To tell people it’s often worth persevering with breastfeeding

[BarberBabyBubbles]

Obviously not if baby at risk or mum at risk in any way and bf not helping. Or if mum just doesn’t want to etc etc.

But for my own part, I really really struggled with bf DD1. Just the usual really - sore nipples, cluster feeding for hours, blocked ducts, she lost a normal amount of weight at first but it worried me as I was new to it.

But after about 2-3 months it was very easy and very convenient FOR ME. Yes there were benefits to the baby but my life was also a lot easier. My mum suggested I stick with it because it would be beneficial in the long term and she was right.

I feel like bf gets a bad press. I often get a lot of “sympathy” that I am still bf (I’m now bf DD2 and it is so bloody easy this time round). I do wonder if people could see the benefits after the tricky bit is over they might stick at it a bit more?

The support I know is sadly not really there but also I think it’s a shame some people stop when in the “normally difficult” period.

@Bertrand I am convinced that happens. It's the logical extension of mummy blogger partnerships etc.

Did you know a country's GDP goes down if a woman breastfeeds rather than formula feeds? Because breastfeeding doesn't have an 'economic' value. Which brings me to another factor in this, which is the systematic undervaluing of women's labour and women doing all the other domestic drudgery. In a society where close familial support networks have broken down, a woman taking herself out of the domestic equation for the length of time it takes to establish BF requires male partners to step up.

That's not supported culturally or economically. It does, rather, preserve that natural order of things to ensure a woman is back doing more than her fair share of the domestics quick sharp. There's an enormously sexist undertone in the societal level messages women are given overtly or subtly.

YABU fuck off my tits my choice I choose to feed my children you dont get to choose how where has OP said she gets to choose how to feed your kids 😂 That level of anger is concerning tbh.

People who post positive bf stories always hedde them about with caveats “I was lucky” and so on. And thus we create a culture where people assume that the won’t be able to bf, and will only be able to by great good fortune

Agree with this. DS and I struggled for the first couple of weeks but then all was ok.
My friend recently had a baby and it is going perfectly for her - no issues at all (even though labour and birth didn’t go very well!) and I was shocked. Until I realised that maybe that’s the norm? And people who were this successfully probably wouldn’t ever feel the need to post about it. Can you imagine?
‘AIBU to tell you just how smoothly breastfeeding is going...’

I'm very torn about this. I think it's really key what a pp said about feeling her mental health deteriorating. 2-3 months of 'hell' before it gets easier isn't a walk in the park and all that time you might be developing a real period of depression if you are in a lot of pain, experiencing a lot of frustration etc. Plus the impact of all that on baby, I wonder if a mother being so stressed might actually cancel out all the bf benefits in that case!
On the other hand, in my experience I was told it should be painless if you're doing it 'right' so when it wasn't for me, and I saw no milk after 5 days I switched to formula.

Well yeah, but that would come across as unbearably smug and arsey, wouldn't it? As though sneering at people who found it more difficult. But what I do occasionally see (and I think is a good idea) are threads asking for positive experiences in order to counter negativity/provide balance.

I tried to work out what percentage of women have trouble BF by looking at the last infant feeding survey, and I found that it's very roughly divided into thirds. Of those who begin breastfeeding, 1/3 don't have problems, 1/3 have problems but (through support or whatever) still manage to breastfeed as long as they wanted, and 1/3 have problems causing them to stop before they wanted.

Yabu, glad it worked out for you, it wouldn't have done for me, I obviously had a far far worse experience than you and made my decision accordingly.

Well yeah, but that would come across as unbearably smug and arsey, wouldn't it? As though sneering at people who found it more difficult

Absolutely, which is kind of my point. We don’t hear stories about women who found it easy - only ones who have struggled. So it seems normal and to be expected that it won’t work.

@BertrandRussell and @WaterOffaDucksCrack 😂😂 indeed!

I'm not angry 🤷‍♀️

Hear what (the sensible) posters are saying. MH of mum is so important. I do wonder if I stuck with it too long with Dd1 but overall I’m glad I did. It is very emotional as deciding to go on or not is a huge decision for many people and we each ideally would be happy with our choice all the while recognising it was a difficult choice. for those given wrong information and not enough support. There should be more MH support to come to terms with feeding decisions for some people also I think.

I think the phrase “happy mummy happy baby” can help some people but for me a friend trotted that out at the first sign of my difficulties and it wasn’t helpful at all (almost like my continuing abs bring unhappy for a few days I was making my baby unhappy). I needed encouragement to continue.

Lastly, the NCT helpline also helped me!

Why if someone wants to tell about positive experiences of BF are they slated? Surely balance is key? It’s very easy to find horror stories about breastfeeding so why shouldn’t it be just as easy to find positive experiences?

OP I breastfed my son for 22 months, it was really hard in the beginning, I cried more times than I can remember but I’m so glad I stuck with it. I had great support in my partner and I miss it now that my son is fully weaned. If that makes me smug then so be it. I would never judge anyone on how they feed their baby but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be proud of the experiences I had feeding mine.

“I'm not angry 🤷‍♀️”
I hope i’m not around when you are!

Well, I think it must depend on what your experiences are in your personal family/friend circle - and indeed that's one of the most highly correlated factors relating to whether breastfeeding succeeds or fails.

If you've grown up around breastfeeding family members and if you're not the first of your friends to have children and your friends tend to breastfeed, you will usually come to motherhood with an expectation that breastfeeding is straightforward, easy and normal. Or possibly that it can be hard but it's possible to overcome difficulties, and anyway it is all worth it. Whereas if all/most of your family and friends have bottle fed, you come to motherhood with a different set of expectations about breastfeeding - perhaps the idea that it is something strange and alien, perhaps the idea that it is "middle class" or "hippyish", perhaps the idea that it's awfully difficult and painful.

And if you have neither experience because you simply haven't been around many babies before (although this is unlikely, and it's not necessarily conscious memories you need) you fall back on media portrayal, most likely, which as the previously mentioned study shows reflects the majority bottle feeding set of ideas about breastfeeding.

I also think that if you've had quite some experience with either majority breastfed or majority bottle fed babies, you will tend to have different expectations about the lifestyle associated with babies under a year or so as well, which probably does make a difference.

Also, you would think that this would more often than not be a split, and most people would have the experience of about the same number of breastfed and formula fed babies - but strangely, it doesn't seem to work that way - people tend to have much more third hand experience either one way or the other, particularly when it comes to families as well - which sometimes causes friction when the mum's family fed one way (and have one set of expectations) and the dad's family all fed another way (with their own set).

YABU. Your experience is YOUR experience. I'm glad that after 2-3 months you found it very easy and convenient but many mums don't, even after they HAVE persevered.

And posters throwing about the 'norm' word is just annoying. Call it defensive if you want but it can make mums who couldn't bf feel 'abnormal.' It's as irritating as people calling vaginal births 'natural' or 'normal' births.

And I can't believe I've been drawn into yet ANOTHER thread about this. It's so repetitive and, ultimately, boring.

I don't get the anger, no one is for Ed to read this thread

I don't get the anger either.

@Ginger1982 but why can't OP share the fact that it got easier for her, so that new mums know it does get easier for some?

I might have stopped if someone hadn't reassured me the problems I was having (mastitis, bleeding nipples, worry about baby weight loss) were common and that it often gets easier. I'm so so glad I didn't stop.

Even my midwife didn't know that weight loss over 5% was normal for breastfed babies - she sent us back to hospital for 7% weight loss and I was in bits! They were astonished when I got there and sent us back home with the reassurance

Ginger, 'normal' doesn't mean it always works. That's the thing about evolution - there's no design, it only works well enough enough of the time the species continues (same with birth). It's still normal, we're still mammals. There's no judgement in there. It's just fact. I do understand it might be taken as such but I don't think public health policy can skirt that.

That's why I'm glad we have options when it doesn't work. But we have to protect the most vulnerable women--poor women, refugee women, women whose partners are financially abusing them. Which is why health care workers should be alive to overcoming a hell of a lot of the societal conditioning we are faced with to support those people, first and foremost.

I wouldn't, also, make any assumptions about how people using the 'normal' word fed their babies.

Yes. The breast feeding band wagin seems to have looped back for another self congratulatory fly past.

What we need to do is get to a situation like sown Scandinavian countries, where the support and education is so effective that 95% of women can bf if they want to. There are obviously some medical conditions that mean a woman physically can’t bf. But with a full term healthy baby they are rare. So if we establish a situation where the overwhelming majority of women can bf if they want to, all we need then is a situation where it is perfectly fine to not want to. So nearly everyone can make a proper free choice. “Not wanting to” is an absolutely fine reason for not bf. In a huge number of cases “not being able to” isn’t. I’m always seeing threads on here where women have been shockingly unsupported and misinformed- the “I had no milk” is a classic one- nobody tells people that most people do not til day 3. “The baby was losing weight” again- nobody tells people that up to 10 weight loss in a healthy full term baby is perfectly fine. My mil talks sadly about how her milk was “all watery” so she had to bottle feed. Nobody told her that’s what breast milk looks like. She’s still sad 50 years later.
Choosing from the off not to bf is fine. Trying it, not liking it and stopping is fine. But wanting to and giving up for want of support and information is not fine.
I was old and tough when I had mine and I had a supportive partner and family. I took mine home from the hospital supremely confident that they would feed once they were home. And they did. But younger, less tough and less supported women than me wouldn’t have been confident enough to do that. And Mumsnet would be no help at all.

So sick of these posts. Who bloody cares if you breastfeed or bottle feed. Once your child goes to school, university, work - does anyone ask if you were breast or bottle fed. Each to their own. Breastfeeding mums always seem so high and mighty (I breastfed but did and do not feel the need to broadcast it). Feed your child however - there are so many more things to worry about when bringing up children. Each persons journey is different and their own - focus on you and your child instead of condemning those who choose what is best for them and their child

First time posting in response to a feeding post, just so over seeing the same thing

@BertrandRussell I totally get where you're coming from and you talk a lot of sense.

Threads on this topic rarely end well and it's those who didn't bf (for whatever reason) who seem to get the rough end of that.

Your comment about 'not wanting to' being a fine reason not to bf unfortunately doesn't stand up in light of the thread the other day where many posters were pounced on for taking this very position.

@MrsFDJR but where is the OP condemning anyone that doesn't? When has anybody done that?

She's right that loads of people don't know what to expect and it might put them off when they otherwise wanted to. If they don't want to or can't that's fine and nobody has said otherwise?

It's the first time I've discussed breastfeeding really but wanted to say that I'm really glad the hospital reassured me because I wanted to bf if I could and I'm glad for the support.

I absolutely agree. I was not prepared for how hard the first 4 weeks are and I did not realise it's normal.for the first 4 weeks to be that hard.

If it wasn't for the fact my sil had just been through it and all the great support and advice I got through mumsnet I would not have been able to stick with it.