To ask why you didn't breastfeed?

[MakingABoobOfIt]

For starters, this is NOT meant to be a goady thread, and I'm a longtime MNer but have name changed to avoid outing myself

I'm a Uni student, and have an essay coming up for which I would like to know reasons Mums decide not to breastfeed. Research shows that the majority of mums want to breastfeed but either start and stop pretty quickly, or don't start at all. So if this was the case for you, I would be so grateful if you'd be happy to tell me about what influenced your decision (friends, media, etc) and what might have caused you to decide to breastfeed (more support, less stigma, etc)?

Thank you in advance wise ones.

DC1 just kept falling asleep within 30 seconds of feeding, the latch was perfect, no tongue or lip tie. Nasty midwife telling me I wasn't trying hard enough despite HV and lactation consultant agreeing latch was great and seeing I was trying everything.

He ended up quite dehydrated so I gave him the "just in case" pre made formula as I cried and tortured myself over it, and I sent DP to mothercare for a breast pump. He had expressed milk for another 5 months before I gave up. I feel like expressing was much more exhausting than actually bf. At just over 1year old, we found out he had a serious defect, sleepiness being a minor symptom.

DC2 took to breastfeeding perfectly, still going strong with no problems so far. Aim to continue to at least 1 year, at most 2.

I planned to breastfeed and hadn't even looked at formula milk. I did have bottles and steriliser ready for if I wanted to express when baby was a bit older or I returned to work. After she was born, despite trying a number of things I had no milk come through for 7 days,. Baby was therefore started on formula. We were having issues with the amount of feed she was taking(change of formula sorted that), so whilst I considered trying to breastfeed when my milk finally arrived, I decided it was more important to be able to monitor how much she was having so stayed with the bottle.

I may well get shot down in flames for this but, honestly, the very thought of it revolts me. I never even tried with any of my (5) DC, and never gave it a second thought.
They were fed, they thrived, they are all still healthy and strong, doing well in school, and prefectly "normal" whatever that is and show no signs of any kind of deprivation or lacking in anything for lack of breastmilk.
I never ever beat myself up about it or had any feelings of angst, guilt, or disappointment at how they were fed. I just count my blessings that I live somewhere where formula is readily available, alongside clean water and the means to prepare the bottles safely and cleanly.
None of them ever had any gastric/digestive problems.
That said, my sister was all set to breastfeed my nephew (her pfb) and tried SO hard, but was left depressed and feeling like a failure, and utterly unsupported when it didn't work out. There was ZERO help available and she had nowhere to turn and it really, really upset her.
I do feel that mother's who need help should get it, BF doesn't always work out to be the "doddle" that it can be made out to be, and it is a crying shame that mothers who want to try it are often left to struggle and sometimes give up just because there is no support there when they need it.

im Pregnant now and even though i would have liked to breastfeed i know that i will not be breastfeeding as my breasts have always been painfully sensitive to touch or suck (sexually tried obviously) but they have just always felt very sore so will be trying a breast pump and bottlefeeding at first and if that is too painful then will be going on too formula.

I do feel that the media has had an impact on how breastfeeding is looked at, i feel i will be judged for not doing it but at the end of the day its my body not theirs.

Was revolted by the thought, so didn't.

Also, with my first I didn't like the idea of BF in public, so my thinking was that I would go back home or go sit in the car when baby was hungry (like that would've worked )

I cared too much about what people thought, probably because I was in my early 20s and had little experience with babies.
In the end that didn't matter because I had to express and my pump didn't travel, so every 3 hours I was back home attached to the pump for an hour. What was I thinking?!

Now (in my mid-late 20s) I don't care what people think and will feed DC2 anywhere. Hardly anyone has ever noticed, let alone said anything

I was going to try it until I read on here that it is

• pain like slamming your nipples in a cupboard door
• like a thousand razor blades slicing your nipples
• like cut glass slashing your nipple
• more painful than labour (all quotes from other threads)

Hundreds of posts describing women sobbing and near breakdown from the pain and frustration.

Well no thanks! I'm going to suffer enough for the birth, that baby isn't coming anywhere near my nips even once.

Also I don't want to be the only one able to feed baby. I'll be doing the night feeds mostly but having DP take out once a week or fortnight will be a godsend.

You know that for just as many women, it isn't painful at all? Some discomfort perhaps as it's an unfamiliar sensation, but not actual pain. Pain is not inevitable!

DS was tube fed due to ventilation and an OP on his diaphragm and all that premature stuff. When he could finally take feeds orally at 9 weeks we needed to add gwviscon and monitor how much he ate and check his swallow and all that prem growing stuff. He was on the NG abc combi feeding with bottles at discharge but by then wouldn't take the breast. I pumped for 6 months

I tried but my baby wouldn't latch on, he would either fall asleep or cry! I didn't persevere as I was finding it too stressful, plus I'll admit I wasn't keen on the thought of breastfeeding in public (although that's due to my own insecurities, I fully support people who do). I decided to express milk instead & did so for about a week, but I found it exhausting - it felt like I was constantly either feeding or expressing, it was overwhelming & I just couldn't keep up. I put my baby on formula instead & I felt so much better once I'd made that decision, feeding was a lot easier & DH could help & get involved more.

my breasts grew to a H cup and i couldnt even see the nipple let alone babys head to try and attach, midwives were all in a fluster about it when i said fuck it ill pump and feed her ( and later him) from a bottle, apparently its not the done thing ( must promote breast feeding only!!!!!!!) my daughter i pumped and bottle feed for 3 months until a bottle of lactose free formula turned her into a different child ( one who slept longer than 20 mins at a time, who didnt projectile vomit constantly and one who didnt scream the entire time she was awake) my son i lasted 6 months pumping and bottle feeding, and he was a big drinker, then my supply started dropping rapidly so i moved to formula both children healthy and happy

I ebf my first child for around 6 weeks but she was constantly hungry and her weight dropped from 50th to between 9-2nd centile, essentially she was always hungry. I decided I was miserable and so was she, my husband was desperate to help as he could see we were struggling so much so I tried pumping and got very little back. I then turned to combi feeding and my world literallly changed over night - we were all so much happier
I did the same then with DS and it worked for us
I also discovered I had DMER which I only knew of after finishing bf both children - if anyone else has had it they'll know how bloody hideous the waves of emotion are - it's like an explosion of love, fear, hate, anger and total distress it's just awful

@AssassinatedBeauty is that true, because everything single thread here on breastfeeding has 95% of posts saying "omg it was so much more painful that I ever could have dreamed, why don't they tell women that" and maybe one or two posts saying "sure it was a bit painful for a few weeks, but it was ok". So not sure if it's just as many women. I mean some women say they didn't find labour painful but I think we can all agree that for 99.999999999% of women it's horrific.

Actually when I told my mum about what I read she claimed bf wasn't painful at all so maybe you are right.

I’ve found this thread really interesting. I had no idea that some women had a sort of physical aversion to the idea of bf’ing.

@piewraith my DC went straight on with no issues at all. Never painful, freely available free source of nutrition, best diet I’ve ever been on (lost all the pregnancy weight in a few months each time)... My experience is why I feel pretty certain that anyone who doesn’t bf has a very good reason. It’s a total no-brainer if it works.

Oh and labour was painful. FTR

I didn't because I didn't want to and I felt bit 'ew' about it. It was not a 'crime' to formula feed when mine were babies - I think the pressure that is put on mum's to BF today is horrible and I'm pleased mine were born when nobody pressurised you either way. The midwives were lovely and happy to help all mum's to establish bf or ff before letting baby go home. I have nothing but positive memories of my newborn babies with no tales of exhaustion or cracked nipples or any other stuff that I read about on here. My babies were happy, smiley and slept all night from just a few months old and night feeds for the first few weeks were shared between me and DH so neither of us had sleepless nights. I was able to go back to work after a few weeks and my mum and FIL were able to take over the feeds very easily. Why on earth would you make those precious first few months a sleepless hell if you don't have to? And just saying - nobody ever asks you if you BF or FF your babies in real life. It's just on mumsnet.

It was painful. Perhaps I wasn't getting the latch on thing right. At hospital I was told I'd get support re all that, but I got zero advice. I tried off my own bat with 2nd DC but was so very painful latching on & off I couldn't stand it so, back to bottle I went. I've always secretly wished I did breastfeed tho.

@Piewraith please remember that people who have had negative experiences are far more likely to write about it. I breastfed until my little boy was 18 months & it was fine, not painful at all. Bit uncomfortable until the latch was right but not painful. So give it a try because you never know, you may find it easy.

DS1 was a crash c-section and I had a PPH and a couple of transfusions. I was in a right state and my milk didn't come in until he over a week old. I'd had to top him up in that time and although I expresssed once I had milk and tried BF we never managed to make the completel switch. So I expressed and he had that and formula until 12 weeks which I'm really pleased about given the circumstances.

DS2 was very poorly from birth and ended up tube fed as he couldn't feed at all, breast or bottle! DS1 was only 20 months and although I tried I just didn't have time for pumping as DS2 was very hard work.

If we'd of had a 3rd I wouldn't of even tried, having DS2 and the horrendous stress of tube feeding and weight I couldn't have coped mentally with BF.

I had no milk. I never leaked before giving birth. They tried to harvest colostrum and there was very little there. The midwives kept insisting it would come through and all the time my little girl was getting more and more poorly. Then on day 2 one of the nurses checked again and finally listened to me and we gave her a bottle because the poor little mite was starving and had jaundice.

My girl has tongue tie and the hospital and first wife didn't pick it up can though he wasn't latching properly and my nipples were bleeding and skin coming off..

I'm combi feeding but my supply is running lower and lower so I will be stopping soon altogether I expect. Unfortunately. Her tongue tie won't be snipped until Tuesday and by then she'll be 20 days old..

@Piewraith What Gary said; also painful breastfeeding is often down to conditions such as tongue tie or lip tie, both of which can be fixed. Unfortunately it often goes undiagnosed or isn't fixed on time, resulting in many women struggling for a long time.

I'm still breastfeeding my 11 week old but we've had many issues, and I wouldn't be breastfeeding still if I didn't go against advice and pressures from HCPs. DS had tongue tie that took ages to be diagnosed and fixed, because every time I complained about the pain I was told I must be doing it wrong and to work on the latch. I didn't know about tongue tie affecting breastfeeding. I then discovered nipple shields which frankly saved our breastfeeding journey, but experienced regular shaming and pressure from midwives and lactation consultants to drop them and work on the latch instead.

Every obstacle was made to feel like I was just too lazy or too stupid to get it right. Starting from the very first feed when the midwife lost patience with me after 5 minutes of not being able to latch the baby on, stuck a bottle of formula in my hand and told me to feed him now, then left me on my own. I was too emotional to stand up for myself. I didn't even know how to bottle feed him properly, I wasn't shown anything, and I felt unable to care for my baby.

This is what their "support" did to me, and I fully understand why so many women give up on breastfeeding so early on. Frankly every time I thought about giving up I remembered this one particularly unsupportive nurse who told me I wasn't going to get far with my flat nipples, and I was determined to crack on to prove her wrong. It took me weeks to recover from the psychological damage I suffered that first week, and I still feel very emotional and struggle with feeling like a failure when I think about those early days.

No support from abusive stbxh.

I never wanted to.

It meant DH could do 50% of the night feeds (i’m awful on no sleep).

I could also have my body back after 9 months of hyperemesis.

He was born by c section at 35 weeks. My other child had been stillborn at 34 weeks and he had shown signs of developing the same problems. He had no interest in feeding so I had to express. I tried cup feeding but he fell asleep after a few sips. Midwife said I had to try bottle feeding because cup feeding wasn't working and after forcing the bottle into his mouth and holding it there he did begin to suck. I was also told he wouldn't be allowed home until either breast or bottle was established and with babies like him it was unlikely that bf would ever work.
I tried to bf for 5 weeks whilst expressing and topping up with formula but I became exhausted and upset about the whole thing and when my milk started to dry up I switched completely to formula.