Is breastfeeding “weird”

[Sunnyx]

I totally don’t think it is and I ebf my 5 month old but apparently only 1% of women breastfeed by 6 months.

I guess I just worry what people think too much. Apart from breastfeeding groups, I kind of feel like the odd one one and a bit awkward when breastfeeding around other bottle feeding mums.

I never really know what to do...when I’m in the company of my family/extended family I feel awkward feeding in their presence but then I think why should I go to another room. I worry that people think it’s ‘odd’ to breastfeed as it feels quite rare to find other mums who do.

What are people’s opinions?

It's not weird. No woman should be criticised for her feeding choices. I exclusively breastfed and perhaps was lucky I did not have friends having babies at the time so I could just do my own thing.

People who think breastfeeding is weird are the weird ones imo! Breastfeeding is the biological norm! Honestly i get so pissed off by people thinking breastfeeding women are "shaming" formula feeding mothers simply by breastfeeding near them! If soneone chooses to use formula to feed their baby that is absolutely their choice, personally I can't understand why you wouldn't at least give breastfeeding a go but there could be so many reasons why someone might not WANT to and I'm not going to judge!

People who breastfeed are worried that Ffeeders are judging them and Ffeeders are worried that Bfeeders are judging them. There is no doing right for doing wrong if you live your life like that. Everyone is afraid of being judged for something.

As much as I value the need for accurate comparisons, I do wonder if promoting predominantly the 1% statistic is counterproductive and leads to views like the OP's.

It's around a quarter of all mums bf (or express) at 6 mths, but 1% exclusively bf. Which is very low in comparrison to other countries. When i nursed a 2 year old in hospital i had several staff who commented on never having seen a 2 year old bf before and one didn't even know the nhs recommends a minimum of 2 years bf. The consultant was great though and commented how great it was an how great it was she would nurse even though refusing food and fluids (due to stress) and how easy the pre-op stuff was as i just nursed her and she didn't fight the needle and blood draws.

@Extua I bottle feed because breastfeeding was just too hard. I don’t feel shamed when I see breastfeeding women I think it’s amazing but don’t see any judgement on my choices. Feel confident!

I agree with kpo58. In Norway 99% of women breastfeed and 80% keep doing it after 6 months. We breastfeed wherever we want. No one look at you with strange face. I also agree that It is weird NOT to breastfeed if you are able.

I didn’t used to think it was weird. Then I visited a wildlife centre with DS, and they had a litter of baby otters.

Watching the baby otters feeding (and squealing, and looking round at what was going on, then diving back into feeding) while DS was feeding (and squealing, and looking round at what was going on, then diving back into feeding) was A Bit Disturbing, honestly... I suddenly felt less warm and maternal, and more mammalian.

But he’s still ebf, bottle feeding would be even weirder

Oh, and that perception really wasn’t helped by DH making little baby otter noises every time I fed DS for the next few days. Thanks DH.

I'm mostly breastfeeding my 3 week old DS (he gets a bottle from DH once a day). I still haven't done it in public as my boobs are bloody huge and I'm struggling to find any way of doing it discreetly. Plus DS makes very loud noises like a seal when he BFs.

Just feed your child and stop getting drawn into worrying about what other people chose
I breastfed one for 6 months, one for 10 months and the last one for fricking ages

Breastfed DS and DD until they both self weaned at 16 months... They were happy and so was I .... DS2 was tubefed and bottle fed and I felt that was odd. It seemed wrong to feed him that way because NF had been normalised for me!
Just what you are used to...mum hated me BF as she wanted to feed them....that was my job though!

It's not weird at all. Be confident about it. I derive a great sense of pride from having exclusively breastfed (as in no formula - she had food of course!) for 17 months even after returning to work.

What really bothers me is pushy relatives who act as though they can't bond with a baby unless they can feed a bottle. My in-laws made comments like that but now that DC is a willful toddler they're a lot less keen to spend quality time

Of course it's not weird!
Some of us had to stop / not ever start because we had to go back to work