Re: this bloody Facebook group?

[Rozdeek]

Am on this fb group whose philosophy is "attachment" parenting based. I do a lot of attachment parenting things myself but just cos I like them - I hate parenting labels.

Anyway today this poor woman has posted asking for advice on how to stop co sleeping as she is knackered and wants her evening back as baby won't sleep without her there and wakes up when she goes. Baby is 15 months. I think this is fair enough. No. Instead of helpful advice, or sympathy, she just gets loads of stuff along the lines of "why would you want to stop co sleeping?" and people insinuating she is selfish for wanting time to herself.

Someone else posts asking for advice on "natural" teething remedies as she doesn't like using calpol. Cue loads of people saying to try Amber teething bracelets . Yes. Let's put a choking hazard on my baby. That's much better than a small dose of paracetamol.

I do follow a lot of attachment parenting methods but I cannot buy into the above load of crap. I also hate that "co sleep/wear a sling" appear to be solutions to all problems. My baby hates both of these.

AIBU?

I have de joined said fb group before anyone jumps on that one.

Proof of demonstratable harm.

I'm not sure your copy and pasted propoganda text says what you think it does.

MrsD a Kardashian BFing would be a real boon to the areas I support, it shouldn't be that way but we are living in the real world and the more sleb emdorsements in the media at that moment in time, the higher footfall we get through our doors. Such is the way of the world.

Chrissy Teigen breastfeeds.

The cost to the nhs every year of treating just five illnesses resulting from formula feeding is £48million

Gross misunderstanding of statistics.

What are these diseases? Is every single case caused solely by formula feeding? are there any actual diseases CAUSED by formula feeding? having a 1% or whatever higher chance of condition X does NOT mean that every case is caused by ff!

Please have some understanding of epidemiology and stats before you pat stuff like that.

The public health stance on bf/ff should be this:

"Bf is associated with a number of benefits for mother and baby, including blah and blah. If you want to bf and are finding it difficult we have support available. Mix feeding and ff are also perfectly healthy ways of feeding you baby. Here's some info on how to do so safely."

No mum who wants to bf and struggles should lack support
No mum who can't bf or wants to ff should face any scorn or negativity

There's a gorgeous shot of Chrissy Teigen breastfeeding in a recent music video.

What is all this co sleeping thing? Is this newborns? I was warned over and over by my health visitor to never let mine sleep in bed with us, my middle son was 3 weeks early she and was constantly warning me not to fall asleep while feeding him at night. she was always giving me statistics on how many cot deaths there were where babies had been rolled on. Perhaps I should point out the website to my health visitor.

I have Coslept with all six of mine. The statistics are rather unreliable for deaths associated with cosleep include deaths where a parent has fallen asleep- possibly whilst feeding on a sofa. That is completely different from a conscious and researched decision to cosleep. Statistics show that breastfed babies ( I don't know why) where the parents don't smoke or drink are not at a great risk from co sleeping.

Co sleeping can be done safely. As phil says the stats are all lumped in together - so "fell asleep on sofa with baby after drinking" is classed as co sleeping too.
Bf ing is supposed to result in a closer awareness of the baby by the mother.
If you follow safe co sleeping guidelines it actually seems to be very safe. No covers near the baby. Neither parent drinks or smokes, etc etc.

Did you read the paper? A lot of the conclusions were based on poor quality observational studies where the alternative was not necessarily formula and with lots of confounders. Breast feeding wasn't all rosy; Longer term breast feeding was associated with an increase in dental decay. Other problems could also be overcome through better training in formula preparation. Being published in the Lancet doesn't mean there are no limitations to your studies. You have to read and carefully assess the paper.

I would not call myself an attachment parent but I did lots of attachment style things after switching to formula. The two are not exclusive.

I think that there should be feeding support groups where information can be given about breastfeeding, formula and weaning. I went to breastfeeding groups with most of mine. One of my babies lost a lot of weight whilst breastfeeding and was admitted into hospital. I had to give formula top ups and eventually he just refused to breastfeed. It broke my heart, I was sat sobbing with a hungry baby at 1am. I was the Mum biting back tears when I saw other women breastfeeding - I still struggle with it now. I started attending a breastfeeding group whilst I was mixed feeding and they had no issue with me bottle feeding and they gave me advice on how to do so. It was made very clear to me that I was very welcome to attend and access support even if I fully formula fed my baby. Those women kept me sane, I just wish I had accessed their support earlier

I think information on formula feeding should be given at ante natal classes. By all means stress that breast is best, can be more convenient, is free ( but can incur some costs) etc but the information should still be given.

All of the women in my family bottle feed apart from me. We are your typical dysfunctional not very well educated family - MN would call us the underclass. We are not likely to attend support groups, for some of us we can barely read the instructions on the back of the tin, life is stressful and we are skint. I have watched my sisters, cousins etc make up bottles wrong because nobody has shown them how to do it right. It is very very unlikely that these women will ever breastfeed and therefore show them how to bottle feed correctly.

I have to laugh when I see yet another middle class (no offence to all you lovely mc MNers out there) woman with no make up on, dressed in a long skirt with both her breasts out, setting themselves up as a role model for bfing mothers.

They.don't.want.you.

They want to see Beyonce or someone from TOWIE bf without fuss or hoo hah.

They want to know they won't look stupid or frumpy or show themselves up.

And they are sick of older more affluent women judging them for not eating like they do, not 'doing' pregnancy like they do, being too young, having too many kids, using dummies, buying Frozen baby grows and everything else that gets regularly slagged on parenting forums.

I totally agree. I have said this before on MN but each time I have been told that I am talking bollocks and have a chip on my shoulder.

Interestingly using a dummy has been linked with lowering the risk of co sleeping.

philo we had a good pragmatic HV for a while who did a class on feeding antenatally. There was as much about ff as bf as she said you know breast is best but if you ff you need to know how to do this safely. I came away keen to avoid the faff and expense by bf. (Unfortunately, poor jaundiced dc1 and I had such a poor time having my boob forced into her mouth by midwives that by the time I came out of hospital she was stubbornly breast refusing and nothing I or any counsellors did could change that).

I have to admit that one of my main motivations for breastfeeding was wanting to avoid the faff of sterilising and making up bottles. I think that is one of the reasons I found expressing so disheartening

When breastfeeding goes right it is cheaper and convenient and yet that is not stressed often enough.

I'm pretty much stuck between a rock and a hard place. Post a bf meme...you take the piss. Post an excerpt from the UNICEF document and you take the piss.
There is obviously zero information that will make you understand that there are no benefits to breastfeeding, breast is not best....it's normal.
I'm wasting my breath here.
My time is better spent on my 17,000 members in my group who actually need help and listen to advice

there are no benefits to breastfeeding, breast is not best....it's normal

Seriously, you can't see how you are an extremist for thinking like this?

My time is better spent on my 17,000 members in my group who actually need help and listen to advice

It's only 'better' because you can block and delete those who oppose your views on your group, while surrounding yourself with those that think the same.
It isn't a healthy way to be, it doens't give you any insight into what real people are doing and it doesn't give you true facts.

People like you really wind me up brickie.

I feel very strongly about breastfeeding. I think the lack of (professional) support for it in this country is shocking. I know so many women who desperately wanted to breastfeed but ended up formula feeding because they did not have access to the right support or information. This makes me angry because these women should have been able to, and could have, breastfed their children.

These women and women who have tried everything, had the right support, and still cannot do it should not be made to feel guilty for giving their babies formula which, while not as beneficial as breast milk, is a perfectly good alternative.

As for reasons why women "don't even try", they can be many and deeply personal. It's not that people simply can't be arsed. Who the fuck are any of us to judge that.

brickie I didn't take the piss out of the unicef information; I just looked at the source of that information and was quite shocked how weak it was if you wanted to apply it to the uk.

Many many mothers on this forum have been made to feel exactly as brickie is making people feel here salem. I wouldn't be too sure. There are many simolilarities in content and style.

There is obviously zero information that will make you understand that there are no benefits to breastfeeding, breast is not best....it's normal.
I'm wasting my breath here.

It's like you speak a completely different language to everyone else here.

No one here is ANTI breastfeeding. You don't need to convince anyone that breastfeeding is beneficial. The problem is that you refuse to accept that there are some women for whom breastfeeding does not work, and that those women have every right to feed their children according to what is healthiest and works best for them. For some women breastfeeding would literally kill their babies.

It must be nice to live in a world where everyone is healthy, everyone has ample free time, no one ever has any problems and everything is black and white, but that is not the real world.

Gordon Bennett Brickie. Instead of copying and pasting stuff at people, why don't you just listen? You might actually learn something!

Shaming, hectoring and pillorying f-feeding women isn't helping b-fing rates, if it did virtually everyone would bf (barring inability to do so). So why are b-fing activists still trying it? You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, so where is the support - the genuine, non-judgemental, caring, woman-centred support?

How many of those 17000 are actually doing something to help increase BF rates? I mean actually making a difference? I, as I've said up thread, volunteer (alongside working FT I might add) to actually help mothers with their choices, I'm out there in the field so to speak. It'd be so easy to sit back in the comfort of a group preaching to the choir but instead I'm making a difference. Can your group honestly say the same?