aibu to love this blog post about why formula feeding is brilliant?!

[girlwithasecretsmile]

I think it's great to have a post talking about good things about formula for once but part of me feels bad for laughing so much.

passmethebottleblog.wordpress.com/

For every "formula is poison" comment there is at least one bitty/flashing/getting your tits out/are you still doing that? comment.

It's odd that mothers are apparently judged for however they feed their baby.

Op, did you join just to link to this blog?

Yawn.

Honestly women are their own worst enemies. Just feed your baby and stop talking about it and stop judging others for doing differently.

@MadamMinacious to me it's just gratuitous attention seeking.

I don't know what goes through someone's head to seriously believe that their musings on a topic that billions of women have to make their own decision about through choice or necessity needs to be shared in such a manner. They need to think about that.

@onceisok To be honest I'm not that surprised it's low (although it's lower than I thought) I fed DS2 until 5 months and found that so, so hard. But being turfed out of hospital 4 hours after giving birth, DH's paternity leave ending after 14 days so just being left with a newborn and another small child to get on with it as normal meant battling through some of the early feeding issues really difficult. I know it some cultures new mums are given loads of family support and encouraged to rest with their baby as much as possible in the early days and establish feeding. I feel like here you're expected to be up doing schools runs and dashing round the supermarket 3 days postpartum.

@SoupDragon ...... 👏🏻

I've compared the BFing support I got via the NHS (inaccurate, illl-informed, unsupportive, belittling and dismissive of problems) with the experiences of friends in other countries (I'm Australian) who had similar problems and honestly, it's chalk and cheese.

I've got no issue with women who want to FF. Grand. I do feel shit for women who want to breastfeed but their experience and the support they are offered is so utterly shit that they (very reasonably) stop. I was lucky to be able to access a private consultant (both in having the money, but also in having known about her before giving birth as I sure as hell wouldn't have had the mental wherewithall to track down the solution when in the midst of newborn-with-feeding-problems awfulness). And even then I felt horribly guilty, because I'd failed.

We do it arse about in this country. To get higher BF rates (for good public health reasons) all the effort seems to go at convincing women to start breastfeeding, rather than supporting them to keep breastfeeding if they want to. The result is that too many women are convinced that they should do it (and feel badgered about it) and then few guilty or angry when it doesn't work out. Meanwhile those who have kept breastfeeding are badgered the other way, because BFing past the early weeks is so uncommon.

No one wins. Not really something to 'feel joy' about, is it?

Agree with jassy I felt there was loads of support (and pressure) to start but none at all to continue. Fortunately I found it very easy but I can see why you don't continue if you have difficulties. Also my ds was always on 99th percentile so I never had any of the worry over him not getting enough which, as a first time mum, I definitely would have done if he had lost weight or been towards the bottom of the graph.

I think there's a lot of judgement on both sides in my experience. I completely understand the OP feeling the need to post but having EBF my 9mo DC (we got off to a terrible start and it only became easier after the first month), I obviously haven't experienced what she has but I do sympathise as I also do receive judgement on the other side of the scale.

I've lost count of the looks and questions regarding my persistence to BF for longer than 6 months (I use persistence as I've definitely felt a negative undertone to this).

"Is she still feeding? I couldn't get mine to stop either" - I actually want to continue, believe it or not.

"Won't she take a bottle?" - yes she will but I'm choosing to breastfeed for the year.

"You'll regret that once she has teeth" - she's actually got teeth already thanks!

And lots more.... My point is, there is judgement whatever you choose to do, whether that's a choice you make from the start or whether you practically drove yourself insane trying to BF but had to stop for your own mental health. Every aspect of child rearing seems open to scrutiny actually (the use of dummies being one of them).

I had a very different experience in hospital as hadn't I really wanted to try breastfeeding and actually discharged myself (so I could get support elsewhere when it wasn't working), then I wouldn't have managed at all. I was given no help and actually felt a burden because I wouldn't give her a bottle. I was one of only 3 women choosing to try breastfeeding on a ward of 27. So obviously pressure varies depending where you are.

Feed your baby however you wish. Provided they are fed and you are both well, that's all that really matters.

How do you get paragraphs to show on the app? Apologies, that post had several but they've not shown

I bet the woman posted this to MN herself or had a friend do it. Complete BS that she barely shared it with anyone but it magically appeared here. Nothing will convince me this is a real mother, it stinks of a stunt. If not on behalf of a formula company, its a journalist or writer trying to drum up mummy wars online.

I feel really sorry for her, the fact that so many people here are angry, calling her names, accusing her of lying only really proves her point that people DO care how mummies feed their babies and kind of make her right about the negativity she found.
Also a bit confused at why people are saying she is misinformed and lying when she clearly states its her opinion and her experience. if every tme someone says anything bad about breastfeeding, the comments on this thread are the response, no wonder the poor woman feels like she does. Some people on here have been absolutely disgusting in how they've spoken about her.

Maybe we don't allow ourselves to be bullied into bfing as easily though.

Where are all these

Sorry, posted too soon. Where are all these women bullied into breastfeeding? Given the low breastfeeding rates, there's not many of them is there

I yawning with @Ionrocks

Can I add who gives a shit if you breast of bottle feed. Trying to imagine a conversation with DD at Uni, yes darling that's because you was breast/bottle feed or every fuck up or achievement I tell them it's because they were breast or bottle feed. It never happens!

Just read her update and to be honest, I can really relate to what she has written.

I never intended to FF, didn’t cross my mind to do anything other than BF. At our antenatal classes, FF wasn’t even mentioned. It was all about BF, how everyone could do it and like it was the only option.

Turns out, I couldn’t do it. DD would not latch, no matter how much we tried. We had a constant stream of midwifes and HV trying to get her to latch, I even paid for a private “lactation consultant” and she couldn’t get DD to latch.

In the end I felt pressured to pump/express at least EIGHT times a day. I had to go out and spend £200 on a double breast pump. I was pretty much hooked up to this thing like a milking cow most of the day.

I then got mastitis twice, the second time nearly ended with me being admitted to hospital to go on an antibiotic drip as the fever had me vomiting and passing out several times a day. The pain was immense but I was told to continue pumping.

At one of my many follow up doctors appointments to check my boobs (lost count of the amount of people that had seen and touched my boobs by this point) - the doctor asked me why I was doing this, why didn’t I give DD formula - that I had clearly tried and it wasn’t working and I was making myself ill. That day I switched to formula - I felt guilty at first but soon came to realise that fed is best. She is a happy healthy baby and that is all that matters.

the fact that so many people here are angry, calling her names, accusing her of lying only really proves her point that people DO care how mummies feed their babies and kind of make her right about the negativity she found.

No, because people aren't judging how she fed her baby.

I couldn't care less that she formula fed or that she struggled to breastfeed. There's nothing remotely unique about her experience and her writing is poor. I just don't want her to insult breastfeeding women and then brush it off with a fake "but I'm in AWE of breastfeeding women!"

I got round cluster feeding by giving a bottle of formula in the evenings but was gutted to later learn that it works cos the formula just fills them too full and they just can't move to get unsettled in the evenings (which they're SUPPOSED to do) same with sleeping through the night and the fact that bf babies need feeding more often. They're SUPPOSED to wake in the night when they're small. Most people see it as an achievement they've got their baby to sleep through and 'what a good baby you must have' as the if the others are all naughty babies. It's so sad that we are conditioned these days to see something that a baby is supposed to do as a negative thing and we all rush to give formula as it creates 'good' babies. It's a load of rubbish. I don't know why everyone's so quick to tell a mam they should bottle feed rather than supporting them in breast feeding. That's why the rates are so low. There is so much societal pressure to give up and make your life easy. It's only hard for the first few weeks.

And all the 'debate' about whether breastfeeding decreases risks of sids/allergies etc and many more. They have always worded it that way to avoid offending but the cold hard truth is, as bf is the biological norm, its actually the FF that increases the risk not vice versa.

Formula users as a beleaguered minority again. Yawn.

Yes - why the need to champion something that the vast, vast majority of mothers do? And I always wonder why the fact that one option is free and the other is a commercial product made, marketed and sold to generate profits for shareholders is never or barely mentioned.

Pedant in me has to mention two things:

Yes, you are advised to supplement with Vit D if you BF, especially if you are not white european by ancestry.

Yes, your baby is at more risk of cot death (tiny, tiny risk though) if you co-sleep and don't BF. If you bottle feed and you put your baby in another room from birth their chance of cot death is the same as a BFd baby who co-sleeps. Babies in same room, but not same bed are safest regardless of how fed. Babies who fall asleep on or with an adult on a chair or sofa are in the most danger. V few cot deaths these days though.

And the poster who wants debate banned by government ... Jesus wept, I hope that was a joke.