in thinking breastfeeding needn't mean martyring yourself?

[kentishgirl]

Hi - sorry to start yet another bf thread, and I realise this might be contentious, but so many of the bf threads on here make me look like . I realise I'm probably a bit out of date with current thinking on all this, but bf sounds like so much hard work these days...and a little bit of me thinks some bf mums kind of enjoy being a martyr and it's competitive about how hard and such a sacrifice etc etc. This is not about mums who find it physically difficult or impossible to bf.

I bf in the 80s for 11 months. Babe had the odd bottle of formula if I wasn't around.

What puzzles me a bit is this stuff, that I read about on here a lot. Is this the reality now of bfing for everyone/most mums, or is this a minority who just talk about it a lot?

Cluster feeding - having a baby whacked on to you nearly non stop for weeks. Er...this wasn't 'a thing' when I bf. Sometimes babies were hungrier than other times. But no one sat there constantly bfing. Feeding on demand was a thing - but flexibly and not to the exclusion of being able to live a normal life. It just meant it wasn't feeding strictly to the clock. You expected to feed roughly every 2/3 hours within a couple of weeks once feeding was established.

If a baby cried, then it wasn't assumed to be hunger. You'd think 'well I only fed him half an hour ago', check nappy, play, distract, give water, is baby tired etc. It was accepted that there are times that babies just plain old cry. It's an easy solution to pop them on the breast, but it wasn't seen as their really needing a feed.

Longer and bigger bfs - it sounds like babies are on and off the breast all the time for a few mouthfuls these days. We used to do a good feed, if baby started nodding off or losing interest, you'd tap their cheek/stimulate them to get them feeding again. So you'd have a more 'normal' spacing between feeds, they didn't on the whole get hungry again a short time later.

Is it just me, or just the threads I read, that make it sound like every time a bf baby squeaks these days it's straight on to the breast, and there are women who literally have no life of their own or time of their own for months on end, because of this? And isn't this awfully off-putting to new mums about starting to breastfeed?

I know more mums start breastfeeding these days, and that's great. But so many drop out and switch to formula instead, whereas I think in the past, a higher proportion of those who started breastfeeding, continued with it. Is the new 'baby led' attitude to bf a bit of a double edged sword because of this? More try, but it's harder, so more have to give up?

It

Gemma, to try and set a specific age is not possible. It depends on the mother and child. Believe it or not the majority of children self wean, and those that don't, well it's then up to that individual mother to decide when to wean for themselves.

"I don't tend to see many children starting school still depending on moms milk or with a bottle".

Though interestingly, you still get older toddlers who use dummies. Quite a common sight round my way, which suggests there are many children of this age who are still comforted by suckling.

Apparently children naturally lose the ability to suckle around the time they start getting their adult teeth through, so I doubt a 10 year old could manage it.

Seriously though, we're talking tiny numbers. There are no bf 15 year olds (for example) and no-one has ever said there were, yet people always should "bitty" as if David Walliams pretending to be a breastfeeding 35 year old in a restaurant was exactly the same as a few 5 year olds having a quick feed once a day in the privacy of their own homes.

Good to hear they self wean, I'd be suspicious in thinking some moms wouldn't want their kids to move on.

That's my thing learned for the day

I personally think mixed feeding should be encouraged more. I believed it was breastfeeding or formula feeding. I didn't realise that it was possible to do both. If I had I might have tried giving some breast feeds, but I didn't want to be in the position of exclusively breastfeeding, so I didn't even start with my 2nd and 3rd babies.

"I personally think mixed feeding should be encouraged more"

Why?

Almost all breastfed babies are already getting formula.

And it's the casual supplementation of breastfeeding in the early days that's been fingered as playing a big part in the early cessation of breastfeeding in the UK.

I think there's an argument for clearly explaining how breastfeeding works, how to mixed feed to cause the least amount of damage to breastfeeding if you want to mixed feed, but midwives have got to tell people that early and regular use of formula can and does often damage breastfeeding - because it's true. Women have just got to stop translating 'we recommend you avoid using formula if possible while you're still establishing breastfeeding' into 'you can't use formula while you're breastfeeding'.

Better feeding information all around would help women who're mixed feeding.

Is it just me, or just the threads I read, that make it sound like every time a bf baby squeaks these days it's straight on to the breast, and there are women who literally have no life of their own or time of their own for months on end, because of this? And isn't this awfully off-putting to new mums about starting to breastfeed?

I think there are a few issues here - difficult to start a thread on breastfeeding in the 1980's - perhaps you could have had a discussion on the pages of your local NCT newsletter, but you wouldn't have come across the experiences of thousands of different women unless you were running some kind of mass observation project.

Also, breastfeeding rates have gone up considerably since the 1980's. With more people breastfeeding, more people are likely to encounter problems.

The best place to find somebody who is having problems breastfeeding is on a breast-feeding thread, so yes, this is where you are likely to find women whose lives currently seem to revolve around breastfeeding.

Sometimes it really, really helps to know that other people are struggling and that breastfeeding doesn't come naturally to everyone. Believing that everybody else is settling into nice spaced out feeds after two weeks and that a crying baby can't possibly need feeding if it has spent x amount of time at the breast or that there must be something wrong with you if your baby doesn't seem to be getting a good 'feed' is counterproductive if this leads to carting around a screaming baby until the magic time. It might just be better to settle down on the sofa with your baby, a cup of tea and a nice boxed set and know that it's only a stage and it will pass.

Babies and children eat, sleep, learn to use the potty, learn to read etc. etc. in different ways and to different timetables and parents deal with all of these things differently. Sorting this all out usually takes time and trial and error and sometimes the current 'big issue' seems to take over your life.

minifingers why not? I've already explained why.
If you really want to encourage breast feeding rates to rise then perhaps you should start taking notice of what people who tried it and didn't carry on actually think, rather than carrying on with your own opinions. This is exactly what you did on the other thread.

"minifingers why not? I've already explained why."

But the vast majority of breastfed babies are already mixed fed. And actually one of the things that breastfeeding mothers are struggling with is wanting to exclusively breastfeed but not being given the encouragement or the tools to do so. Blanket recommendations to breastfeeding mums to mixed feed would really undermine this.

Is it that maybe what you're suggesting is that women who intend to formula feed could have it explained to them that they can also breastfeed alongside formula feeding? Because that was your position wasn't it? A mum intending to ff who didn't realise she could breastfeed as well?

I wonder how that would go down with mums who were intending to formula feed, having it pointed out to them that they could breastfeed as well? I suspect some of them would see it as more pressure and interference from the breastfeeding lobby.

I think your initial post is revealing of one very important thing - that your basic antenatal and postnatal breastfeeding education must have been very poor if nobody had pointed out that most UK babies who are breastfed are actually mixed fed and that this way of feeding babies is perfectly possible for many people.

By the way - re: the percentage of UK babies who don't have formula, at the moment it's about 1% of 12 month old babies who have not had formula at some point in the past year.

I can't see any strong argument for increasing the amount of formula being sold and used.

Not sure where you have that 1% figure from. The latest infant feeding survey doesn't have this data. It does report on the giving of "milk other than breast milk" which could of course include cow's milk on cereal or in other food forms, or any emergency top ups in the early days which can sometimes be harmful to the breastfeeding relationship, but sometimes don't affect it at all, an emergency/babysitting situation where formula was given as a one off.

The closest is "age at which milk other than breastmilk was introduced" and only goes up to 9 months. The figure at 9 months is 95%. At 6 months which is the recommended age to introduce cow's milk in food it is 88%.

Interestingly there is another chart which records whether mothers had ever used a bottle to feed their baby which is at 80%, of course this also includes mothers feeding expressed breast milk, suggesting that a good chunk of the 95% are introducing cow's milk or formula as a supplemental food, and not as a main drink (which would be my definition of mixed feeding).

You can read and download the reports here if you wish. data.gov.uk/dataset/infant-feeding-survey-2010

I don't see anybody saying that formula use should increase, so I'm not sure what you're trying to argue against here.

Well, that's cool if it's encouraged now. That wasn't how it was in 1996 or 2000, at least not for me. I was under the impression that it was either breastfeeding or formula, which is why I opted for formula. No one really let me know I could do both at the same time. If they had done I'd probably have given it a go.

I don't know about encouraged but when DS2 was about 8 weeks and feeding every 2 hours day and night I asked my HV about introducing a bottle and she neither encouraged or discouraged but said I could give it a try. At 4 months I talked to her about going back to work and using formula in the day and breastfeeding when at home and she reckoned by then my supply would adapt fine (which it has). I haven't been pushed in either direction really, other than being informed that introducing formula before you have breastfeeding established will impact on supply.

Bertie - I will find you that info when I get home. It really is a vanishingly small number of babies in the UK who now don't have formula.

My response about more formula use was relating to the poster saying that mixed feeding should be encouraged - I didn't assume she was talking about more women who are currently ff being encouraged to consider breastfeeding alongside, but that women who are breastfeeding being encouraged to use formula more.

Bertie

Re - yes formula use and breastfeeding existing happily alongside - I'm not aware of population based evidence showing high rates of continued breastfeeding alongside strong sales and use of infant formula. Can you direct me to these? You seem very certain that women can mixed feed from when - quite early on? - and still manage to breastfeed for as long as they had originally intended, given the right support. Our current UK breastfeeding mixed feeding rates and early cessation of breastfeeding due to perceived or actual supply problems hint at something else.

You assumed wrong then minfingers (no surprise there, then).
I wasn't talking about encouraging women who want to breastfeed to give formula as well. I was talking about women who would be happy to give their baby some breastmilk but don't want to or can't commit to 100% breastfeeding. Just presenting mixed feeding as a third option (which it wasn't to me).

You seem very intent on a total 100% breastfeeding kind of ideal, which I just don't think is realistic. Not everybody wants to breastfeed and that should be respected.

I don't think most people would choose mixed feeding if they had a straight option. I do think it is possible given the right support. And certainly an occasional bottle of formula or expressed milk does no harm at all. You seem to be skimming over the very big difference here - the fact that formula is often offered/encouraged (anecdotal but overwhelmingly so IME) without any kind of support or guidance as to how to keep BF going alongside. In fact the way it is offered is often directly undermining. That is the problem, banning midwives from ever mentioning or recommending formula would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

It doesn't make sense to tell women it is all or nothing. That just forces women to make a choice which perhaps they are not ready to make. It also leads to silliness like grown women feeling embarrassed to admit they have used formula or nipple shields and claiming these things are "not allowed" without having any knowledge about why they are "not allowed", what the alternatives might be or how these things can be used as a temporary solution to problems which can be alleviated later on.

And yes I thought it was obvious fatlazy was talking about breastfeeding mums who had given a bottle being supported through this rather than acting like all is lost.

I do think mixed feeding is usually impractical and causes more problems than it solves but hiding it away as an option is just patronising and insulting.

I have to agree on the mixed front. I had no idea it was possible (and this was less than 3 years ago) - I thought it was an either/or option. I decided to ff from birth for several reasons, but one of them was to do with support and feeling that if I bf I would have no break at all for months, which ties in with an earlier idea that you can gain the impression that bf becomes so overwhelming and takes up so much times.

If mixed feeding had been suggested as a possibility, perhaps that after a few weeks or so it would be possible to start introducing bottles and formula, I think I might have considered giving bf a go. But I didn't know about it, no one ever suggested it might be something to consider. I understand that it isn't straightforward, but I believe that mentioning it, even just to mums who give the impression pre-birth that they want to formula feed, might encourage a few more women to try bf.

Bertie - just because I'm not constantly stating the bleeding obvious, which is that breastfeeding isn't for everyone and that everyone has the right to choose to feed their baby how they like it doesn't mean I automatically think everyone should exclusively breastfeed.

And I've said nothing on this thread or anywhere else on mumsnet to suggest I think this. What I've said is that continuing bf rates in the UK are low and I think this is not good thing.

I find the ganging up that goes on against anyone who's not quick to make it clear that they're towing the party line on this subject quite intimidating, and I'm sorry that you seem to feel the need to jump on the band wagon Bertie. :-(

It isn't a bandwagon it's an alternative of view by many.

Just because you gave one view it doesn't mean everybody else has to have the same.

I was thinking more about women who have decided purely to ff, madrigals. Obviously there is a fine line with no pressuring women and letting them have a free choice, but surely encouraging some bf is better?

Kentishgirl consider yourself lucky to have bf in the 80s ,when it seems that common sense prevailed.

I think it's the HVs' and MWs' mission to turn bf mums into martyrs! The advice I was given, back firstly in the mid-nineties and then the mid to late 2000s was ridiculous!

Like a good young first time mum, I followed the advice diligently. No one in my family had bf (who was alive to tell me about it, anyway,) so I had no point of reference, only the professionals!

I do think mums are often martyrs, but it's often not their fault, imo.

I am puzzled....who is telling women it is all or nothing?

I do think there is an issue that some women who use formula in a crisis moment/situation then worry that 'all the benefits of breastfeeding have been destroyed' but I really don't know where that comes from (it comes from somewhere, because I hear it often, but from where??? anyone enlighten me? I suppose there may be the occasional rogue HCP or someone's friend, but this should not be sufficient!).

But if there is a message that women must choose one or the other or the sky will fall in or something, then it's not having much effect, seeing the majority of bf babies are not excl breastfed, and that a lot of bf women who do want to breastfeed without any formula are faced with people suggesting they are martyrs, or obsessed, or competitive, or smug, or showing off, or not sharing the baby fairly blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda :( :(