AIBU: people trying to scare me/put me off breast feeding

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I’m pregnant and due in January. Due to a traumatic pregnancy loss in second trimester previously, and a MMC before that, pregnancy has been tough and I’m trying not to put too many expectations on myself for labour/birth/feeding etc.
On the subject of feeding, I’ve said all along I want to try and give breast feeding a go, and if it doesn’t work out or I don’t get along with it, I won’t put pressure on myself to carry on. Seems like an open minded approach to me. But since I’ve said I’m going to give it a go, nearly all of my friends who are doing it or have done it have just gleefully told me stories of how awful it is.
Painful, difficult, stressful, bad for your mental health, you’ll never sleep again, it will ruin your relationship, you get no support etc etc
A couple of them are actively saying I should just skip to formula because it’s what they wish they could do.
MIL and DM have also said they don’t think I should breast feed as I’ve struggled with anxiety this year and why put more pressure on myself.

It’s made me feel a bit anxious and overwhelmed about a decision I was feeling quite positive about initially (and I’ve really struggled with the idea of planning for newborn as I still can’t quite let myself believe it wilL happen!).

AIBU to feel this way and think they’re being a bit unkind? AIBU to think giving it a go is the best way forward and going from there?

I’m probably feeling worse because I have a stinking cold and SPD so I’m not exactly a ray of sunshine anyway

I should have added, I didn’t mean it was constantly hard, just hard at certain points.Much easier than bottles.

*away from him not with him!!

All you can do is give it a go and ignore the naysayers. Tbh you get this with your first baby for many reasons, not just breastfeeding. Everyone has an opinion and they love to offer it even when you don’t require it.

I breastfed all four of mine, two of them for over 12 months. It is difficult for the first few weeks but parenting is in general, newborns are exhausting! It gets easier after the first 4-6 weeks when your nipples adapt and your supply is established plus baby can hold more milk so doesn’t need to feed quite so often.

Many people believe they ‘don’t have enough milk’ because the baby wants to feed a lot, that is normal for all breastfed babies and does not mean you don’t have enough milk at all. It’s basically a supply and demand system, the baby keeps drinking and your supply increases so it’s actually the opposite.

Do what you want to do. You might find it easy or you might not.

Just give it a go. Get support from the MW and HV and a breastfeeding support group if possible. It's usually difficult to start but with support it usually works. If it does then great, the feeling of closeness makes up for it al, but it's no failure to stop and formula feed if that's what works.

There is something about certain types of "friends" that means they are practically glee full about piling on the fear about labour & breast feeding & just love to beguile mums to be with their horror stories. I had the pleasure of this from a group I'd DHs old female friends, my response was "don't you ever dare leave me alone with that gaggle of witches again" these people are not your friends, they are getting off on putting the frighteners on you IGNORE!!

I had no problems at all with breast feeding at 42, nothing, it was as easy & as natural as nature intended. The only issue I had, was the comedy 32HH boobs that got me too much of the wrong sort of attention to the point that I died my blond hair

I think whatever you say when your pregnant with your first people will try to put you off. I said I didn't want an epidural and people scoffed. Ignore them.

Your attitude to bf was exactly the one I went in with - I was BF to 13mo, my sister was FF so I really had no strong feelings either way.

I had DD1 and it was... easy. I didn't have any significant pain, my nipples were fine, my supply was fine, it just worked. And for a lot of women that is the case. I think it's really important that there's plenty of support available for women for who it isn't easy, but my experience was that it was fine. And the same again for DD2 - I fed both of them until they turned 2.

Your friends may be trying to prepare you for it not being easy (which for some people it isn't). Or they may be being unsupportive. Either way it's your choice how you want to feed your baby.

In my experience, babies wake in the night, and it's much easier to roll over and stick them on your nipple than it is to get up and get a bottle. Also, I literally have no idea how to soothe a crying baby. With mine I just latched them on when they cried and there was no obvious reason otherwise; I genuinely don't know what to do with other people's children

When you want to breasteed, people will tell you not to, when you don;t, they will tell you it is the best thing ever. Can't please people.
What I learned about motherhood is that once you get pregnant every man and their dog knows what is best for you and your child. You need to lears how to be assertive and tell people to f* off and do what you want to do. Sorry for swearing but I had the same situation with MIL (I could not breastfeed,b ut she would no shut up about me 'not doing the best thing' for the baby) and it really ruined our relationship for months as I could not stand lookign at her, t made me so angry.
Do you thing, don't worry about other people's opinions.

You sound like you have the right approach. I breastfed all three of mine and look back with fond memories. It was a wonderful bonding experience. The first few weeks were tricky, but for me after that it was lovely. It is different for everybody though, and you have to do what feels right for you and baby. All the best for whatever you decide to do x

I had a tough first 2 weeks the first time I bf, but after that it was a doddle. The second time I bf it was plain sailing. To be honest I ff my 1st and I found that harder!

When you have your precious little bundle you will receive loads more well meant “advice”. Half of it will be out of date and a load more will be from women who had their babies 30 years ago who’s memories are a little cloudy.

Smile, ignore and do whatever you please. Your relaxed “give it a try” approach is perfect.

As for the ones with the horror stories, don’t be afraid to tell them to stop. If they can’t say something nice then don’t say anything at all, as it is upsetting you. Not everyone has a bad experience. I breastfed both of my children till they were 12 months and it was a pleasure.

When he/she arrives no one will know your baby better than you. Trust your instincts and do what works for you.

Good luck & congratulations x

I found it painful at first and wouldn’t have got through the first week had a wonderful friend not told me to pack silicone nipple shields and Kamillosan. I also suffered because a midwife put her on my breast and disappeared and then 50 minutes later saw me with her still attached and was horrified telling me I’d get sore nipples. Thanks for telling me that AFTER the fact!
However, once over the initial adjustment, it was so much easier than faffing about with bottles, and DD was waking only once in the night from 8 weeks and sleeping through 11-7 reliably from 4 months.
I understand that the thing about FF babies sleeping longer no longer applies, as the formulations were changed some time ago to be closer to breast milk in terms of energy and fat/carb/sugar etc.
It’s great going out with the baby without adding bottles to the already bulging bag of shite you always need.
I’d always recommend giving it a go, but if it’s not for you then your baby won’t suffer a jot.

I’m currently breastfeeding my nearly 9 month old.

It was quite rough to start with but I’m so glad I persevered. It’s so much easier than arsing around with bottles and formula.

Do loads of research, watch YouTube videos- search for exaggerated latch. Find out if there’s any support groups near you. I go to a breastfeeding group every week, mostly just to chat and eat cake but they have lactation consultants to help anyone struggling.

It’s different for everyone. I loved it and baby took to it straightaway. Didn’t experience any pain. You don’t know how you’re going to find it until you try it, and I’m so sad to hear people are trying to put you off. People should support you finding your own path.

I suffered from anxiety during the pregnancy and actually postnatally the fact I was breastfeeding reassured me a lot. I knew I was significantly reducing risk factors for SIDS, for example.

I really can only describe my bf journey as MAGIC. I didn’t think I’d particularly love it, but there you go. I hope that provides you a bit of balance. I hope it works out for you but most importantly I hope you enjoy all those newborn snuggles however you feed and manage to switch off other people’s voices! Probably worth preparing yourself as well - people being like that antenatally about bf will likely be like it postnatally. If you hear ‘baby seems hungry’ ‘if you give some formula they’ll sleep’ ‘you don’t have enough milk’ etc then seek help and support from midwives and places such as La Leche League. Lay people who haven’t breastfed have limited knowledge of the normal physiology of breastfed babies, so be sceptical of their diagnosis of a starving hungry bf baby!

Iwould say get your self informed and identify your support networks. Find a breast feeding group, maybe through your hospital or childrens centre, or the library or council may help or NCT.
Kellymom is a good (American) resource and on line MilkMatters is also very good.
If you have difficulties seek help. I had 2 in scbu and hand to co feed at first but managed to drop the bottles and bf it is soo much easier. Yes bottle fed babies may sleep better. 9no promises there.) But actually that is not necessarily a good thing. (higher risk of sids for one.). Uk has a low BF rate Scandinavian countries are so much better. That's because they have done a better job and normalising bf and getting the right help.
Here you get pressure to bf but as soon as you have trouble people struggle to get the right help. And the fed is best campaign has just frightened parents into thinking they need to top up when they may not need to, or it stops them getting help to overcome what problems they do have.

I bf both of my children for 18+ months and although I am so glad I did I found the first couple of months very difficult both times. I’d hoped that as I’d only recently stopped bf my first when I had my second that it would be easier but it wasn’t.

I wish that people had told me their honest experiences before I had my first child and then I would have been more aware about what to expect and symptoms to look out for. I persevered through mastitis and abscesses thanks to the support I had (I discovered a friend had gone through similar issues and she was a great support - she told me it would get easier eventually which encouraged me to keep going and she was right) but I know people who stopped when it wasn’t easy because no one told them that many people experience issues in the first few weeks or that milk doesn’t come in straight away. Yes, some find it easy and have no issues but that’s not the case for everyone.

It is good to be realistic. I think a lot of people stop in the early days because they weren't expecting the frequency of feeds and believe that they must be doing something wrong or their milk isn't good enough. And yes, it can be painful at first until you get the latch perfected. It probably is harder than formula feeding for most people at the start. But most breastfeeding problems have breastfeeding answers and I thing that longer term it is easier than formula feeding. Well, that was my experience anyway, and many of my friends feel similar.
Sometimes when people tell you "horror stories" it is because they were led to believe that natural =easy and ended up let down and disappointed. So they are trying to save you from the same. Other times I think it is about validating their own decisions.
My MIL was dreadful when I had my first baby. She told me how difficult it was, that "even she" couldn't manage it (and she does consider herself a superior being!), that I would probably give up in a few weeks, nobody she knows has ever exclusively bf a baby, it is virtually impossible boah blah blah. Fortunately I had my sister to support me and her experience proved to me that it us very possible. Hearing more about my MILs experience, it was very easy to understand why she had "failed" as she had clearly been given diabolical advice, as most women in the 60s would have been. And she clearly still felt very guilty and upset about it, and was projecting her feelings on to me. Once I figured that out it was easier to ignore her"advice" and I felt much less angry and upset with her. In fact one day I felt so sad for her that I hugged her. (And I am not a hugger....especially not of a woman who has been very unpleasant to me over the years.) But she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said she wished we had been the other way round - if I had been there to advise her, she might have succeeded in breastfeeding her babies. It was terribly sad that she carries that guilt so many years on.
So yeah, it is annoying when people do this, but try to remember it is rarely done out of malice and often reflects their own poor experience and subsequent upset.

Reading the thread I’m really interested by the number of posters who’ve said they used nipple shields, especially in the early days. I had to use them for the first 5-6 weeks and they were brilliant. I don’t think I’d have carried on BFing without them tbh. But I was given a hard time about using them by the midwives and HVs, even though my son was gaining weight fine. I was told he’d ‘never learn to breastfeed properly’, amongst other things (total rubbish).

I get that in an ideal world you wouldn’t use them but I never understood why the HCPs seemed so dead set against them, particularly if they’re the difference between BFing and not!

Get some nipples shields, they make it soooo much easier and less painful

Try to go in open minded. I really struggled to feed my first but determination win through. My daughters said they "knew" it was going to be the hardest thing for them too. It just wasn't! They had more sticky out nipples than me and their babies seem to be born knowing what to do. So I e lived and learned, what's hard for one is easy for another and it's not just the mother it's the baby. Just try not to worry about it and try to enjoy waiting for your little one. So sorry you've had such a hard time before but your luck has changed!

I think give it a go and see how you get on is the sensible thing to do
If you don’t get on with it then swap to formula and don’t beat yourself up about it
I’ve fed both of mine and found it easy tbh
Been the odd day when I’ve been a bit sore or the baby has fed constantly but that’s it
My last baby latched straight on after birth and I’m still feeding him now at nearly 11 months
It’s easy in the night and when you’re out and about
I’ve never had any issues feeding out in public, no one even notices!
Give it go but don’t worry if it doesn’t work out
As long as your baby is fed and happy that’s all that matters
And ignore everyone - I can’t understand all these people who are constantly saying things to worry new mums!

@BreatheAndFocus I found it difficult and bled and then had to change bloody nappy's all of which I had no idea could happen after the bf brigade of the nhs busy telling me how wonderful it would be. I don't recall tales of cracked scanned over nipples with scans being ripped off each time baby fed at my maternity classes.
It is wonderful but can be difficult. Don'T minimise....difficulties”.

I wasn’t. I’m sorry you had problems like that.

But most women don’t. That was my point. The OP, like many women, is being subjected to horror stories. While bad things can, of course, happen, they are not the majority and those stories should be balanced by the many, many positive ones.

Me saying that is in no way questioning your experience or minimising it . I’m sorry you had problems and I appreciate it must have been unpleasant and upsetting.

Everyone's experience is different. But it's not inevitably painful and doesn't inevitably lead to crap sleep. My 2 were EBF and both great sleepers as small babies (DS1 did 8-6 at 7 weeks). And although both were tongue tied, that was just a bit sore until it got sorted, rather than actively painful.

If you want to give BF a try, I'd really recommend seeing if you can find a local BF support group so you can meet other BF mums. Go along while still pregnant if you can- that way you'll have a ready made network. It really helps to have other women in the same situation to talk to (and it sounds like your DM/MIL/circle of friends won't necessarily be able to fill that role). They'll also be able to help you find support if things are tricky: MW and HV are patchy on BF- some are great and some are awful. Also, get your DH/DP to do some reading so he's in a good position to be supportive.