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.

It was also very inconvenient, I was not able to leave the house! You can’t tactfully breast feed twins in a cafe, if both babies are hungry and I was tandem feeding, I would have to take my entire top and bra off.

I tried with both mine but got several bouts of mastitis. I cried every time they latched on, had to stamp my feet to distract from the pain. When it got to the week 4,I was lying awake in dread that the baby would wake up and want feeding and feeling sooo resentful. They also weren’t gaining weight so it all felt a bit like all that pain for nothing - I had midwives helping but they just stressed me out to be honest because they’d say it shouldn’t hurt but I couldn’t ever find a way to latch them on and feed that didn’t hurt. I decided to stop for the sake of my relationship with each baby.

I am still astounded when I see someone feeding a baby calmly - I was busy clenching my teeth and trying not to cry so I don’t know how others could do it!

I subsequently found out my grandmother and her mother had to have wet nurses because they couldn’t feed them, and going back to earlier generations some babies had died in infancy through failure to thrive. I thank god we live in a time where ff is possible.

I knew I didn’t want to and I was comfortable with my decision. Took the small glass bottles of formula with the individual teats to the hospital and that was that.

The midwives were aware I didn’t want to and didn’t push me.

It just wasn’t for me.

My 1st was taken into special care for 5 days and they insisted on bottle feeding because they had to get his energy levels up (long labour ending in c-section). I tried for a few weeks after he was released but my milk never came in and I was I danger of ending us both back in hospital. I was never told that I needed to pump regularly while he was in special care to get my milk to come in and I didn’t know enough about it to know I should insist on them allowing me access to a pump etc. It took me months to stop crying about ‘failing’ my baby.
My 2nd was a natural birth and I breastfed to 6 months after which I combo-fed to 7 months. She’s now a happy formula drinker at 9 months.
I’m pleased that I managed it once but I can honestly say there’s benefits to both ways of feeding and I get really angry at the way NHS ‘markets’ breastfeeding and will watch mums run themselves into the ground when formula feeding or combo feeding would make their first months as a Mum so much happier x

Agonising pain, babies all wanted more than I could physically produce and I didn't sleep at all. Tried desperately to keep feeding and keep up with demand but there was just nothing coming through in the end and both times the babies were just screaming. I was devastated to give a bottle as really wanted to BF but when I started hallucinating through lack of sleep we decided enough was enough. I mix fed.
I saw a useless BF counsellor who told me to "just have a glass of wine and relax" .

I breastfed DCs2 and 3 for 6 months and 17 months respectively but DC1 was bottlefed.

I found it SO difficult, I genuinely had no idea it would be like that. I was utterly exhausted and hours were spent crying (both of us!) whilst I tried to. Midwives were concerned he wasn't feeding so his first real feed was a bottle. We went home and tried and tried again but I just couldn't so ST bought formula at 3am and that was that.

I was pregnant again within 8 months and with DC2 I prepared for battle, went to groups, read books, spoke to everyone. I still found it very difficult but got there (helped by the fact she was slightly preterm so I spent 9 days in hospital with a lot of support.)

DC3 was still hard but easier than the others.

DS1 is almost 12 now and I still feel guilty. He is very intelligent and we are very close so I don't think it has hindered him in some respects, but he is fussy with food and has asthma (the other 2 are great eaters and super healthy so of course I put it down to the lack of breastmilk)

@LoopyLou1981 yes it's so frustrating that the NHS strategy is all stick and no carrot - 'breast is best' attitude but with no support to back it up. I know it comes down to money, but still

I did a small amount of mixed and expressing, but mostly ff, and then fully ff. I never intended to bf at all, I just didn't want to, don't believe it really makes any difference and wanted to be able to share feed's etc.

I'm very content with how I did it, though if I have another I might try to mix feed a bit more. But I found without the stress of trying to establish bf, having a newborn was brilliant fun, and I seemed to be enjoying it a lot more than those either bfing, or who wanted to bf but then couldn't. I share feeds and I sleep, and I can go out, and I have a perfectly happy, well bonded child, who has put on weight at the appropriate weight and is thriving.

It didn't hurt, and there is oodles of support if I'd wanted it, but save for more emphasis on mix feeding (ie not all or nothing), nothing could convince me to bf.

Pain (mastitis)
Nausea (one of the many things they don't tell you is the oxytocin can cause nausea)
Sheer exhaustion- having to feed almost every hour day and night.
Being unable to leave the house
Feeling like a cow not a human
Starting to resent my baby because of it.

Breastfeeding was never a consideration for me, I found the idea of it disturbing. I ff from birth, and when ds was a few days old he wouldn't stop crying and wouldn't take a bottle. I was exhausted and thought ok, let's give this a try, maybe it's what he needs. But no, he wouldn't latch on and I felt so unnatural and awkward even trying. Like a pp I also dislike seeing others bf (not that I would ever say anything about this in real life.)

I formula fed my daughter who is now 17 months from day one and always planned to. To be honest I just never wanted to breast feed. It's something I have always felt just wasn't for me. It's hard to explain why I just never felt comfortable with it. I just felt uncomfortable about it. I'm a very private person and quite squeamish about bodily functions etc that's the best way to describe it.

In the hospital after my c section the midwives were very very set that I should try to breast feed so I felt compelled to show willing but I didn't produce any colostrum and my heart wasn't in it. It surprised me though as I realised it wasn't unpleasant but I couldn't see it fitting with the way I wanted to parent.

Bottle feeding worked for me and my family as my husband and MIL were able to help as much as I needed.

I'm due with baby number two in a couple of months and will formula feed and won't be pressured to try to breast feed this time as I know what works for me.

I do find that I am much more aware of breast feeding now as half my NCT group were successful with this and I am more comfortable with the idea but I just wouldn't want to do it personally. I do know that to a lot of people this probably seems dreadful that I made a selfish choice but I have seen a lot of women beat themselves up over breast feeding and I think people inflate how much better it is for your baby to be breast fed to guilt mums who don't breast feed. The midwives pushed me to try to breastfeed and I felt it was a tick boxing exercise so they could mark me as a statistic as leaving hospital breast feeding even though I kept saying it wasn't what I wanted to do.

I am breast feeding but it's really hard and if I could this last week I would have given a bottle he would be weaned on to formula. The only reason breastfeeding has been successful is because I have family support and work with livestock so I know milk doesn't appear when it's supposed to and that topping up works in most cases so I didn't stress too much.
It was a very long labour ending with an emcs. Every midwife we saw postnatally gave different and contradict breast feeding advice. Discharged less than 36 hours after delivery and my milk hadn't come in. I don't think anyone had realised as the ward was chronically understaffed. Baby lost weight, back in hospital and I had to top him up. Milk came in and top ups dropped off over next few weeks.
My DP and family are very supportive of breastfeeding but there's no support for breastfeeding from hv I just keep getting told if I want to wean to get milk from the doctors. Baby has CMPA so I'm on a really restricted diet and can't eat out. I'm exhausted as I've not had a night off and can't go out and leave the baby. The uk isn't particularly breast feeding friendly and there's a lot of pressure to stop breastfeeding in my experience.

When it got to the week 4,I was lying awake in dread that the baby would wake up and want feeding and feeling sooo resentful

Yes me too. I still feel very bitter at the useless health visitor and the idiotic feeding counsellor who could not understand this.

Such bad mastitis I was shaking too hard to hold the baby. Twice.

Baby didn’t feed well, kept losing weight, a midwife made me cry because of it. I started getting really anxious and obsessive, it started effecting my mental health in the broader sense.

A mentally well mum was the best thing for my child. I’m comfortable with the choice I made and would make the same one again. Women breastfeeding successfully doesn’t make me feel insecure. When my daughter was about 6 months old, I met and friend and we happily caught up in a coffee shop, she breastfed her baby at one point, I bottle fed mine. All was good. It’s a shame how you feed your baby can be used as a stick to castigate women with, by other women.

DD1 was born at 34 weeks after a traumatic, hyperemesis pregnancy. She was initially fine but ended up in NICU with life-threatening meningitis. I expressed round the clock, one day DH was praising me in front of the NICU nurse and she laughed at the “tiny” amount I had managed to produce. It was one of the lowest points in my life. I felt like I was trying so hard to help my poorly baby and she made me feel completely inadequate. I never pumped again and switched to formula.

DD2 just would not latch. At all. I feel like a total failure and a terrible parent. I will not have any more children.

Sorry one other thing. When you choose not to every health visitor appointment or Midwife appointment after birth you feel you have to justify why you are not breast feeding. There is also no support or information for bottle feeding which I found frustrating. The best info I got on how to bottle feed was actually from Holly Willoughbys book 'happy baby' which showed different positions for holding baby when bottle feeding and info on how to prepare a bottle etc. You wouldn't want to ask any professionals as they make it so clear breast is best!!!

From what other people said to me, I gathered it was a class thing. Working class men didn't seem to want their partners to breastfeed and so applied the pressure not to. Middle class mums who bottle feed are more likely to have tried and failed to breast feed, according to them anyway. That was my impression from people I talked to with babies the ages of mine. My youngest is nearly 9 so I don't know what has happened to attitudes to breast/bottle feeding since.

I breastfed mine, and was lucky not to have had a problem. But 'breast is best' is a good message to get out there, because before my (unplanned) son was born I was so clueless I didn't even know there was a difference!

Baby 1 I am not quite sure why it didn’t work. I read all the books and could tell you all about it. I was DESPERATE to breast feed. However, She was born and showed no interest in latching on. After several hours of skin to skin the midwife proclaimed “if she hasn’t done it now she will never do it” and took her from me to her on with the measuring.

We were discharged home on the promise that we would come back in should she still refuse to feed and we ended up readmitted for two nights. Apparently we had perfect position and latch, my boobs were ‘smashing’ and my nipples ‘lovely’ according to the various midwives, lactation specialists and doctors who stood and watched while my child latched on and did nothing for hours.

I spent a couple of weeks trying to manage visitors while doing all the skin to skin and pumping and bottle feeding and it almost finished me off. It took me until the birth of my second child 5 years later to put all that to bed and I feel that sometimes it just doesn’t work. Second child was born and immediately latched and fed.

Couldn’t produce enough to meet the needs of both dc. Both dc lost considerable weight

Couldn't. Tried really hard with first one but nothing. Poor thing lost weight in first week until I switched to formula. Didn't even consider it for 2nd. My Mum was the same. A real Earth Mother but no milk.

Eldest lost too much weight and after a few weeks midwives advised formula top ups. She preferred them and shunned the breast in a matter of days! She continued to plummet through the centiles, until she found her place on the 2nd (born 90th!) and has remained tiny ever since (now 6)

My youngest was supposed to be formula fed (had made decision to do formula after colostrum) but basically did the exact opposite and is still BF at 2

This data is useless as you don't know which year most posters are talking about.
My youngest biological child is 20. My eldest 22.
I gave up after 11 days with my eldest as there was no help, I felt like she was hungry, my boobs were sore I had no understanding of how long it would stay that way.
My youngest I fed for 4 months. The soreness went away after around 5-6 days.

Forward to 2 weeks ago and my DD had a little girl. The breast feeding support has been amazing, daily phone calls of how she is doing, does she need any one to call in.
Lot's of information, help to express so Dad can do night feeds. Advice on using Superdrug nipple cream which has been amazing for just £1odd.

Things are vastly improved and my Daughter is enjoying it.

DD1, I had an un-supportive bastard of a husband. I BF for just over 3 weeks. Every time he walked in to the room he would say 'God, it stinks of milk in here' (it didn't). I also had an un-cooperative DD. She fought and pushed away a lot of the time! Who knew a little baby could be so strong? My sister visited with her DS, who was 4 weeks older than my DD and saw me in floods of tears. She said to me 'Don't put yourself through this, give her this' and handed me a bottle. That was the end of that.

DD2, I have a much more supportive partner. I was determined I was going to BF. She was born and put on my stomach and made her way to my breast, where she fed for around an hour before being weighed and checked over. Lovely. We went back to the maternity ward and I was feeding her all day. We both loved it. The MW kept checking her and putting her on me for skin to skin as she kept getting cold, her blood sugar levels were going down too and unbeknown to me, she was getting bluer and bluer as the day wore on. The MW pushed the junior doctor, on his first day on his own, to get her to SCBU. She was then rushed to the hospital 60 miles away, but I was not well enough to travel with her, having had a C-section. I tried expressing. I tried and tried. I kept trying when I joined her the next day. I even remember a MCA 'milking me' or trying to, with no success. So that was the end of that. I did actually keep trying for two weeks. They said the shock of her being so ill made the milk dry up. I imagine that could be useful if the baby actually dies.

DS, well I was going to. I definitely was. BUT, he was born by EMCS, I lost a lot of blood and was in HDU, not very aware of much. When I joined him the next day, after he had had his skull x-ray and brain scan (the birth was that traumatic) I said I wanted to try to BF and the MW said 'With how ill you have been and how big he is, I think you would be better to bottle feed'. So that was that. I am told my by MW friend that that was wrong advice and nowadays I would be encouraged to BF.

My now adult DD has only just totally stopped BF her DD, who is going to be 2 in February. She has another baby due in March.

Lots of information, help to express so Dad can do night feeds

Expressing was just another ring of hell. Took forever to produce almost nothing and used up the miniscule amount of time available for sleeping.