to be glad I can't remember being breastfed?

[retrocutie]

I just read this article in the, erm, Daily Mail. In it, a woman who is breastfeeding her 5 year-old and 2 year-old talks of her wish to still be breastfeeding when her kids are 10 years old. This makes me feel a bit uneasy. A child of 10 will remember being breastfed and I just think it is a bit yucky. Sorry. I am glad I wasn't still breastfed at that age. Some children are going through puberty at 10… I dunno, it just seems a bit, well, wrong somehow. At some point it becomes inappropriate, surely?

Not only that, but as is often the case in these families, the poor husband has been banished to the spare room so that the mother can co-sleep with the DC. Just seems a bit unfair. I feel more than a bit sorry for him.

AIBU?

Dear god mini fingers I see your abrasive posting style hasn't changed despite what happened recently

you are you are what you eat, It's not a particlarly radical idea that comment in itself is very unhelpful, espcially to a mother who has struggled to bf. To a degree it is scaremongering, because not all ff babies are going to get ill or sick, ok the likelihood is more than being bf, your ff baby might not get sick, whereas your bf baby might.

For the record, my ds who was given mostly bm for 9 months was more sick than ff dd.

I have been banished from my bedroom since our youngest DD was 5 months old... But I am the mother, DD will only sleep in our bed, I take medication that would make it dangerous to share a bed with her (she's only 1) so she sleeps with DH and I sleep on the sofa...

On BF, I would have loved to feed all of mine for much much longer, I had to stop after first feeds with oldest two, 5 weeks with 3rd and 5 months with 4th to restart my meds. DC3 is nearly three, hes still a baby to me, I would happily be feeding him now if it were possible.

Before I BF my babies I was incredibly squeamish about the whole thing tbh, almost revulsion! but doing it totally changed my mind set forever.

I was BF until I was 2.5, my mother only stopped because she had to go into hospital to give birth to my Dsis (and I never forgave her because I wanted a puppy not a new baby and was glued to my dad for the next 31 years... and counting!)

No research does NOT have controls built in when it includes babies. Which is part of the reason why it is so hard to pin down cause and effect in these studies.

It's unethical for researchers to play God which they would need to do to build effective control groups. For example they can't ask a group of degree educated wealthy women not to breastfeed or put their babies on second hand mattresses or not sterilise their bottles. And you can't deliberately remove babies who come from highly educated parents (who are more likely to breastfeed) and have them brought up by badly educated parents (who are less likely to) and then see if they still come out with higher IQs when all other advantages except breastfeeding are removed. That's what they'd need to do to create an effective control group and they can't do it. They have to work with the choices that parents have made anyway and can't influence them so they have no way of filtering out whether the results are the result of those choices, or if the people who are likely to make those choices (to breastfeed and cosleeping) are likely to have other factors (particularly socioeconomic ones) which affect the outcomes.

Again minifingers, you are saying that breastfeeding 'causes' a lowering of SIDS. That's not true. What that research shows is that breastfed children are less likely to die of SIDS. It does not show (nor does it claim to) show that it's caused by breastfeeding. Because you cannot create control groups with babies it only shows that children who are breastfed are more likely to be less at risk of dying of SIDS. It doesn't show that the cause of this is breastfeeding.

Again, hypocrisy. You claim that you or not telling people what choices they should or shouldn't make about feeding your child yet you claim that those who feed their children formula are harming them. I can't think of a more potent way to try and pressure people into making a parenting choice than telling them the alternative will be harming their child.

Ah I see. So minifingers wishes to self-flagellate because of her prior choices, and sees nothing wrong in telling us all we should also prostrate ourselves on the alter of motherhood-guilt.
Well, that shit ain't my bag. Good things happen, so do bad, we make the choices we can.

Make the best decision you can with the information you have available to you at the time. This became my (not very catchy) parenting mantra when considering vaccinations for our first.

" and sees nothing wrong in telling us all we should also prostrate ourselves on the alter of motherhood-guilt. "

I've done nothing of the sort.

Haven't 'self flagellated'

Haven't encouraged you to do so.

"Good things happen, so do bad, we make the choices we can."

Yes - that's what I've been saying: we are responsible for our choices and how we feel about them afterwards.
:-)

Minifingers, I'd give up. Trying to debate with people who have decided that when you say 'abc' you're really saying 'xyz' is like trying to tap dance in treacle. Not worth it!

mini - the thing about harm and weighing up risks is that it's so individual. Just because 'breast is best' doesn't mean it's the right thing for everyone.

Yes, breast milk is superior and it does offer more than formula but for some women those benefits don't outweigh the potential downfalls when they consider breast feeding or not. Sometimes bottle feeding really is what's best for done mothers and their babies. By making this decision they aren't causing harm by default, thats just ridiculous.

And in terms of 'how we feel about our choices, then I doubt many mom's have any reason to feel anything but fine about their decision. Your final paragraph implies that women who FF should harbour feelings of guilt even if they won't admit it, and it's really not a nice thing to put across. It reads as though making the FF/BF choice is one that a mother will have to life with forever if she makes the 'wrong choice' (in your eyes, formula) and that's pretty dramatic. I'm pretty sure that most women are responsible enough to make the decision that's best for them and their baby and so I'm sure the majority would feel fine about their choice.