To feel that you cant talk about being proud to bf?

[TwilightRiver]

Just to start I am not trying to be goady, and not wanting this to be bf vs ff.

I respect everyones right to choose how to feed their baby.

I haven been bf my lo for 5 months and am very proud of that fact. I have had very little problems and been fortunate enough to have avoided mastitis and thrush so far but its still been so bloody hard.

I have close friends that have babies amd chose to ff . I feel that i can't talk about it for fear of them thinking im getting at them or getting into a whole debate.

I also find that people find its's acceptable to make comments to a mum in regard to bf. 'Maybe theyre not getting enough' "They need water' 'no one else gets to feed, when you giving a bottle'. They wouldn't dream of making such comments to a mother whos ff or criticize her for her choice.

This is also extended to medical professionals. Here ff babies are weighed when born and again when transfered to hv. No weigh ins with midwife on return from hospital. where as bf babies are weighed on return fron hispital then 5 days then weekly. Apparently this is because they know how much ff babies are getting. Its like they are going back on the whole 'breast is best' and expecting you to fail. Or should be the same policy regardless of method of feeding.

@mummabubs I think we're currently experiencing similar emotions! Which is why I'm closing the thread now because I tell myself enough times a day that I've failed without needing to have that reinforced by women on the internet telling me I've taken a short cut, am making excuses and just didn't try hard enough. I wasn't mentally strong enough to try any harder and I also should have learned not to open a BF thread by now!

I'm proud of myself for doing research when I was pregnant because I'm the first person for generations in our family to feed for more than a few months, for being totally bloody minded about continuing feeding when we had HUGE challenges, for not giving in to so much pressure from others to stop feeding, for ignoring all the judgemental wankers who screw their face up or make "bittie" comments about feeding a toddler.

But I can't talk about any of that because someone always brings up formula feeding like I'm being judgemental about that when i am absolutely not. Just proud of myself and my kid and what we achieved together (and yes achieved before someone jumps on that because we had quite the tricky start).

Accrual - see you are the issue not random people on the internet. YOU are the person telling yourself you’ve failed - no one else is. I’d really recommend cbt therapy for reframing your thoughts to be more positive. You aren’t going to feel better about your experiences by telling people not to be proud of theirs - you need to learn to be proud of yours!

You aren’t going to feel better about your experiences by telling people not to be proud of theirs

Nowhere have I said the OP shouldn't be proud of her experiences. Nowhere. I actually think she should be. For the final time, my point was to know her audience and that's it.

Of course I'm the fucking problem, I know that. I was the problem in not being mentally strong enough to keep breastfeeding in the face of three hospital readmissions for weight loss and jaundice in my baby, and in the face of being sleep deprived to the point of hallucination. The midwives wanted me to keep going but I broke too soon. But my thoughts are also the product of the environment I live in, which is very much anti formula feeding and helps to make women who fail to breastfeed feel just that - failures. I don't need CBT, I'd be laughed out of the GP's office, I just need to not open threads like this, which I thought I'd learned by now. I can ignore the judgement much better in real life for some reason. And now I really am closing the thread. Night all.

Cory - glad we found the common ground:-) I hope all is fine and dandy with yourLO or not so LO now or at least you both get support and a steady path x

DD was delivered by c-section at 36 weeks, I struggled to bf from the start and got very little support from any professional despite asking numerous times. When DD was 5 days old a different hv came to the house as the normal one was off for the weekend, this was the first of DD being weighed since birth and she had lost 13% of her birth weight.
The hv told me I had 24hours for DD to gain weight or she would be admitted to NICU, she advised mixed feeding. When she came back the next day DD had gained a little weight.
I continued to mix feed until DD was 5 weeks old and I just couldn't manage any more. I asked the bf support nurse in my area about support groups, I was advised of one locally but was asked not to bottle feed DD whilst I was there as it would discourage the mum's who were struggling with bf and not mix feeding, I was unable to go as DD was both bf and ff at every feed so if she happened to need a feed whilst I was there I would have to leave to feed her which defeated the purpose of going. At 5 weeks old I switched to just ff and DD thrived, the difference in her was obvious and broke my heart to feel like I had essentially been starving her the entire first 5 weeks of her life.
I absolutely would have been proud if I had managed to bf and will absolutely try again given the chance with more children. But not everyone is aware of that struggle, I'm sure there were many people who managed to bf looked and me and judged for ff DD, but I can honestly say that was the right thing for DD at the time and bf was detrimental, not everyone makes the choice to ff, for some people it is the safest option.

"They wouldn't dream of making such comments to a mother whos ff or criticize her for her choice.".

As someone who spent the first months of my baby's life in pieces because of PND, exasperated by the treatment I had over not being able (note: not a choice) to breastfeed ... You're talking absolute bollocks .

Fuck all the negative cunts on here with their fucking biscuits

This.

The fact that posts say ‘the worst breast feeding rates’ as opposed to ‘the lowest’ is a bit of a giveaway to how some breast feeding mums really feel about it.

The way we feed our babies has become a topic to judge and hurt each other with. The language so inflammatory and emotive and discussed at a time women are usually at their most vulnerable that it simply isn’t wise to express your personal feelings about it regardless of whether you FF or BF.

Recognising that our entire culture & society is simply not conductive to breast feeding when compared to countries with high breast feeding rates might enable us to see the difficulties women face are at grass roots level, not as individuals. Therefore we should be supporting one another, not calling people ‘jealous cunts’ ‘smug’ ‘patronising’ and making assumptions about others based on our own experiences.

Be kind and recognise that other mums often just don’t want to have the conversation as it has become a ‘weaponised’ topic.

The op isn’t even about being proud of breastfeeding. It’s saying she’s worried about talking b/feeding with friends that ff and this forum has shown she’s probably right to be worried. She’s also saying that hv and doctors are actually often anti breastfeeding and expect you to fail. This is very true ime so what’s there to even argue about? If you know this thread will upset you why open it? It’s the internet you don’t have to look at it. It’s a shame as it could have been an interesting discussion. Agree perhaps it should be in breastfeeding area of forum.

Just be proud you have a happy, healthy DC. The details don't really matter to anyone else.

Being proud of having a healthy child could be construed as just as weird and insensitive as breastfeeding, given how very little of it is in the control of the parents.

If saying one is proud of breastfeeding is taken as saying those who don’t breastfeed should be ashamed, what does it say to parents of ill children to be ‘proud’ of being lucky enough to have a healthy child?

OP I ff and completely disagree that you don’t get negative comments. I’ve been told by an almost stranger, that it’s a shame I don’t feed my DD myself. Be proud of the fact that you’ve fed your baby, HOWEVER you choose to feed them

Yes that’s the title of the post, but actually if you read the post it’s not really about that at all is it? I’ve met very few mums who haven’t had formula pushed into them by health visitors at some point. That is where the interesting discussion lies. Not in having arguments with people who have opened a thread about b/feeding who clearly have an axe to grind.

*onto

Stuff everyone that makes you feel this way. Breastfeeding is hard and a hell of a commitment. You should be proud!!
I did two years with my first and so far just over one with this baby.
It's been very difficult and challenging but I wouldn't swap it.
There is naff all wrong with formula either. Each to their own. But that doesn't take away from the work it is to bf either.
I don't know a single person other than me that breastfeeds. I have had comments and looks even from family but people are ignorant and unless you've done it they don't get it.
So don't worry about them just be proud and don't feel you can't say so

Its all in context.

If I get out a bottle of formula to feed my baby and my friend said " oh I'm so proud I'm breast feeding mine" i'd consider that goady.

If I asked a friend how she was and she said "oh im just so proud every day tgat I breast feed my baby and i'm just this wonderful mother who can provide through her own body for her baby" i'd be a bit ok

If I asked how the baby was and she said good blah blah "still breastfeeding, can't believe I still am, i'm really proud of myself for sticking with it" then i'd agree and tell her how great she's doing.

Isn't it nice to be happy of what our friends consider to be their achievements?

Yes Jassy, quite right. I take that comment back. You see we can all do with people pointing stupid comments out can't we?

It all depends, doesn’t it, on one’s point of view.

I think there are two issues being conflated here: whether it is justifiable to be proud of breastfeeding, and whether it’s ok talk about that pride.

On the former, I don’t think it’s ‘stupid’ to be proud. I’m proud of breastfeeding in the same way I’m proud of achieving anything that was important to me, and that I found difficult and persevered anyway. They key bit is that it was important to me. My reasons for it being important to me are several, and they are individual to me. I don’t give a shiny shit how anyone else feeds their kids, tbh, as long as they’ve had any support they wanted. But I feel ok with being proud to achieve a personal goal despite it being really hard going at time.

Would I go on about it in public? No, for the reasons set out here, and because the discourse around feeding is so totally toxic that we cannot have honest conversations about feeding without it being an attack on someone else. Which is a pretty sad state of affairs.

I keep quiet that I breastfeed because I am bound to offend someone - either by flashing a minuet bit of skin briefly or someone will assume I'm being goady because they FF, when I really couldn't care less.

However, if I ever decided to stop breastfeeding, at least I know I will get supported then.

To me it was the other way around. Could happily talk about breastfeeding because it was seen as the best thing ever etc and when I had to switch I felt constantly embarrassed and stressed and unhappy about the situation. I did wise up and realise as long as baby was fed that was all that mattered. I think the whole argument is bullshit. Breast feed or don’t, who gives a fuck. As long as you aren’t feeding your child watered down goats milk or the like, I couldn’t give a glittery shit. As long as baby is fed, anything else is just noise.

It gets even worse when you are still feeding after six months in my experience. So many people have asked if I am going to stop soon!