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.

Ineedabiggerboat I'm so sorry

Being forced and bullied into breastfeeding by midwives is what put me off. All these threads recently just bring back all the negativity I felt when my babies were tiny... the nasty comments from people (usually members of the cult of NCT) about how ‘disappointing’ it must feel to FF. Actually no, I am not disappointed by my very healthy and happy children.

I am not a new mother - my eldest is 11. But I’m fucking suck of goady BF threads. Actually I found the whole experience of trying it for a few days hideous and repulsive. Having a baby hanging off my nipple was awful.

I made the best choice for my family, and I wish you and all your judgey breastapo friends would just fuck off back to your breastfeeding groups and carry on congratulating each other for feeding your babies. Well done, you have met the basic requirement of parenthood - keeping the baby alive with milk. We’re all so impressed!

I think you're right. Everyone is too scared of seeming pushy when actually sometimes you just need to hear that it will get better. Education in breastfeeding needs to get better so people feel that if they want to breastfeed they have a good chance of making it work (obviously there are exceptions). For example, so many people think they aren't producing enough because bub feeds all the time, but if they are settled in between feeds (even for a short while), it's normal. I was annoyed when people kept suggesting I switch to formula despite making the choice to push through. For some reason that's not offensive but saying anything about breastfeeding is. Positive stories online (even if they had a tough start) get "ok well good for you, it doesn't work out for everyone" responses.

The first 8-12 weeks were hard due to an undiagnosed tongue tie but now at 21 months that is such a short time in our journey.

I'm not criticising people who choose to move on, I just think that sometimes people are misinformed and could have carried on if they wanted to. E.g. A friend was told she would have to stop to take a week's worth of anti-bs but the doctor was wrong - the breastfeeding network is a good resource to check things like this.

I struggled on and off for the first 2/3 months. And I hated not knowing how much my baby was taking in. I posted on MN in despair one day. One poster laid it all out on the table- she didn’t tell me it wouldn’t matter if I went into formula option etc. She told me all the medical, proven benefits and told me how much she thought it would suit ME once I got through this hiccup.
I persevered that night. And it all got easier from there. Now at 15months and it has been an amazing part of our journey.
I’m so so grateful for her honesty and for pushing me on.

That's funny you mentioned the sympathy actually! That's the one thing that drives me mad. My DD is 13 months and people do sometimes seem to be like 'awwh will she still not leave you alone' an stuff like that. I'm not a bit bothered! I love it 🤗

@mumtomaxwell good that you can say all that. Bear in mind that a post talking about formula feeding in the same negative terms would result in a real pile on......

mumtomaxwell i had excatly the same experience with my first DC .The midwife was a bully and berated me no end to the point of tears .Then i remember being pounced on whilst pregnant by a breast feeding group at a shopping centre who had a table with all their bumf who were horrified when i said i didn't intend to bf and started lecturing me .I trully don't get why how to you choose your feed your baby gives someone the right to attack you if they don't agree .OP you bf , congratulations but some of us don't for various reasons we don't need a did'nt i do well i bf post 🙄.We love our DC's too even if we didn't bf strangely enough .

My baby lost 15% of his weight by day 11, was hospitalised and tube fed, and the hospital were worried he was at risk of developmental delays and that there may be more going on than the already difficult jaundice and lack of supply. He then wouldn't stay awake for top up feeds, and by three weeks reflux kicked in and he started losing again because he was being sick so much.

The hospital staff kept reassuring me that I could carry on breastfeeding with top ups, but I was so terrified he was ill and wasn't eating enough that I switched to mainly formula with breast top ups, and breast first and last thing. I found it hugely reassuring to know how much he was getting. After his first couple of decent formula feeds he was a different baby - started visibly filling out, more alert, happier.

I know I made the right decision for us. And yet I still feel guilty, because of threads like this and the ridiculous push to breastfeed above all else. Breastfeeding is normal in my friendship set and I fully expected to be able to do it, knew nothing about formula feeding and find it utterly baffling when trying to get my head around it while sleep deprived in hospital with a sick baby. There needs to be more realistic education about both.

I honestly find formula repulsive and the thought of my baby hanging off a plastic teat drinking powdered palm oil makes me want to vomit.

Sounds awful when you type things out like that, so why is it ok for women to be so degrading about breastfeeding but not formula feeding?

Agree OP and I think family support/experience makes the difference.

Like many people, my nipples got trashed in the first week bf while baby & I figured out latch and positioning etc. I then had a LOT of pain for about 4 weeks while they healed.

But in my family my mum/grandma/sisters had bf exclusively, as had DH's mum, so bf and the challenges of the first few weeks were considered the norm, no one suggested bottles/formula and bf feeding patterns etc were understood. No one was weird in terms of expecting me to cover up or not feed when out etc.

In the UK the period from 60-90s when formula was hugely normalised means for loads of mums their own mum doesn't know about bf and thinks formula, 4 hourly large feeds etc, is the norm. I think thats such a hard cycle to break.

MustardScreams.... sorry to offend anyone but I felt as you did re formula. In my family bf is the norm so formula is regarded as a bit odd/weird. I remember MIL telling me of course she fed all three of hers and that "that's what boobs are for."

Whatswithtodaytoday

So sorry for your experience. I don't think there is enough support when there clearly is a real issue (dramatic weight loss etc), in these rare situations we should see formula as the great medical invention it is, and prescribe it free to ensure baby thrives.

However i really struggled as I had friends who struggled a lot too and now talk about how they "couldn't" breastfeed - but most seemed to have mad expectations about bf! one thought the baby would go 3 or 4 hours between feeds (as if lol, more like 1 hour), another thought there was something wrong with her supply because baby was happily latched on solidly from 7pm to midnight (hello, cluster feeder!!). Another just hated how all consuming it was, she wanted to be able to leave the baby with her DH for a few hours & have time for herself. They all stopped bf within about 6 weeks. Of the 5 friends I had who now say they "couldn't" breastfeed/simply didn't have enough milk etc, I think probably only 1 truly was in that category (She had PCOS). The others made choices etc, doesn't meant they were physically unable to bf, but really they simply didn't want to feed every hour/all evening etc, and that's fine. People should just say that.

A lot of posters have had difficult and emotive experiences and I really feel for them, but it feels on threads like these that it's sometimes only allowed for mothers to share them if they formula fed.

I was going through a really difficult time during pregnancy and when my DD was born and although she's actually doing amazingly and I think will have a happy very normal life she was born with some problems and we didn't know the extent of them at that time. It was really hard. She also woke every 30 minutes until 4 months and I am certain she would have done also with formula because it was connected.

If I'd had to get up every 30 minutes and go downstairs to make up a bottle I think that would have tipped ME over the edge. That would have happened if hospital hadn't suggested I try another few days, since my own midwife actually didn't know what to expect with breastfeeding!

Is that ok because my experience is less valid than other people's?

Most other things in life if a large proportion of women want to do something we'd like to think society supports them. That isn't the same at all as telling them what they should want to do or "condemning" their choices.

I don't feel that strongly about the topic in general so not sure why I've replied so much but I'm surprised at how defensive some posters are.

Oh and am I allowed to be offended myself at comments about babies hanging off of tits or is offence not allowed for me either as a smug breastfeeding mum?

I think the point is- how do we get to the 95% so everyone who can BF wants to? The OP's suggestion is one of the things that can help, along with massive structural changes to the way the maternity system works. For example, not separating infants and mothers after birth (unless they are really really sick). Encouraging sidecar cots and Co sleeping post birth. Equipping mothers and health staff with knowledge about normal breastfeeding behaviour. Proper tongue tie recognition and support (one of my fave ye olden days facts is that birth attendants used to keep one long sharp nail for the express purpose of swiping a tongue tie at birth--and there's also evidence that better folic acid use has increased the likelihood of TT). Etc.

And when that is in place, encouragement to give it a go for just another couple of days can help--that's the sort of advice you'd get from a mum or aunt if we were cultural breastfeeders.

The relationship between BF and PND is pretty complex, but the main risk factors seem to be women who wanted to but stopped before they were ready - with pain a major factor in that (there's a big cohort study which shows that as the main association). So getting to that 95% who want to, being able to, is probably the best thing we can do for BF linked PND.

Like all women's health issues we have not funded postnatal support properly in this country and that is why a lot of people have such crap experiences. Its a patchwork of volunteers and leaflets pushing against a massive marketing machine (£36 for every baby born in the world) that positively encourages messaging about the challenges and lifestyle compromises.

And that, I would suggest, is where the 'smug' moniker comes from-- really powerful conditioning that pits women against each other ('mummy wars') and gets reductive about individual experiences as distraction from structural issues.

@Zone4flaneur - thank you for your contributions to this thread. Women really need to hear what you have to say.

I’m genuinely shocked by the aggressive/defensive nature of some of the ff posts. I honestly don’t see any smugness from those who bf - especially not OP. There’s a difference between encouragement, giving someone all of the information they need to make and choice and forcing someone.

I agree that the majority of women saying they couldn’t breast feed probably could have with the right information and support. The expectation of what bf entails is completely out of whack with the reality.

Also, for those saying posts like this make them feel guilty - I honestly doubt it’s the post just that having somewhere to lay blame for that guilt helps.

I’ve ff and bf. With my 1st, I truly believed that I couldn’t. After my 2nd, I now know I could have but that I was let down and not give the info/support I needed. Cultural influences also played a massive part. I did not know anyone and had actually never seen anyone breastfeed and it was so alien to me.

It does need to be ‘normal’ to bf and not seen as some bizarre smug badge of Johor by those who don’t. Nobody is saying you MUST bf, just that women should be properly educated so that they can make a genuine choice and not give up believing that they can’t.

(And I do know that there rare situations where women can’t and where switching to formula is best for mother and baby)

Being berated by militant breastfeeding groups in shopping centres has to be an incredibly unusual experience, surely? And certainly one worth complaining to the group concerned about. Whereas constant subtle pressure to ff is around us all the time.

Nobody has responded to my post above. Two months of no latch and not a drop coming out through pumping and expressing, despite a lot of support. What should I have done - let my baby die? Frankly I am grateful neither of us died during birth - I have other ways of measuring my success as both a mother and a person than whether I managed to breastfeed. BF really is great, what an amazing thing the body is - but unfortunately the body doesn't always work properly and like birth itself, I'm very grateful for medical advances and intervention.

This thread makes me livid. So many women just judging each other and being smug about their own choices. How about women stop treating other women like crap, and actually do one another the honour of genuinely listening to and respecting what others have to say?

Being berated by a midwife in your own home when you are at your most vulnerable is not that uncommon. Midwives I met were so busy berating me for struggling they missed that I was seriously ill. And even when I was rushed back to hospital on an antibiotic drip and doped up with morphine, they berated me for not having my baby with me so I could feed her.

@Kentishgal - from what I’ve read in the thread, the overwhelming consensus is that nobody should let a baby die and that the invention of formula is lifesaving in those situations where a woman genuinely can not bf.

This thread was supposed to be one about encouraging those who can breast feed but just don’t have all the facts to make an informed choice. I don’t believe it was ever the intention of op to force or guilt those who can’t.

alexkate2468 thank you - yes I appreciate that but unfortunately many of the responses seem to suggest that women who "couldn't" actually could but chose not to - I really don't accept that is always the case. Support and encouragement is great but we have to recognise that it isn't always physically possible and stop judging each other.

@Alexkate2468 I don’t think the situations where a mother can’t and switching to FF is the best thing is as rare as you point out. It’s quite common

I don't even think it was meant to be a thread for those who can breastfeed, but those who want to. A huge difference. It's so sad that all threads on here go this way, but not surprising. We shouldn't lose our ability to speak when we give birth, I want to use formula is just as valid as I want to breastfeed but need some support because I'm struggling at the moment and need some help if I ask for it, and if I can.

Kentishgal, I don't think anyone you be directly berating you at all but on a societal level it's worth drawing the comparison between your case and women with a similar situation in the countries with a higher BF rate. Its not about blaming you but considering whether the medics could have done better or not.

I think another question to ask is why BF has such a negative impact on so many British mothers mental health and again, what's different in the countries with higher rates of BF?

And not just be told carry on or switch without actually some options.