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.

Malcolm I had that when I was BFing the DTs, I actually only stopped because my FIL was getting creepy. However some other mothers were really nasty about my choice, and the rudeness from people I didn't know well/strangers because >gasp< they are twins!

Even though I stopped early than I liked (would have preferred natural weaning) I was so happy to have my boobs back! I didn't realise how much I'd missed my autonomy. If I ever have another child, it'll be formula from day one.

I wish this thread had existed 5 years ago when I plummeted into severe PND. One factor for my PND was mine and DD's inability to BF.

I'm not going into details but whenever I used to see you just need to try harder and I would post my tale on Internet forums in desperate hope that a BF expert/peer supporter would be able to tell me where the fuck I was going wrong. They never could. They would read my tale, say they don't know what to suggest and ignored the desperate cry for help in my posts.

Then, when I tried to find a place for women like me who desperately wanted to BF but couldn't, well I was viciously attacked for daring to talk about how heartbreaking it had been to want to BF and not being able to do so. It was awful. I was vulnerable and in pain yet these bitches just kept coming at me.

5 years on I think their behaviour I was because they couldn't put me in the judgemental box they (wrongly) put FF mums (not 'mamas' I HATE that word) in. They couldn't understand because I was proof that this magical 'only 1% of women can't BF' statistic was a load of shit and they didn't like it.

I went to bang groups to see if I could get some general support/get me out of the house as I was going stir crazy. The first time I went and we were all feeding, I was only one of 2 ladies FFing. I tried to engage with conversation with the group of women next to me (all BFing), they turned, looked at the bottle in DD's mouth, sneered and turned their backs on me. I quickly finished feeding DD and left, never to return.

Women I became friends with online on pregnancy groups turned on me afterwards. They would post stupid memes written in comic sans about the dangers of FF etc etc and when I would nicely try to challenge them on this they said they didn't care if it upset me, I needed to know what damage I was doing to my daughter.

I'm ok now from PND and from BFing...mainly. Because I know now that the method of feeding your children makes no difference whatsoever to what type of parent you are and how much your child loves you.

It's been great to see women on here challenge some of the awful things that have been said. Brickie and Spirit - vulnerable women will be reading this thread and your words can and will damage them further. Everyone on this thread understands breast is the better way but the way your message comes across will not make people BF. It will scare them away if things start to go wrong and can cause significant damage to their mental health.

You need to learn from people like scorbus mrsdevere and rozdeek There are better ways of BF support than what you are doing.

OhAndi Can't believe women actually did that to you in real life! I understand cowards on the internet like Spirit and Brickie, but to do it person?

i'm so sorry you went through that

OhAndi I wish I could say your experience is rare but sadly I know differently. So pleased you're out of your PND now, I had horrific AND with both my pregnancies and it's a pit of despair that no one should have contributed to by judging you in that way.

What an eloquent post ohAndi. I too can't believe that you were treated at a support group in that way. Truly shocking.

Its not just a choking hazard with an amber necklace. Choking occurs when the airway is obstructed-a baby's larynx is about 12 mm diameter at about 3 months of age. Any bead smaller than 12 mm diameter should technically be able to pass through the airways into the lung. But the presence of a foreign object in the airway may cause it to spasm, which will cause choking. Also, babies with a viral illness may get mucosal swelling (oedema) in the airways, which is similar to how croup can affect the breathing. If you have swelling, the airway is narrower, so a bead could lodge and cause choking. If the bead does get down into the lung, and you don't realise that its there, it can cause an abscess or bronchiectasis, both of which can be fatal. If you do realise the bead went down, the baby has to have surgery to have it removed, you can't just leave it there.

The other main risk is throttling and strangulation-a baby with a necklace could catch the necklace on any protruding knob or handle and end up strangling themselves. Even when asleep, it can be hazardous if a limb becomes entangled in the necklace thus pulling it tight around the neck.

There is no evidence whatsoever that an amber necklace helps in teething-succinic acid which is touted as the active ingredient in amber is only released from amber at a temperature of 200 degrees C- baby sucking the bead is never going to get any active ingredient out. And as for all the crap about 'magnetism', aligning physical energies, cleansing negative energies-it is all complete and absolute shite. If your baby wants something to gum on, there are far far safer alternatives.

The judgement is awful. Bf or you're a failure. But don't bf for too long or that's disgusting.
I can well believe ohAndIs experience, sadly. Absolutely appalling.

There needs to be much better bf support for those who want to but struggle - I was one. So so hard at the beginning. I mix fed for a bit and then one day it was just ok. The amount of abuse I got for mix feeding was unreal. You'd have thought I was slipping neat gin in the bottle the way these women were carrying on. But mix feeding saved breastfeeding for me. It allowed me a breather to recover (god my poor nipples were like hamburger...) if I'm lucky to have another baby I will mix feed more because it means I can occasionally get a break.
Crucially, if I'd have gone over to ff that would have been ok I know that intellectually but at the time I felt incredible guilt about it. That needs to stop. Each mum/baby pair is unique. What is best is what works for them.

And chuffing Amber necklaces... Jeez. The number of times ive explained to women on the parenting FB group I'm on that you'd need about a ton of Amber heated to a few hundred degrees to obtain enough bloody analgesic effect... Utter horse shit.

YANBU. I hate those kind of groups. I really wanted to do things "the right way" with my boys but breastfeeding with DS2 and DS3 was difficult and with DS4 was impossible.

DS2 has severe low muscle tone and now aged 8 he uses a wheelchair. As a baby he struggled to breastfeed because he couldn't suck very well and I ended up doing a mixture of breast feeding, EBM down a NG tube and high calorie prescription formula. He was failure to thrive and at 12 months he weighed 14lb (the size of an average 3 month old), wore 3-6 month clothes and still couldn't control his own head. When I told some of the mums in the group that I was going to start mix feeding with high calorie prescription milk because I thought it would be best for DS then I got sarcastic comments like "I didn't realise your DS was part bovine" and "cows milk is for cows, human milk is for babies" along with tinkly little laughs and head tilts.

DS4 had a severe cleft palate so he couldn't breastfeed at all. I still got judged. And he was born by C-section so I got judged for that too.

The vast majority of parents want to do the best that they can for their children so we should just accept that some people make different choices, not all babies are the same and we don't know the back story behind everyone's decisions.

I honestly don't understand women like this.

BREASTFEEDING IS THE ONLY WAY!!

I know breast is best, I need help

TRY HARDER

But my DC is failing to thrive, very hungry and I'm not producing milk

EVERYONE HAS MILK BLAH BLAH BLAH YOU'RE SO SELFISH YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE KIDS

It truly is the perfect way to get women to listen to you and raise breastfeeding stats...

ohAndi That's so awful. In reality, you are exactly the kind of person who should be talking to women who need BF support.

I cannot understand these super smug 'mamas'.

Thanks guys I am ok now. I've done quite well to block it all out but after reading this thread I went onto the old baby forum I used to go on and read some of my old threads. I left after being accused of lying about my experience (!) and I was given a warning when I said I'm sick of people not being able to see past the end of their own nipples to see the real picture and what they are doing to vulnerable people.

I just wish people would support each other. Parenting is so bloody hard as it is, we don't need to make it harder for each other.

I said I'm sick of people not being able to see past the end of their own nipples

Brilliant riposte! Why can I never think of anything like that at the time 😁 I'm stealing that one ....

FB groups are echo chambers. I'm on one that thankfully has a number of sensible folk to balance out the butters and the admin are good at keeping it respectful. Every now and again someone comes out with

'My baby has X symptoms- what homeopathic stuff is best?'
To which people reply - you need to see an actual doctor. There's then the usual spat about reason vs homeopathy and the outcome is always 'come over to our natural parenting group, away from the haterz, Hun.'

People can't deal with their sacred cows being challenged so they congregate in little groups where no one rocks the boat, everyone toes the line and they never have to hear any dissenting opinions.
Thankfully mumsnet is more robust

Nutters. Not butters.

Co-sleeping in itself is not unsafe. The current theory of cot death/SUDI is that you have a baby at a vulnerable time in its development (around the 3-4 month mark), in a vulnerable situation, with a baby who has inherent vulnerablities. So, babies who were low birth weight, premature, small for dates, admitted to special care after birth-thats the inherent vulnerabilities group. Put that baby in a vulnerable situation-co sleeping with a parent who has been smoking or drinking, and they are more likely to be at risk. Put that baby in that situation at that vulnerable time in development, and the risk is even higher-its like a Venn diagram when all three groups overlap. Its called the 'triad' theory.

If you have a perfectly healthy normally grown baby at a vulnerable time co-sleeping with a healthy non-smoking parent, their risk is far lower. A baby at 12 months, far outside the vulnerable time frame, co-sleeping with parents who don't smoke, their risk is absolutely minimal.

So, if you plan co-sleeping carefully, you can significantly reduce your risks. The risk is highest when the fatal co-sleeping event is unplanned-this is a baby who was in his cot, parent had a few drinks or took drugs, swooped the baby up for a cuddle and accidentally fell asleep. Planned co-sleeping is not risky as long as you plan ahead. Not smoking and not drinking means you've reduced the two biggest risks there and then.

Other risks-make sure the room isn't too hot (babies prefer 16-18 degrees), make sure there aren't big heavy duvets or spongy mattresses, don't block your baby in with fluffy pillows, they won't come to harm rolling onto the floor from the bed, but they might if they roll into a pillow and can't roll out. Make sure the bed is well away from the wall so the baby can't get wedged between the bedframe and the wall, make sure that the baby can't fall down a 'gutter' between two pillows. Make sure they aren't over dressed or wrapped, make sure the sheets fit tightly and won't get entangled around the squirmy little critters. Basically, given that babies are sweaty, leaky, smelly wriggly little gits I have no idea why anyone wants to sleep with them, but co-sleeping isn't dangerous as long as its planned and managed, and you never do it if you've had alcohol or drugs.

The trouble is, the public health message has to be clear-if it said 'You can sleep with your baby if you do this, this, and this, but not if you do that, unless you do this as well', it would be confusing and difficult for some families, so it has to be clear and unmistakable, so it ended up as 'don't sleep with your baby at all'.

I was following this thread with great interest as I hate read all these breastfeeding groups - I didn't believe the judgement could exist like it does until I saw it first hand!
This article has just been posted in one group I'm a member of (posted by an admin as well!) - www.drmomma.org/2010/04/breasts-in-mourning.html?m=1 with this comment "When you don't breastfeed, your body mourns thinking the baby has died. Those who bottle feed are at an increased risk of mental health issues. How sad 😢"
The amount of self congratulation and 'pity' for FF parents in the comments is horrific. The few voices of reason in the comments pointing out that this kind of attitude is in no way helpful in promoting breastfeeding and is divisive at best and dangerous at worst are being shouted down.

Classic - one comment on the above post - "I wouldn't have any more children if I couldn't breastfeed, discussed with my oh many a time, couldn't morally do it"
Anyone who formula feeds through choice or necessity are immoral and shouldn't have had children then...

Funnily enough, I have seen research saying that breastfeeding can increase the risk of post natal depression due to not enough information for mothers about how difficult it is. So if they fail, they feel worse and wonder what has gone wrong and bingo, depression

Like I said, these fanatics obviously have no real achievement/success in their lives so they latch onto this and don't let go.

In real life I actually know a woman that crazy - she has teenage grandchildren. She still regales us with the same stories of her breastfeeding days. She says breastfeeding should be the law.

If these women didn't do so much damage, I'd pity them. How do you get to be that age and still going on about breastfeeding, still harassing pregnant women etc?

I'm a perinatal mental health nurse and I see a lot of women where not succeeding in BF is definitely a contributory factor in developing PND. In the majority of these cases, I believe that the reason they get depressed is mostly because they feel horrendously guilty and that they have 'failed' their baby. If these attitudes didn't exist, they wouldn't feel so guilty. I also see women on their knees with exhaustion which is making them depressed battle on with BF because they'd feel too guilty if they stopped.
Generally, women who make a decision to FF from day 1 are absolutely fine with it.
Bi-Polar disorder has an extremely high relapse rate post partum and lack of sleep is a huge trigger for relapse. Our doctors often advise women with Bi-Polar to mix feed or FF to ensure that they get enough sleep as it's considered preferable for mum to stay well and the baby get a bit of formula than for the mum to run the risk of being sectioned.
OhAndI I had a similar experience although nowhere near as bad as yours - I went to a baby group when. DS1 was 6 weeks old. Most of the other women had babies who were 4-6 months and they'd all been going to the group for a while. One by one, they all began to BF and then one of them said that she'd had a minor op the day before so baby had been left with dad and she'd felt SO GUILTY because he'd had to have expressed milk.
When I took out a bottle to feed DS1, the room went completely silent and I could see them all not so subtly exchanging glances.
At the end, they all hung around organising a coffee morning at someone's house and totally ignoring me. It was like being back in school, I still remember struggling to hold the tears in until I got out of the room.

I've been on both sides of the fence with ff and bf.
My youngest who is 6 months is ebf and the first two months were hell!
I begged for help from the midwife who just kept telling me to phone up some breastfeeding helpline.
Surely that must be part of their job to help with bf.
I ended up with pnd (never had it with any of my others and I have 6 only managed to mix feed 1 of them all the others ff).
But I really wanted to bf my last baby, and tbh I think that contributed to my pnd as I was so desperate to do it and it made me in the end very alone and depressed.
So is it stuff the mothers health and bf at all costs!
I look back now and if I was supported more and not just told how wonderful bf is then maybe I wouldn't of lost a few months of feeling happy to be a mum, rather then having to confirm to this 'perfect mother' and being the total opposite.
BTW I love bf now, and I'm proud I did it on my own in the end with no help!
But if I could turn back the time I would have seriously considered not bf at all.

SpecialAgentFreyPie funny because my sister still tells us about her breastfeeding 5 and 9 years later.

she claimed my DC has 'issues' because I didn't BF.

yep... has bugger all to do with the chromosome problem it was cause by a perfectly safe alternative milk for babies. It is fascinating how she lives through her children and has no real identity away from 'mum' even her job her children take centre stage and its quite unhealthy I feel.

anyway

I must admit, I'm itching to do a venn diagram of this! all the AP things are perfectly normal but when they overlap with some anti-vaxxer conspiracy theoryy/homeopathic woo we end up with the Stepford milk bots.

I agree with pp about the pressure to bf being a factor in pnd sometimes. I think that's why my lovely hv encouraged mixed feeding so much to me, and she commented how much more relaxed and happier I seemed afterwards. I had been so anxious as dd wasn't gaining weight as she should and I felt like such a failure. But I had to do what was best for dd which was also better for my mental health. If I could go back I would tell myself to be kinder to myself and start the mixed feeding earlier.

It makes me so sad to hear how some of you have been judged, when it really isn't anyone else's business. I am also worried about the same reaction from others which is why I can still hide myself away at home.

As for the woman saying she wouldn't have children if she couldn't bf as it's immoral - how do you know that before they're born exactly? I had no idea that no matter what I do, I simply don't have enough milk. I also didn't know that dd would be so fussy feeding, breaking her latch and getting upset even though I've been assured by professionals my position is correct. It speaks of a lack of understanding and compassion to me.

Twat What did you say when she said that?!

Interestingly I was talking to my Mum today about my brother's birth in the 70s. My mother was determined to breastfeed which was seen as being hippy and 'woo' back in those days.

Apparently the midwives at the time absolutely persecuted her for wanting to breastfeed, the head midwife shouted at her 'You may think you know what that child needs, but I've been looking after children for 30 years and that child needs a bottle you cruel woman' and all the student midwives would put him in a cot just out of reach and refuse to pass him to her even though she'd had stitches because she was being 'cruel and nasty' to him and making her get up in a lot of pain to get him.

It just goes to show that even when the boot is on the other feeding boot some women just use the issues around feeding as carte blanche to be nasty to other women. And excuse to hide behaviour that is just plain unpleasant behind.

Also I am in hospital this week having just given birth this week. Last time was 4 years ago. Last time the attitude of Brickie, Spirit et al seemed very prevalent amongst professionals (not trying hard enough/bad mother/babies always come before Mum). But I'm really glad to say that this time a much more holistic approach to mother and baby as a unit who both have needs has been applied.

The former approach had me in tears several times a day, almost tipped me into PND and although I express breastfed for months he never latched on. The latter has been much easier to deal with, I feel under a lot less pressure and am therefore feeling much more able to persevere with getting them to latch on. Surely supporting the mother as well as the baby is a much better approach to getting everyone fed without anybody losing their marbles in the process?