to think breastfeeding is not 'convenient'?

[SolasEile]

So I might be feeling a tad bitter because my 3 month old is in some crazy nursing strike phase and I'm frustrated from having spent months trying to make breastfeeding work only to have it all fall apart now, 3 months in... but... surely breast-feeding is a hell of a lot less convenient than formula feeding?

When I went to NCT classes the message was that breast-feeding is so easy and natural and convenient and while it might be a bit tough in the early weeks, once you and baby get used to it it's so convenient as you can just 'pop them on' the breast anywhere and no need for bottles or mixing up formula and so on.

I'm not finding that to be the case. My DS was formula fed after 8 weeks and I could feed him anywhere. I just brought sterilized bottles with me and readymade formula in cartons and managed to move country and fly longhaul with him at 3 months old.

Now with my DD, she is EBF, and feeding her is a gigantic pain in the arse. First of all, you have the issue of breastfeeding in public which I'm still not 100% confident doing. I have a nursing shawl and have tried to feed her a couple of times but I find it very hard as she is a messy feeder and we were using shields up until recently. Secondly I have a very fast letdown so she gets fussy at the breast and will currently only feed in one position (laid back) and usually feeds best when she has just woken from a nap. When she is tired she will not feed for love nor money and just screams the place down from frustration. This makes getting out of the house really really hard as I have to time her feeds so carefully.

At this stage I'm tempted to just pump and bottle feed because feeding my DS out and about with bottles was never an issue at all. I am starting to regret having made the effort to breastfeed. It just is a crap experience and so much work for no reward, as far as I can see. My DS was perfectly healthy whereas my DD has had a cold almost permanently since she was born. We do have some issues with feeding so I am seeing a lactation consultant this weekend to double check on latch and so on but to be honest I'm fed up to fuck with breastfeeding. It just seems like a big con where we are told it's best for baby and it's 'so convenient' and natural when really it is just a gigantic pain in the arse.

So AIBU? To be fed up with breastfeeding and not find it convenient or easy at all? Or am I just unlucky to have had issues with both my DS and DD?
/Awaits flaming from lactivist / NCT people.../

IMO if you have no problems (mastitis, cracked nipples etc etc) then bf'ing is defo more convenient - no faffing around with sterilising bottles, heating up bottles etc

Luckily for me, I had a great bf experience with my first baby

At the time I didn't realise how lucky I was and couldn't really understand why some fellow Mums found bf'ing so difficult

Second baby I had all manner of problems and the first few weeks of bf'ing were bloody awful. I only persevered because I knew how easy & convenient it could be, and I got there eventually but if I didn't have a positive experience to compare it to I would certainly have ditched the boob for formula!

Youlllikeitbutnotalot there are lots of different data sources in the paper I linked to but the infant mortality study for instance took into consideration "maternal age, education, smoking status, infant race, gender, birth weight, congenital malformation, birth order, plurality, and Women, Infants and Children Nutrition Program status" in their study and formula use still made a statistically significant difference.

Deciding to formula feed is not a decision to be taken lightly.

Back on the topic of the thread. Breastfeeding is often blooming tricky and that's why there needs to be an abundance of funded support but in our short term society that is disappearing rapidly if it ever existed.

"I think we are arguing the samepoint from different angles!"

Heh, yes, I think we are.

YANBU, I breastfed both my DC's and once I got past the first month, which was pretty difficult, I found it really easy and convenient. It's not like this for everyone though and that needs to be respected. There is too much emphasis on breast is best but the support is severely lacking. It's nobody else's business how you choose to feed your child at the end of the day though.

YANBU, my DD fed ALL THE TIME.

It was soul destroying, sitting on the sofa having the life sucked out of me, couldn't go anywhere without having to pull out a boob - I didn't have a problem with public feeding just hated having to stop every 5 minutes to sit down and feed her (couldn't feed in a sling, tried it, couldn't do it!)

She was like that for 6 months. Then I switched her to formula - it was like the clouds moved, the sun came out, I had a life again. Amazing.

I'm sorry to upset you concretekitten.

I think you are making it harder for yourself with the shawl.

what parallax80 said in the first post on this thread.

imo no other response is required.

YABU but most people are with a 3 month old so don't worry about it.

Stargirl I could have written your post. I'm still ebf at 22 weeks and it's just miserable. The actual feeding itself is fine (despite having had mastitis in the early weeks) but I just hate the experience of bf. Pinning dd's arms down while she scratches and flails and kicks me in the stomach while dangling from a nipple is no fun. The promised 'convenience' and 'incredible bond' just isn't there for us with bf. Dd and I have a much nicer time together when it's not feeding time. I plan to swap to ff as soon as we've established weaning, as I don't think bf is benefitting dd enough to outweigh what a PITA it is, and I'm sure she'll be happier if I am

I'm glad I'm not alone, Apples!

I have had times it's been hugely convenient and times it's been massively inconvenient. I've bf'd three for at least a year each, I think maybe 5 years nearly in total.. So when you think of. It there have been so many, many feeds and many many contexts that I really couldn't label it as more one or the other. I guess overall I must have found it more convenient or I'd have stopped sooner.

I found it very convenient. DS1 was mix fed and I found everything surrounding bottles to be a big faff (apart from being able to pass him off to DH and go for a wee or eat my lunch). I bloody hated washing the things and, yes, cartons were beginning to be available, at the time, but were expensive and rather wasteful.

If it works well it's incredibly convenient, however it didn't work well at all for me, and it probably took about 3 years for me to fully get over the trauma of breastfeeding. I'm glad I probably won't have another child because I won't have to make the decision about whether or not to try bf again.

DS has been the most awkward little bugger when it comes to feeding.

He would not breastfeed when he was first born. If I could get him to latch on it hurt like hell and left me in pain.

I ended up expressing on Day 4. And that was it. That was the way we went. Bottle feeding with expressed milk. All the inconvenience of formula feeding PLUS expressing. It was soul destroying at times. Then we got into a routine with it, and it was fine. I didn't bother even trying to breast feed him and I think this possibly saved me as I focused on what I could do with expressing, rather than focussing on the fact I couldn't breastfeed him. I think I'd try and do one breastfeed once every three or four days and then usually just give up.

Then at 16 weeks DS went on bottle strike. In desperation I tried breastfeeding again which I'd pretty much given up on. And something clicked with him. It wasn't something we preserved with as such.

I think that either he had some physical issue that stopped him breastfeeding early on (there is a suspicious of a touch of tongue tie) and he grow out of it or he simply was a slow learner. Or both.

He's now 22 weeks and is a regular pain in the backside as he has times when he refuses bottle in favour of breast and vice versa. But for the most part he does bottles during the day and breast feeds at night. Which is actually pretty good as its made his night feeds much more bearable than they were. And this suits me during the daytime too as I take a bottle. DS is not a discreet feeder...

The thing is, there is 'support for breastfeeding' which is very limited in itself but there is even less support for anything that falls outside of pure breastfeeding or pure formula feeding. You are left to 'wing it'. I think that actually a half way house or alternative survival strategies might help a few women really.

One day 1 I was very indifferent to breast feeding/formula feeding. Now the whole thing just makes me angry and I which there had been better resources available. I personally did not want to attend a breastfeeding support group as a) getting out was a bloody nightmare b) the support I needed wasn't to tell me I was doing it wrong and get me to simply stick at it with x, y, z strategy. Knowing in hindsight that DS was just 'lazy' and that doing a mix of expressing/breastfeeding was a good option does make me feel very differently. My experience really highlighted to me why women give up and use formula; I was on the verge of doing so many times. And now at 22 weeks when DS is in the right mood, breastfeeding IS convenient and easy. But of course he isn't always in the best mood and I'm not confident to do it in public.

My point is this - its horses for courses. Do what's right for you, and don't get bogged down in what's 'easy' or 'convenient' for in the minds of other people. They aren't you and their baby isn't yours. There are so many variables out there. Think about it this way: going to the supermarket to buy dinner on your way home from work might be convenient for some people but it might not be for you. So why do we assume that feeding your baby is going to be as convenient for everyone? It makes no sense. We are all different and lead very different lives. Everyone's circumstances and experiences are very individual.

I'm glad I stuck with it by any means possible now, with the benefit of hindsight. Its not always easy, but it has improved massively and took getting through a number of mental barriers. I wouldn't swap a night bottle feed now for a breastfeed. Breastfeeding him now is very different to what it was when he was a few weeks old or even 12 weeks old. A bottle was much easier at that stage, particularly as DH could help me out.

But I fully appreciate that for various reasons, you've just got to do what feels right for you at the time. There is no point in breaking yourself over it.

Sounds similar to my experience with my DS, RedToothBrush. He had latch issues from day one but the support I had from healthcare providers was minimal. The purist approach of all-or-nothing EBF is the only way had put me off as that wasn't working for us so my confidence failed and I ended up FF.

With my DD, I did it my way (cue Sinatra impersonation...), using shields even though all the HCPs I saw disapproved of that, using positions that worked for me and figuring it out as I went along and it was a real struggle but I thought we had made it through the hardest weeks. Instead I find myself schlepping myself and DD off to the lactation consultant again tomorrow and bf is a struggle again.

That's kind of what I'm getting at with this thread - bf might be convenient in some ways but it is a hell of an inconvenience when it goes wrong. I had a bad blocked duct there a couple of weeks ago and one side of my breast was all red and inflamed. DH was away traveling for work and I was on my own in the house with 2 young DC freaking out about developing mastitis. Again, not an issue I had to care about with FF.

And again there was no help available to me at 2am on a weekend. I just googled frantically, used mumsnet as a resource (thanks!) and figured out a few strategies that finally unblocked the duct. Breastfeeding just seems to keep changing and presenting me with new challenges whereas with FF I just picked a formula DS liked, picked a bottle type he liked and bingo we were done for the whole first year of his life.

I guess I am just having a bit of a sulk really because I thought I was over the worst of it with bf and from now on things were gong to be 'convenient' and I would be able to get confident feeding in public but instead I'm still clearing hurdles...

I think you've nailed it. When you ff, you learn how to do it and that's it. With bf, there are always new challenges arising as the baby grows and develops. As I am an ff baby, from an ff family, in an ff culture, it's a real shock that I just cannot seem to get it right as it's always in flux.

YANBU

They use 'cheap and convenient' to sell breastfeeding because its more socially acceptable than saying 'it's less likely to result in your baby needing to see a doctor or die from SIDS' to a population consisting largely of people who are formula feeding.

Would also add, that constipation and thrush are bloody unpleasant for babies, but are never seen as being an inconvenience of formula feeding, even though they're massively more common in ff babies. We always assume the problem is the baby rather than the formula.

Solas, if its any consolation my last BIG wobbled was around 10 weeks. I had another smaller one a couple of weeks later and then things seemed to click at around 16 weeks like I said before. MN and Dr Google helped a lot, but even then for expressing there is relatively little out there. Expressing sounds easy in principle but I do think its a lot harder than people realise too. The big thing is finding the time to do it. And DS is still fussy with bottles and I'm sure that would have been the case regardless of the contents.

The wisdom of MN also told me that its not uncommon for babies to suddenly 'learn' to breastfeed around the 12 - 16 week point too. The problems I have had with blocked ducts seem to have eased off too (I've started briefly hand expressing one a day to clear sore bits seems to do the trick so I'm not sure if its that or just the passage of time) So I do think there is hope in there for you to cling on to.

7% of women in the UK are still exclusively breastfeeding at 4 months. That's not many, so at 3 months you've still done well. I wonder how many quit at the 3 month point with the same thoughts as you about expecting it to have got easier by then and with the mind set that they had done enough to have got many of the benefits of breastfeeding. And by 3 months, if its not working you are less likely to seek help because you are so bloody fed up of it and probably feel like you've tried everything! So fair play for seeing someone to help.

Breastfeeding at night, now find his way on rather than have to be put on has been a sanity saver and perhaps the biggest plus and convenience for me though. I take the attitude that if you are sleeping everything else seems better. So on that alone I would say its been worth it for me to hang in there with it.

But as I said before, everyone's experiences and circumstances are different. And please don't term it as failure with your DS. I do think that's far too hard on yourself, especially as you quite rightly point out the support you had was not good and very one dimensional. The fact you did it your way with your DD AGAINST advice with success is probably a testament to you but also a reflection about how the advice and support isn't right for everyone. I think its a context you should think about. How much is the system in the UK failing women, rather than how much are women in the UK 'failing' at breastfeeding?

Rather than promoting EBF as the be-all and end-all and shaming FF, we should be teaching HCPs to promote combined feeding and expressing too.

When DD was struggling to latch, I asked about combination feeding or expressing. I was told no, it wasn't an option as it would take too much organisation and too much work and I might forget, and unless I wanted DD to starve - and if I wanted to get out of hospital - I'd have to either 'sort the latch out' or FF.

So of course, I ended up FF. Next time I'll be ignoring the HCPs, discharging myself if they pull a similar stunt and seek proper, experienced advice on mix-feeding.

This is what more research and money and effort should be going into. Not evangelising about the virgin gut and 'all or nothing'.

FWIW I did find FF convenient, really. I think the whole 'sterilising, lugging bottles around' thing is exaggerated, it's really not a massive faff in my experience. Not sure why it's given as a reason against formula feeding - I suppose it's like disposable vs cloth nappies; cloth nappies are seen as less convenient with the washing etc, but most cloth users say they don't really notice it that much.

I've not bottlr fed so cannot compare but for me bf has mainly been convenient and I lihe fact I don't have to prepare or take anything with me when going out. I feed anywhere and everywhere and don't bother to use shawls. I think once you have the confidence to feed in public you'll find it more convenient - despite the news stories no one cares (plus of course you should feel ok to feed wherever you want to). However I've jus found out I need to go back to work much earlier than I planned - DD will only be 6 months (DS was 11 months when I went back) and I'm worried bf will soon become a pain. It will involve pumping and lots of planning but I'm determined to continue

Just to say that I did 6 weeks of BF and it was hell. Not convenient at all, stressful, made me ill, baby never seemed full or content.

Once we switched to formula he slept more, seemed happier. I found it waaay easier making up formula than trying to BF. Could actually leave the house, or god forbid! have two minutes to myself whilst DH fed DS!

I bf both mine for ages. I found it convenient but it was so painful at first and I was convinced I was doing something wrong to cause the pain. Midwife checked the latch etc all fine. It did get better in the end and it was convenient especially for dd who decided she would like some at very regular intervals.
You have a good point about it being sold though. I accompanied a friend to a antenatal class and put in the feedback that they'd glossed over how difficult breast feeding can be at first. No mention of cracked nipples, squirty milk, feeling empty, constant feeding etc.
A doula friend of mine was told to only be positive about it in her training. I think it's more likely to put people off when it gets tough and they think it's not supposed to be.
But it does get easier if you want to carry on or go onto ff now.

I think its convenient if you don't mind getting them out in public otherwise expect to be housebound.