To think breastmilk is not more important than the mother's wellbeing?

[Throughautomaticdoors]

I have expressed for dd exclusively for 27 weeks. It has been horrific but ultimately my choice. It's left me extremely tired and run down as I'm expressing 7 times a day, twice in the night, plus dd is also awake in the night so I'm getting maybe two hours sleep in any one block. I have pnd and also I'm taking painkiller every day as I've started getting awful headaches, I think because I'm so tired. I have an older dc too.

I saw my hv who said that whilst she wasn't allowed to tell me to stop she did think I should seriously consider winding it down and said she would ask infant feeding to speak to me about a plan of how to stop or reduce the expressing.

Infant feeding rang me yesterday and frankly they are ridiculous. The lady I spoke to (who I've encountered before and last time advised me to express every two hours) told me that six months breast milk is a minimum and actually it's better to carry on for two years to get any real benefit. I told her I had pnd and how basically the last six months had been dreadful, how tired I was and how I can't go anywhere because I have to be home to express and she suggested that I go five hours in the day but express more in the night. She said not to introduce formula as it's not suitable for babies digestive systems?! This woman isn't medically qualified by the way, she is a 'normal mum' who breastfed her four children. She told me breastmilk halves the length of any illness they might get and used that aggregating phrase 'liquid gold.'

Aibu to think at some point the health of the mother has to matter more than the supposed benefits of breast milk. I'm quite annoyed about it.

What an awful woman! She sounds like a jumped up jobsworth, please try to ignore what she said and listen to the posters on here - she might not even be a mum!

I have a little one the same age as you and I am breastfeeding but she has also had the odd bottle of formula on the occasions I have left her and has formula with here porridge on a morning, her digestive system is fine! I also have an 11 year old who was not breastfed at all, she is ridiculously clever, beautiful and healthy. Breast milk is good, formula is good. The most important thing is that you start to feel better and enjoy your LO. I strongly believe you should cut down on the expressing and make the switch to formula, nothing bad will happen and in years to come I promise non of this will matter.

Savoy cabbage leaves (kept in the fridge and apparently it does need to be savoy) stuffed in my bra really did help me. It sounds like a myth but they did work.

For the love of all things holy. That woman shouldn't be allowed to represent anyone other than herself.

I do believe breast milk is best, how can it not be? It's what our bodies makes to nurture the babies they've just grown.

However, I don't think it's better by a significant enough of a margin to put yourself through hell to provide it. I'd probably do it for 6 weeks if it was this difficult, 6 months makes you a total star in my book, but you've done enough. Truly. Time to stop & find a better balance in your life.

PLEASE call your HV & tell her what you were told, then leave it to her to deal with. You move to formula, food, sleep & balance 💐

I didn't breastfeed any of ours. My milk didn't come in for over two weeks after our first was born and if I'd been relying on it then she would have died from starvation. There is nothing wrong with formula and please don't allow anyone to make you feel guilty if you chose that route.

No idea what Infant Feeding is, but their advice is bonkers. Plenty of women use formula so how can it not be suitable for a baby's digestive system.
You health and well being is important and you have done a fantastic job in expressing for 27 weeks.
When I had my son - I was told that any length of time you spent breast feeding/expressing, be it 12 months or 12 days, was of benefit to the baby.

Poor you. Just do what feels right for you (and I write that as a breastfeeder who enjoyed it). Can you not give up expressing and just feed the baby? It's much easier. Have you tried all the things like breastfeeding counsellor/expert, checking for tongue tie etc etc

You've expressed for 27 weeks!? You're a fucking hero

Breast milk is good for babies and toddlers. But a mum with the energy to chat, play, sing and laugh, as opposed to a sleep-deprived zombie, is also really really good for a young baby's developing mind. Some mothers don't have that choice because for whatever reason sleep-deprived zombie is the best they can manage - but you do.

(I don't feel the need to say "you matter too" because a) it's bleeding obvious b) everyone else on the thread had already said it)

I bf my 2 both until 22 months but I would never tell someone what that woman told you. A happy mum is better for the baby and, knowing how much I hated expressing on the rare occasion I has to, you have done fab doing it for so long. Millions of babies have been fed formula and thrived so you do what is best for you x

Stop!
You've don't well by her so far, now look after yourself.

That should be you've done well of course.
More

Babies get the benefit from even a few days, I was in hospital yesterday for a minor op and the surgeon and nurses, all female, congratulated me and said great job going 7 months, totally at odds from hv who seems to think you should bf forever! My little one is thriving on formula now

Who the hell are "infant feeding"?

Stop.

Please seek support elsewhere to help you reduce expressing. You may find you feel better having to do less and can carry on mix feeding for a while or go on to stop which ever way you need better support. Someone had already linked in the national breastfeeding helpline which is a great place to start. They are trained to listen to the mum and support you with what you need.

Good luck op and well done for expressing for so long that absolutely brilliant.

You deserve a medal.

The stupid woman is ignoring your mental health. You deserve top be healthy and so does your baby, both physical and mental health (I say deserve because not every one can be but we all deserve it).

If you had a physical health problem that stopped you breast feeding no one would tell you to continue.

I'm just coming back to this as I was on mobile before and actually I am - her information is actually WRONG. Completely.

I am trained in BF support, though it was a while ago, I read research. She is talking out of her arse.

The WHO does NOT say that to get "the full benefits" you need to BF for two years. They recommend feeding for two years but it's not like the BF you have done has been rendered useless. It's not a course of antibiotics. There is no such thing as "the full benefits", and how dare she say "the real benefits" are only if you do it for longer? Every bit of breastmilk you've given your DD over the last 6 months has made a difference and it's absolutely okay to stop whenever you want. In fact if you want to be picky the "real" is most studied, most beneficial effects we know of come from the very early parts of BFing. (As an aside there is a lovely chart here where you can look at whatever age you got to and see what we know about the benefits.)

Formula is absolutely suitable for babies' digestive systems. It's LITERALLY MADE FOR THEM. No, it is not the same and will never be the same thing as breastmilk but it is perfectly adequate alternative. Plus, your baby is over six months old. There is nothing unsuitable for his digestive system except for obvious things like alcohol, huge amounts of salt, and honey. Her advice is not only wrong, it doesn't even make any sense.

There is NO evidence that breastmilk halves the length of any illness. That is not how it works. That's not how any of this works! On a population level, breastfed babies get fewer illnesses than formula fed babies, that is all. You simply can't look at an individual baby and say that he or she did or did not get ill or got better faster or slower because they did or didn't have breastmilk. That is not how the immune system works and it's not how data works.

Please, please report her for spouting bollocks. She might be well meaning but she is dealing with women in an incredibly vulnerable time of their lives.

And you're doing great. This might help with the reducing: exclusivepumping.com/weaning-from-the-pump/

(not is - I meant to type as in or possibly ie? Not sure.)

I think you are amazing. I managed to exclusively pump for ds for 6 weeks, mix fed for 2 more and it was horrendous. In your situation particularly with an older dc I would have given up long ago. If you need to stop now, do it. Formula is baby food that's all.

I ended up expressing because dd was poorly when she was born (and so was I) and breast feeding never got off the ground. It was a choice in so much as I could have just put her on formula then but I didn't really expect to be expressing this long, somehow that's just happened.

The HV said infant feeding would be better placed to advise on the effect of reducing pumping. I wanted to know whether supply would reduce or whether I'd get more milk when I did express as supposedly the milk should be established now. The lady didn't seem to know, she said something along the lines of 'the baby will adapt to how much milk there is' but I can't believe she meant even if it reduces just give that rather than topping up with formula? Surely? She also told me - when I first came home from hospital - that she can spot formula fed babies a mile off as they are different to breast fed babies and their systems are slower. In fact she is part of the reason I ended up expressing because I felt so guilty at the time. I was really really low when I came out of hospital and wasn't able to discern that she was very unprofessional.

However I feel just enough sanity now to realise she's talking rubbish but it makes me angry. I think I am going to complain, in writing, to the service. It isn't right or fair to be advising women to carry on at all costs and implying that formula will harm their baby.

Another one who exclusively expressed - and it is hell. Truly the worst of both worlds, as you have all the downsides of bf (mastitis, leaking, engorgement and the rest) with none of the convenience. Plus it takes twice as long as ff or bf as you have to pump, wash bottles, sterilise bottles AND feed the baby. Before starting the wretched process all over again.

OP, you are a bloody hero. Expressing left me an absolute wreck after 3 months, so you are incredible to do it to six.

Stop now!! Formula is just fine, my DD is thriving on it, just as my DS thrived on breastmilk. Good luck.

That isn't true minifingerz and I don't think it's fair to insinuate OP is making this up. Pretty boring topic for a troll if you ask me.

I don't think OP was ever looking for permission to stop (though many in this thread have been kind enough to emphasise it). She was merely asking for advice as it's well known that stopping cold turkey can cause problems such as engorgement, blocked ducts and possibly mastitis.

Many health visitors work out of Children's centres and a few Children's centres around the country run breastfeeding support groups, some even with helplines, which in my experience are woefully badly integrated with the health visitor system. (Mine didn't even know that the group existed, and one in a different area advised me to go without telling me the group was only for babies of 0-6 months). It's very likely that a HV who has little knowledge about expressing in particular might refer a mum to this service without necessarily knowing what it does. HVs are overworked and don't know everything about every service the children's centres offer. Very few mums in the UK exclusively pump so it might be she just thought they might be more knowledgeable than she was personally (this is actually a good thing IMO, better than pretending she does know, it's just a shame the information wasn't good info.)

Also many Primary Care trusts have an Infant Feeding Specialist (all Baby Friendly hospitals are supposed to have one) but this is just a midwife, the training required isn't particularly in depth or required to be updated, so it can be the case that the person's own prejudices or ideas creep in.

YANBU. At ALL.
I breastfed DD for a year, through some tough times, etc etc. I am pleased that I managed this long blah blah blah. I have her everything I had, is how I was looking at it.

I love her, and have such lovely memories of feeding her. But the stage between 6 and 12 months, it was so difficult that my own health suffered, and I think, nearly a year later, that I am still a bit traumatised by the lack of sleep and my constant ill health. We swapped to formula when she started to refuse the boob and I went back to work and she thrived.

It has put me off having a second baby, which I feel very guilty about. I don't want to have to have the stupid FF/BF debate in my sleep deprived head. Now that I am past all that 'fug', though, I just look back and marvel and think 'just fecking stop, love!'.

The angsting did not make her a super baby. I give you permission to stop. Well done so far x

I'm giving you and because after 27 weeks exclusively pumping you need it!! Seriously you should be incredibly proud of yourself for that, bf is hard bit pumping is another level. DD wouldn't latch at hospital and I got myself in a right state. One of the health assistants was amazing and took time to help me set up pumping, explaining how to keep offering the breast etc. Finally calm it was ruined in one fell swoop by a BFN lady who came to my hospital bed and said expressing was as bad as formula and I would be better off giving her nothing!!!!! Some people are on a different fucking planet. DH kicked her out, but I was too scared to ask for help from the BFN after that. Thankfully DD learned to latch, though I had to express one feed a day for 7 months! I'm still bf dd at 21 months now, but it worked for us in the end. Seriously do what works for you, if you want to stop completely stop, if you want to keep pumping one feed or two do, but the key message here being if you want to, if you feel comfortable doing that. I was able to drop pumping after 7 months because as she ate more she needed less so now would be a good time for you to switch out some , a natural progression if you will.

And please report her, I regret not reporting mine, I'm worried about how many other women who wanted to bf but who didn't have wonderful support at home as I did she put off!

I wanted to bf my first ds but he wouldn't take to it. I expressed for 3 months purely because I was made to feel guilty about it. Mw couldn't say to formula feed. When I did stop it was so much easier and I could just enjoy my son without the hassle. Don't be bullied.