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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not want to breast feed?

551 replies

LouBlue1507 · 13/05/2016 07:41

I'm currently 31 weeks pregnant and have decided I'm going to bottle feed my baby. Shock

I know breast is best but the thought of breast feeding really grosses me out and makes me feel sick. It's not something I will feel comfortable doing either.

Not only that but I don't want my baby stuck on my chest all the time.

Before I get flamed, I have nothing against women who choose to breastfeed, I have no problem seeing it, Just the thought of me doing it myself grosses me out.

Are there any other mums to be that feel the same or similar? x

OP posts:
FutureGadgetsLab · 13/05/2016 17:59

Out of interest, do you think that when/if we move into a post-antibiotic era, women will feel more of a compulsion to breastfeed?

I know I would.

minifingerz · 13/05/2016 18:00

"I am so boooored with these kinds of threads "

Why are you reading and posting on it?

HalfpintPixie · 13/05/2016 18:01

I think you're being unreasonable, because you're choosing to not do the best for your baby.

But its entirely your decision. You'd already made your decision when you started this thread, so I can't help but see it as a deliberate insult to people who breastfeed. You e effectively started a thread to call me and others like me gross. So cheers for that.

End of the day, your boobs, your choice. Seems like you've already made your choice.

Sparklingbrook · 13/05/2016 18:03

I totally agree with Narp. Any BF AIBU is much the same as another now, you may as well go and look at one of the other bajillion old ones rather than start any more.

NarpIsNotACunt · 13/05/2016 18:03

mini

In order to express my opinion

And my advice. Hence the fourth line

minifingerz · 13/05/2016 18:03

"For those of you who have small babies and are worried about this - wait a few years and you won't give a toss"

Yup - nobody feels any sort of sadness, disappointment, anger, pride, fondness, about their experiences of feeding their baby past the first year. Hmm

That is SO not true.

Christ - look at the outpourings of emotions on threads like this, mostly from women who don't have little babies.....

EmeraldEars · 13/05/2016 18:04

NicknameUsed

I don't get offended by people who publish factually correct information regarding feeding. I had a quick read of their website and it states "breastfeeding is the normal way to feed your baby". Normal? Really?

NeedACleverNN · 13/05/2016 18:06

Need the reason your DS couldn't bf was not because he had tongue tie, it was because his tongue tie was not treated. There were many newborn babies at the breastfeeding cafe I went to who came to have their tongue tie checked after it had been treated (which it was immediately after birth at our local hospital) and then the midwives helped with getting bf established. So with the correct intervention and support many babies with tongue tie can bf.

It was my dd not my ds and yes I agree. Had it been snipped it would probably have been a lot easier to bf. But the hospital I gave birth in didn't have anyone about to snip it. I gave birth in the queen Elizabeth hospital in Kings Lynn. Apparently I had to go all the way to Nottingham if I wanted it treated.
Since I don't live in Kings Lynn(or Norfolk at all but Lincolnshire)and I don't drive, I couldn't get to Nottingham. I brought it up with my check up with my own doctors and they didn't want to refer her because she was doing well on formula. Finally got her referred at 12 months old! The paediatrian then said he didn't want to do anything as she was weaned but come back if it affects her speech.

She is now 3 and still tongue tied

Strokethefurrywall · 13/05/2016 18:07

"I think you're being unreasonable, because you're choosing to not do the best for your baby."

Ding Ding Ding... there it is.

FutureGadgetsLab · 13/05/2016 18:08

You e effectively started a thread to call me and others like me gross. So cheers for that.

I find eating red meat gross. That doesn't mean I think others who eat red meat are gross.

The OP wasn't calling anyone gross.

minifingerz · 13/05/2016 18:11

I'd also say that the more reading you do on this subject, and the more you try to avoid seeing it through the lens of your own personal feeding experiences and your feelings about yourself as a mother, the more interesting it becomes.

HalfpintPixie · 13/05/2016 18:11

Fair enough, I wasn't being really serious, i don't feel attacked or anything.
Different strokes for different folks and all that.

NarpIsNotACunt · 13/05/2016 18:12

So stop talking to them about it and save your energy for campaigning for more support for breastfeeding from people who can effect a change for those who want* to breastfeed i.e HCPs

And stop making breastfeeding the be all and end all of good parenting so that people who don't want to or who are ambivalent aren't made to feel they've failed from the get-go

NeedACleverNN · 13/05/2016 18:13

Yup - nobody feels any sort of sadness, disappointment, anger, pride, fondness, about their experiences of feeding their baby past the first year.

I will agree with you there.

Mine are 3 and 1. At the time I made peace with the formula as I was desperate. However even now I wish I had managed it somehow. Even to the point of considering baby number 3 just to see if I could succeed.

NarpIsNotACunt · 13/05/2016 18:13

I really wonder about the OP

I wonder who starts a thread like that an buggers off

NarpIsNotACunt · 13/05/2016 18:15

Am going now, though. No-one's mind was changed on a thread like this. Entertaining for the DM though

TheFuckersBitingMe · 13/05/2016 18:20

YANBU at all. So long as you love, feed, protect and cherish your child it's nobody's business how you go about those things.

I don't parent the way others might, I don't feed my DCs the way others might. Makes me no less of a great mother. You'll be fine. Just accept now that there'll be folk trying to make you feel guilty for your choices, and that those people need to pipe down. Your baby, your choice.

(Also, before anyone shoots me down as being anti-breatsfeeding, I breastfed both DCs. I will defend the rights of any mother who chooses not to, however, because there are bigger, more important parts of parenting to get shitty about).

WorraLiberty · 13/05/2016 18:23

For those of you who have small babies and are worried about this - wait a few years and you won't give a toss

Agree 100%. These things seem massive at the time but then you move on to the next massive thing and it becomes a distant memory.

It's really only on Mumsnet I see this subject judged and discussed inside out.

In the real world, most people just move on to the next stage.

minifingerz · 13/05/2016 18:25

"because you're choosing to not do the best for your baby."

Ding Ding Ding... there it is."

Back to what I was saying about the mind fuck. Mothers are told that breastfeeding is best for babies and has important health benefits. Mothers who breastfeed are told 'you're doing the best thing for your baby'.

But where does that leave mothers who don't want to breastfeed?

minifingerz · 13/05/2016 18:31

Worra - why do you think people post repeatedly on these threads and have very strong emotions and opinions about it? If it doesn't matter to them? If they are no longer feeding their own babies?

Are you aware that infant feeding is considered a public health issue? An ecological issue? A feminist issue? That people study it at doctoral level, write books about it, attend conferences, join pressure groups?

The wider subject of infant feeding is of a great deal of interest to some people.

And older women remember and talk about their experiences years on, sometimes with grief and sometimes with pride.

I appreciate it's not of interest to you and many others, but I don't understand why you and other people who have no interest in the issue feel compelled to join threads discussing it to say that you have no interest.

It's like you're jumping up and down shouting 'don't mention the war'. It's not just that you're not interested, it's like you think nobody should be interested in it, and that interest in the subject is sinister and a sign of bad character. It's not you know! It's a subject like any other!

FutureGadgetsLab · 13/05/2016 18:35

But where does that leave mothers who don't want to breastfeed?

Still doing the best for their baby. Because doing something that makes them miserable and unhappy will have a negative effect on their child.

Bohemond · 13/05/2016 18:46

Perfectly fine. I felt the same and bought everything for bottle feeding including a perfect prep machine.
I did promise myself that I would give breast feeding a go.
I did - didn't love it, didn't hate it; found it very convenient when baby was tiny.
Stopped at 10 weeks when I was ill, baby took to bottle straight away.
I'm glad I tried and felt no guilt about stopping.
Maybe don't make a decision now.

WorraLiberty · 13/05/2016 18:57

Worra - why do you think people post repeatedly on these threads and have very strong emotions and opinions about it? If it doesn't matter to them? If they are no longer feeding their own babies?

Because they're on Mumsnet where these threads spring up time after time, otherwise the subject probably wouldn't enter their head much.

Because some people post a lot of shit on these threads and it's human nature to want to try to counteract that shit.

Because they've nothing better to do before EastEnders comes on.

But as I say, in real life it's just a distant memory to most people who are too busy getting on with the next stage, so they just have a chilled 'each to their own' attitude.

Or at least that's been my experience of real life in the 47 years I've been alive.

minifingerz · 13/05/2016 18:59

"Still doing the best for their baby. Because doing something that makes them miserable and unhappy will have a negative effect on their child."

I'm not sure it's as simple as that.

If someone breastfeeds despite feeling a personal reluctance to do so, it might make them postnatally depressed. Or it might not. It might be that they have a really good experience of breastfeeding despite an initial reluctance to do it.

Some women struggle with breastfeeding, but continue because it's important to them to do so.

Some women struggle with breastfeeding and need to stop because they are so desperately unhappy they can't parent effectively while they do it.

And postnatal depression is common. How much does it impact on the way women treat their babies? Are all babies of depressed mothers damaged by their mother's depression?

Anyway, point I'm making is that the response you've given is often wheeled out as a way of addressing the problem of reconciling the belief that breastfeeding is best for babies, with the view that all choices are equal when it comes to parenting.

I'm just not sure if it's that clear cut.

WorraLiberty · 13/05/2016 19:02

Having said that, you'll always get a tiny number of obsessive posters on this subject who will almost 'take over' the whole thread and just keep banging the same old drum, until everyone else gives up through sheer boredom.

But I doubt very much those obsessive people are like that in real life, for fear of driving people away, so it's possible they just bang on obsessively about other people's choices, from their keyboards.