Refusal to discuss formula feeding at parentcraft class

[obeliaboo]

AIBU? Ready for the fire!
I've been told that in order for me to have a tour of my chosen hospital's delivery suite, that i need to attend 'parentcraft' classes.
Yesterday was exclusively about breastfeeding, fair enough, didnt know that of course until we got there.
So, as the midwife goes on about breastfeeding and support, I enquire what is the support for those who fall into small percentage of mums who cannot breastfeed. Simple question.
"What do you mean?".
I had to ask again, and put it across that i intend to breastfeed, but what if i cant, what if my milk doesn't come in. It happens, it happened to my eldest sister, its nothing to be ashamed of so whats the harm in asking and what is the support in that situation.
"We don't discuss artificial feeding".
Seriously?? I understand the necessity to promote breastfeeding is a priority for the NHS, because it seriously needs normalising, but to just object to even touching on the subject of formula feeding really riled me. I felt like i was at a propaganda session! She instead continued to address breastfeeding and a specific brand of electric breast bump at a specifc well known retailer.
Is this what the NHS supports? Big business's and there overpriced products (the specific one mentioned was over £100, I am not in a position to be able to afford something like that for a start), under the guise that 'breast is best', its the best start for baby - and insinuating that formula is the devil when for some poor souls, it is the only option?
AIBU for finding this absolutely snotty and condescending? There are mums out there who are underconfident, or genuinely don't lactate, mums who have gone through breastcancer and mastectomies etc, so why are these midwives refusing to even consider discussing both options.
Why make it militant and harder for those who simply can't, to speak up without feeling ashamed?
FYI this is the 3rd midwife i've had ranting at me over this.

And all mothers should get postnatal support regardless of how they feed their babies.

Say for breastfeeding mothers it's the lack of this support which stops them breastfeeding in droves.

I have yet to meet a ff mother who has been forced to stop bottlefeeding because of lack of help.

"When you've had a few hours sleep and trying to calm a screaming baby it's not easy to read all of the instructions on the steriliser and milk carton."

Are you serious?

Sterilise the bottle. Pour the ready made milk in. Give it to the baby.

How hard is it really?

Ok then minifingers, can't you accept that both breastfeeding and formula feeding mothers need support/information for different reasons?

Breastfeeding women need help establishing and maintaining BF.

Formula feeding mothers need help with hygiene advice, safely making up feeds, knowing when to try new teats, etc.

What ready made milk? The stuff that cost nearly a pound a feed?

Agree seaoflove. Well summed up.

Ah yes that lovely cheap ready made milk

I looked at DD today, she's 11 months old, and saw the lip tie that has been there since she was born. And yet, just after birth, when I asked, they checked her tongue and said there was no tongue tie, but no mention of her lips.

The knowledge that the choice of breastfeeding was taken from me by the midwives refusal to accept that there was an issue, and the HV's insistence that now I was formula feeding, I wouldn't be able to start breastfeeding or expressing (despite the fact I continued to leak milk until she was 12 weeks old), is exactly why women like me need emotional support that is easily accessible if they are unable to breastfeed.

And it's also why, even though less than whatever percent cannot physically breastfeed for a medical reason, there are many more who physically cannot breastfeed because medical professionals will not even assist with problems.

Minifingers I think you are incredibly rude. Yes - really when a baby is screaming and you've been assured you won't need to buy bottles and formula because everyone can breastfeed if they really want to it is hard to concentrate on reading instructions and preparing a feed correctly. Honestly you are on every single thread I've ever read about bf/ff spouting the same old same old. Isn't it about time you got a new hobby?

What chips just said.

obeliaboo - in real life I'm sure you will find most people will not judge you for ff or at least they won't be as rude and ignoramus as some of the posters on MN.

My best advice would be to buy the equipment before hand and have a test run of using the steriliser and how to make up the milk. Luckily I had my Mum on hand to help show me the ropes in my sleep deprived hormonal state!

*ignorant autocorrect fail

How hard is it really?

I couldn't get my head round all the boiling stuff to the right temperature.
You've seen my posts. I'm not daft.
I had emergency ready made formula in, just in case because I couldn't face the possibility of needing it.

The night I nearly threw in the towel, even the ready made stuff wasn't 'easy' enough.

I had no idea 'how much' because I'd never done it before and I was sleep deprived and not in a rational state of mind. DH was trying to work it out, whilst I was pretty hysterical by this point. He was struggling.

So how hard is it?

Easy, if you are super organised, don't suffer from anxiety and aren't in pressurised or difficult circumstances of any kind.

Fucking impossible nightmare if you have a new baby, you don't have a clue what you are doing with, you are battling your emotions about not BF, are sleep deprived, possibly in pain, panicking that you are the most useless mother in the world and how you've just made the biggest mistake of your life, you've never been within 50 feet of a newborn before and just generally feel like utter shite and can't rationalise anything.

I do start to wonder if you think people are unquestioning robots who all follow instructions easily and are amazing at coping in situations they've never encountered before. God forbid, their humanity.

I wish we had a "like" function on Mumsnet! Thank you Fairylea and RedToothBrush

I genuinely can't be bothered to post my entire story onto these threads because thankfully the vast majority of posters are sympathetic and sensitive enough for me to feel I don't have to bother... but what I will say is there definitely needs to be more of a willingness to discuss formula feeding from the word go across the nhs. When I had my dd some years ago I was determined I was going to breastfeed. For one reason and another I didn't and I vividly recall giving her the same small bottle of formula on and off the whole night in hospital because I had not bothered to arm myself with any information about formula feeding having believed all the propaganda that anyone can breastfeed etc - and because no one dared to educate me about formula feeding at the hospital I was just left to get on with it.

It was pure luck really that dd didn't become extremely ill.

I'm not some stupid woman, I was just an extremely stressed and depressed one having gone through a 3 day traumatic labour and left with a newborn I had no idea how to feed.

So yes, everyone needs to be aware of the very basics of formula feeding even if they plan to breastfeed. Then hopefully they won't be like me in that scenario and when they get home with a newborn sitting there in the kitchen in floods of tears wondering how the fuck to work a microwave steriliser or make up bottles when you don't even have time to read the packet and feel completely overwhelmed with a crying baby and in my case, a hugely unsupportive partner and family who all breastfed.

I formula fed my second child from birth by the way.

The Infant Feeding Specialist in my area now supports all methods of feeding. Helps women with formula issues, as well as breast (milk protein allergies, for example). No judgement at all. She came out to the house to help me when feeding dd was really painful, but was never strong on what method I should use, just that the two of us needed to be happy with how we fed. I'm still breastfeeding dd and she's one - ebf.

My old area, and I was left to struggle on with a severely tongue tied baby in an area where nobody would even diagnose, far less cut, and no help worth the name was offered. But they pushed breastfeeding on you at every stage, so you felt desperately guilty when you couldn't. I expressed exclusively till DS was 8 months, at terrible emotional cost including fullblown PND, and then he had formula. Thank the Lord.

Guess which of the two has the best breastfeeding rates?

minifingers are you serious?

Get breast out. Put nipple in the baby's mouth. Feed.

How hard can it be?

Have you ff your own babies? Or are you trying to be deliberately inflammatory? Responses on this thread have demonstrated many times over the need that mothers have for support in ff. Either that or you have incredibly selective reading skills.

You may never have met a ff mother who had to stop feeding her baby but there will be plenty who ended up in A&E or worse with their newborns because of giving formula incorrectly for many many different reasons.

And no, the fucking tin does not say all you need to know!

And by the way, ready made formula where I live is not available. Is there something different that you would suggest given we had no option but to juggle a screaming baby with making bottles at 3am after no sleep and recovering from a very difficult pregnancy and traumatic birth?

The only thing I take from your posts is a smugness that you are somehow a better mother with a superior ability to read than us poor ff parents. They do nothing to promote bf.

What a load of tosh Minifingers talks.

Re instructions on the tin,many will ignore.They are often in tiny writing(illiteracy will prevent any reading of said instructions) and often you'll read a tin once and never again.I certainly did.

I think bottle feeding classes are crucial and a check up a couple of months in to check that guidelines are being followed and understood. I had loads of questions to ask and have a degree.

Op yanbu.My bil got cross re this very issue when dsis was expecting twins and v likely to need to use bottles at some point.He asked repeatedly,got zilch and was made to feel like crap for asking.

"What a load of tosh Minifingers talks.

Re instructions on the tin,many will ignore."

Then they are fucking idiots and have no one to blame but themselves.

"I think bottle feeding classes are crucial and a check up a couple of months in to check that guidelines are being followed and understood. I had loads of questions to ask and have a degree."

They don't teach formula preparation antenatally in classes because there is evidence that people taught this way don't retain the information accurately yet believe they know what they're doing because they have attended a class.

What should happen is that people are given one to one help to make up a feed before they leave hospital, or at home by the midwife. This is not happening - not a good thing and no one would justify it. However there are loads of other important things that are also often not happening at this time because POSTNATAL CARE IS SHIT.

Luckily there is a tonne of information available through NHS, UNICEF and formula company websites. It's just that people can't be arsed to seek it out and read it.

The mothers who have formula incorrectly and ended up with a sick baby were those parents who didn't follow the very clear instructions on the tin. Whose fault is that?

Of course there are tips and tricks that can make bottle feeding easier and more enjoyable. But not knowing these things won't make bottlefeeding untenable or leave you with a sick baby.

It's completely ignorant and stupid of classes like parent craft and the NCT not to acknowledge formula feeding. There are many, many reasons that women might choose to bottle feed or combine feed for medical reasons or simply a better quality of life. My baby only started sleeping for any lengthily period of time after I introduced the bottle. The difference was incredible, he was full and happy, we both relaxed and we truly bonded and I don't regret it for a minute. If it wasn't for the scaremongering we would both have been happy a lot longer. Everyone knows breast milk is better for the baby but not if it's at the detriment of the mothers mental health. Refusing to talk about it as an option is damaging. Women should have a choice.

I completely agree with minifingers. What next? Women whingeing that they weren't taught how to use a nappy? Here's a tip: that velcro baby you've got that won't let you read the instructions on your Aptimil properly? Put it down.

But as a pp said, there are a great many parents using cooled boiled water to make up a feed. This means babies having unsterilized formula and so potentially risk of serious illness.

minifingers I repeat, did you ff your children?

And omg no, there isn't a ton of information from unicef, who, the Internet. Are you saying that every person on this thread who struggled to find adequate information on ff is a liar?

As for mothers making up formula incorrectly because they were too fucking stupid to follow instructions on the tin so their babies got sick, well what dumb women they must be. We should all take a step back and let men make the formula shouldn't we, seeing as none of them have been involved in the process before. What a ridiculous, ignorant thing to say.

Many women also won't want to go to the formula sites by the way, as they don't want to be misled by any marketing messages. Did that ever occur to you? Because funnily enough we know that we can't rely on a formula company to give us the impartial advice and support that we are looking for.

Also if you are going to quote evidence that people don't retain such information from an antenatal class then you need to back this up with said peer-reviewed studies over a consistent period of time from a large enough study sample.

You are wilfully refusing to read and absorb the already well-paid out arguments and points on this thread. And you do the bf cause no favours with your refusal to accept another argument aside from your own.

Well aren't you just the perfect all knowing parent purdeybirdie we should all strive to be just like you.

I agree with minifingers too.

Nothig compared to thrush/crackednipples/oxytocin rushes/painful let down/mastitis/difficulty expressing/baby vomiting blood/prolactin migraine/mastisis/oversupply/poor supply/forceful letdown/breastfeeding in public/attitudes of partners and family/breastmilk exzema on nipples/problems with inverted nipples/nipple confusion/positioning/latching difficulties/tongue tie/leaking breasts/engorgement/feeling inadequate/hormonal influence on moods/ having to be careful what to eat or drink

It is all so easy.

Someone may suggest a baby feeding support group next, where formula feeders and breastfeeders can get together and support each other.