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.../

I think health is a factor, Juggling, but not to as great an extent as some people suggest it is - on an individual level, the differences are negligible. It's only on a level of the population as a whole that there's really any statistical differences - and even then, the results of sibling studies have suggested that actually, the negatives attributed to formula feeding may actually come from the fact that the majority of formula fed babies come from worse-off socioeconomic backgrounds than the majority of breastfed babies.

I was formula fed and have a health issue (only ever had one ear infection, interestingly). DD is formula fed and may also have this health issue. But it has nothing to do with formula feeding, and is actually a genetic disorder I inherited from my dad. But it'd be interesting to know if all these studies take genetic disorders into account when looking at the health of FF vs BF babies? I'm sure some do, but it may have been overlooked by others.

That's not me denying that BF is better on a wide scale for health - just that I don't think parents should stress themselves to the extent that many do over it.

We both had trouble with it when my son was younger. At about 10 weeks he started being able to latch without a shield, and things got better from there. Now, at almost 7 months, we both know what we're doing and it's very convenient.

splendid it may not have been anything you did wrong. I tortured myself with dd1, with dd2 totally different feeding experience, latched on an hour after birth, etc. She still lost weight, all the things I'd blamed myself over made no difference at all and she was admitted at 10 days .

It gave me peace bizarrely..... And dh washed bottles/ did night feeds so ff with dd2 was highly convenient.

SolasEile not sure if you have seen the lactation consultant yet but please get your daughter checked for tongue tie especially posterior tongue tie as that's what dd had and my experience was a a lot like you describe.

BF was a hell of a lot more convenient after I got that diagnosed and snipped (at 16 weeks).

Dd was 3 months in the summer. I have so many memories of packing a small bag with a few nappies and a change of clothes, Or even stuffing them in pockets, and taking myself off with dd in the sling wherever I fancied for however long I fancied.

once real food started and naps more difficult to come by never so simple and carefree.

YABU to say BF is a con. I found it exceptionally convenient once DD and I got the hang of it (after about 10wks). Getting up in the night to feed her was super easy and we could pretty much go where ever as having the right about of bottles/formula etc wasn't an issue (as long as we had nappies!).

YANBU to say it's inconvenient for you and your DD. Do what best suits you, your family and your baby, there's no right (or wrong) way to do it.

There are lots of things which are much more 'convenient' when it comes to parenting. It's only when it comes to ff that adult convenience is prioritised above a child having regular access to fresh food.

YANBU to say that you personally have not found it convenient. I'm sorry you've not found it easy.

YABVU to suggest that this means a blanket "BF is not convenient".

For me it has been great, I could feed the DC anywhere, anytime straight away. I co-slept so didn't even need to get out of bed for night feeds. It's free, no washing up, and had great health benefits for me and the DC.

But then my experience doesn't mean "BF is easy", just that it is for me.

Moomin - just to correct your misconceptions about all currently relevant research into the health benefits of breastfeeding - It 'controls' for socioeconomic factors.

Well that's cobblers minifingers or Heinz jarred baby food wouldn't exist...

mini But the sibling study would suggest otherwise, surely? Perhaps then, rather than socioeconomic factors, it's other factors - the natural immune system of the baby (DBro and DSis were both formula fed, my sister is very healthy whereas my brother gets colds and bugs a lot), natural IQ (again - brother is incredibly clever and 'gifted', my sister and I have to work for it), the conditions they live in (tidy house vs messy house), the sorts of foods they eat after weaning - I think obviously it has an impact, that's been proven, but I don't think it's the be-all and end-all, and that my FF child will automatically be less healthy and intelligent than someone else's BF child, purely on the basis of what they were fed.

Yeh Lightfoot on a lighter note I have some good memories of taking dd with us to the WOMAD world music festival aged about 3 mths and EBF. Was so easy and convenient. Never felt such a cool hippie :-)

I formula fed because I wanted to. I found no problems with sterilising bottles (it only took a few minutes) or washing them.

I did allow myself to be pressured into trying to breastfeed my eldest daughter. I hated it, she couldn't latch on because I was too engorged, she hated it and lost far too much birth weight.

I lasted about four days with it before I realised that my original instinct to bottle feed had been the correct one. I got gastro-enteritis when my daughter was just four days old, and although it was awful, it dried my milk supply up and I found that a blessing in disguise.

We moved on to formula and never looked back. I was so glad not to be the only one able to feed her. I could hand her to her Dad or Grandparents if I needed to.

I may well be flamed for saying some of that, but it was just the way things were for me.

Nobody should have to feel guilty about the feeding choices made for their baby. You go with your instincts and do what is right for you and your baby. If breastfeeding works well for you then fine. If you have chosen to formula feed because you simply want to then that is also fine. If you switch to formula because breastfeeding didn't work out as you had hoped then that should also be fine.

mini convenience isn't just limited to FF. Heinz jars and Ella's Kitchen pouches spring to mind. And chucking some fish fingers in the oven rather than making a 'delicious' hummous and buckwheat soup ( ).

Topsey, I do feel guilty for having to ff DD1. I wanted to bf. I had to resort to formula because I couldn't find anyone to help and there was no donor milk available. She has eczema and serious food allergies. Did formula play a part? Maybe.

I have nearly made it to ebf 26 weeks with DD2. I hope it helps. It has not ever felt convenient.

I found BF really easy from day 1, never had any problems, could feed anywhere in public, did it for over a year with DC1 and plan to do the same for DC2. It's saved me huge amounts of money, burns loads of calories and I gained my birthweight back easily as well as lowering my risk of breast cancer and ovarian cancer. (I've had this risk calculated because of my family history)

Of course if I started a thread saying this I would be considered inflammatory and insensitive. There are significant measurable benefits to breast feeding and I don't know why it's considered wrong to point this out as long as you are sensitive to the specific situation and recognise that for many women it's tough.

You can't generalise about women's experience and every woman should FF or BF as they wish but it's really dumb to argue that the health benefits of breast feeding don't exist or don't matter.

My birthweight???
My pre pregnancy weight obviously

It's funny how the 'faff' and cost bottles is always assumed to far outweigh leaking boobs, engorgement, oversupply/undersupply, nursing bras and pads, pumping and storing expressed milk, etc. etc. I feel like I fell for the 'faff' argument when making the decision to bf...

Though again, the whole leaking/engorgement/oversupply/pads stuff tends to be in the first couple of months of BF (and obviously not everyone has to pump). It's the front-loaded work thing again. I had all of the above in the first little while with DS1 and then it all settled down.

Not if you have oversupply. My left Breast still leaks and gets painfully engorged and hard after every feed. 5 months into it.

Mini there are hoards of things that prioritise convenience over the ideal for a child- some childcare,screen time,all sorts of foods and drinks, too little exercise,too little time doing homework,not enough reading,poor quality toys that amuse rather than educate,our abuse of the environment......

To be brutally honest ff must be one of the most innocuous parenting choices there is when you look at some of the alternatives.

Anyhow op yanbu- biggest load of faff I experienced as a news parent. Ffing was sooooooo much easier.

"Mini there are hoards of things that prioritise convenience over the ideal for a child"

Yes, but most children don't get any other 'convenience' 100% of the time whereas formula is the sole source of nutrition for the majority of UK babies under 6 months. Can't think of any other human group who'd routinely be denied any fresh food for months on end in the interests of 'convenience'. But hey ho, modern life.... I'm a bit behind the times.

"To be brutally honest ff must be one of the most innocuous parenting choices there is when you look at some of the alternatives."

Well, it's certainly better than watered down condensed milk, which millions of mothers used in the 1950's. We look back on that and grimace, but I'm sure they would have had EXACTLY the same views about condensed milk as modern mothers have of formula.

on an individual level, the differences are negligible For some individual babies the differences will be very significant because those babies will suffer illnesses due to ff. Other babies won't. We don't know which babies are which. But we can't say that the benefits aren't applicable at any individual level.

the results of sibling studies Which particular studies? I wonder if you mean the sibling study reported in the mainstream press a few months ago, which had some major limitations.

the majority of formula fed babies come from worse-off socioeconomic backgrounds than the majority of breastfed babies
Fortunately researchers control for socioeconomic and other factors.
Do we dismiss epidemiological research on smoking, obesity, exercise, air pollution, because there may be hidden confounding factors?
Also whilst this association is true in the UK, some other countries do not have such stark social class effects on breastfeeding eg scandinavia, the evidence base for bf is international.

With statistical studies you need to look at the overall body of evidence, not the odd individual study which comes to the opposite conclusion. The overall evidence base demonstrates significant benefits from breastfeeding.

Really it would be surprising if formula milk gave the same outcomes as it is very different to breastmilk. If someone fed their baby normal cow's milk from birth you wouldn't be surprised if their baby was less healthy than a baby fed formula milk. But formula is much closer in composition to normal cow's milk than breast milk. Why are we surprised that there are differences between breast and formula fed babies?

BFing is about the only easy thing I do during the newborn stage. Everything else is a faff but getting the boobs out is easy and painless. But those people who talk about how their babies sleep in cars and pushchairs need to DIE. Lying scum. My babies howl from the minute they see their car seat to the minute I take them out again. Car seats are the work of the devil.