that necessitate being autonomous. We have children later, and become too used to being in control of our own lives. We are just too used to not being so completely responsible for another human being. So that when we suddenly have to be, it's anathaema to us. And we, completely understandably, don't cope.

Arrogantly, I used to think that all women could breastfeed if they tried hard enough. All the 'excuses', as I saw them, were mere piffle - the human race would have died out if as many women who say they couldn't b/f, actually couldn't.

And then I copped onto myself. Women used to die in vast swathes from childbirth until recently. So why should it be any different when it comes to breastfeeding?! I think the human body is very badly designed to cope well with either, in far too many cases. My BF has just had her second child, and has had an awful time with mastitis, which did actually tip her into PND. No-one should have to go through that. Thank God for formula, quite frankly. If she had not been able to wean her little one off the means of causing her so much pain and distress, who knows how much worse things could have been.

I am far enough away now from the act of breastfeeding - and never want to have to do it ever again! - that I can have some perspective on it. I think while you're in the midst of it, it becomes so all-consuming, and all-important that you can't see the wood for the trees. And this is where the damaging competitive-ness comes out, that doesn't help anyone.

How can any woman feel like a failure for not being able to breastfed?

I guess because I had always wanted to and my plans didn't work out. I'm not sure I factored that one in. There's real pressure to bf and when it then doesn't work it's a shock and you feel like a failure because of it. Especially when everyone else around me managed it, why couldn't I?

When DS was born it didn't help that we lived in a real 'yummy mummy' area where everyone bf. at baby group I remember everyone staring when I got out the bottle. Everyone was sitting feeding their babies, apart from me. They all look horrified as I let DS scream for an entire 40 seconds whilst I got his bottle ready, he was fine of course, my nerves weren't and I felt judged.

It also doesn't help that I have a couple of fb friends who bang on about bf. one regularly posts articles or comments on things, writing statuses about women using synthetic methods to feed their baby and how awful it is. Another posts about how she's late going out because her baby is breastfeeding, or 'oh we're having another bf'. As if anyone cares, I think she's got some sort of challenge to see how many times she can mention the word 'breastfeeding' in one day. Yes you're bf, we all know. This goes along with the baby wearing blog and videos of BLW. No one cares!!!

Then there's the occasional sanctimonious post on here on threads like these such as 'well you should have just tried harder' or 'it's very rare that a woman doesn't make enough milk', or 'you just needed more support' (thanks MIL for that one, actually what I needed was milk, I had bucketloads of support).

It's very easy if you've found bf easy and had a lovely time of it to then tell someone else that they should have just tried a bit harder. Very bloody helpful.

Of course all of these are my issues. It's hard not to take comments personally. I had a really rough time of it, not being able to bf, DS has reflux and a dairy allergy and eczema and we spent his baby months in and out of the GPs fighting for treatment with a miserable baby. I then got diagnosed with an underactive thyroid (turns out if not treated, you don't make milk!). I found his first year the hardest. He is now a bright and happy toddler and whether I bf him or not made no difference, he is amazing. But obviously for me not being able to bf was a very hard thing to deal with combined with everything else, and I wish that some people would stop and think before they judge someone else for not doing it as you have no idea. It's not always a choice and formula saves many many babies lives.

Of course you could argue, who gives a fuck what any one else thinks, and you'd be right. But I guess when you're struggling, exhausted and things aren't going to plan, it's very easy to take everything personally.

Yes yabu!!!

Because you surely can figure it out, can't you? And yes I suspected you were a breastfeeding mum. Oy vey.

I FF my first from birth because I had never met anyone in real life who had BF so its not something that even crossed my mind.

I BF my second from birth because I wanted to give it a go partly for the supposed health benefits and partly for financial reasons.

Both DC's were/are poor sleepers but DC2 is far more unsettled and at 17 months still screams if I so much as walk across the other side of the room. I don't regret BF but I do wish I wasn't so stubborn about it as I put a huge amount of pressure on myself to keep going because I was judged, laughed at and sneered by my family and friends to prove them wrong.

I never felt judged for FF.

I have found this interesting to read as I couldn't bf due to hypoplasia and don't hear many people mention it or who have it.

I couldn't bf both my children due to hypopladia, hormonal issues and to a degree with my second child not enough time to sit on the sofa feeding, topping up and expressing.

This is an interesting thread. I am expecting my first in November and I vaguely plan to BF but if it doesn't work I'm fine with FF and I don't want to BF beyond 6 months. If I go back to work earlier I will mix feed - I'm not faffing about with pumping at work.

I come from a culture if BFing - FF is a dirty word in all hospitals and ante natal classes here (part of the reason I've avoided said classes), my mum BF'ed me for a year, my sister has Bf'ed both of her boys for a year. I find the comment re being a "bottle feeding culture" odd - it may be statistically true but it's not true of the circles I move in. I also find it very odd to hold up breastfeeding in third world countries as some sort of example! We are not women in third world countries thank fuck If I was to FF a 3 month old baby in front of my peers I know I would be hugely judged but luckily I don't care

I think there's a benefit to BFing but I don't think it's anywhere near as significant as it's made out to be. My child will be born into a loving, middle class home with two educated parents, a warm bed, lots of books, sent to good schools with lunch in his school bag, taken on nice holidays blah blah blah ...I am absolutely positive that what he ate for the first 3 - 6 months of his life is not going to be determinative of anything.

Exactly. It's not like they will be going on a job interview and one of the questions will be 'Were you BF?'!!

well I don't know about that Dark, I've had some pretty inappropriate interview Qs in my time ...

I've found this thread very interesting as I'm nearly 9 weeks into my own breastfeeding journey and currently persisting despite an average of one meltdown a week about it.

I think one huge factor to FF being so widespread is that the NHS is so heavily promoting it on the surface, but the truth is that it's mainly lip service. The speil from midwives and the leaflets and health visitors is all about BF but, as least in my experience, when the going gets tough you're told to switch to FF. I've been told by various doctors and consultants to "save myself the stress" (my GPs words) variously when I've had mastitis, a pelvic infection and a trapped nerve in my leg since my DD was born. So actually the NHS isn't really Supporting and promoting BF. I was also verging on bullied by one health visitor to at least mixed feed her at first as she didn't regain her birth weight until 4 weeks. She kept saying essentially that breast is best but to look at the scariness of the graph they were plotting my DDs weight on and that I was more or less being irresponsible to carry on EBF. Luckily my best friend is a midwife and she gave me the confidence to argue and DD went from not having even regained her birthweight at 4 weeks to bring more than 2lbs heavier than her birthweight at 7 weeks. But had I not known a midwife personally and had a few anecdotal bits of evidence to back up continuing to EBF I would have given up for sure.

The other issue that many have pointed out is what a pain in the arse BF is. My DD was born just a few weeks before the summer holidays and my DH is a teacher, so we've been incredibly lucky to have 9 weeks together with him picking up my slack around the house where I'm spending so much time BF. Had he gone back to work when she was two weeks old as is normal, is definitely have given up. The two week mark was my darkest time BF and I cried and cried saying I wanted to give up as it hurt, was uncomfortable (I currently have LL cup breasts!) and I was knackered and fed up with the whole fucking thing. Luckily for me my DH had all the time in the world to help and help me establish BF. Not everyone has that support and I wouldn't have were it not for dumb luck.

"Minifingers, I think attitudes like yours are extremely negative"

Formula milk was and still is, a fairly crude approximation of breast milk invented to save the lives of babies who couldn't be breastfed. When that's how it was used primarily it was a great thing.

It's now taken the place of human milk as the sole source of nutrition for the majority of babies over a few weeks old. This wholesale change was primarily driven by ignorance about breastfeeding and by huge commercial interests.

Do I think it's a good thing? No. How can it be a good thing for babies as a group when it is mostly used by women who can breastfeed?

Sorry not to tow the company line on this one - I appreciate that this might result in a mass outbreak of requests for tarring and feathering.

I ff from birth.

I had no desire whatsoever to bf. I had no issues bonding with dd and she was in a fantastic little routine quite early.

My friend is an obstetrician and frowned at me a little for not having a go but that was about all I encountered as far as a telling off

But then I feel I'm different to quite a few women when it comes to babies. I chose an ELCS for no medical reasons and chose not to Bf. I certainly wouldn't describe myself as overly maternal....adore dd but not children or babies in general.

But mini the question was why did those who formula fed do so? How does your response relate to that?