to be increasinly unbothered about the breast feeding support thing?

[wildpatch]

now that breastfeeding is becoming an increasinly distant memory, i am finding less and less emotional energy to put into the whole support breastfeeding issue.
i am pro breastfeeding. and believe very firmly in a childs right to human milk, but,
just stick the baby on your boob, cover it up, and get on with it.
or, feed your baby something out of a bottle, and stop moaning about other people using their breasts for what they were designed for.

being a good parent is about so much more than just the type of milk you feed your baby in the first months of its life. jack the ripper was probably breastfed, look how wonderful a man he turned out to be. and most kids born in the 60's etc were bottlefed. they seem to be fine. (generalisation here, pls dont jump on me for inaccuracy of this fact)

aibu, or does anyone else feel so lacka(something, cantremember the word!)

No but what I mean is that for people who are new to the issues, I think the most important thing is not to feel overwhelmed by the weight of advice.

I am all for bf and try to support it where I can (don't get the opportunity very often) but it's not the most important thing in life, or even in parenting, or even in early parenting. Most important thing in early parenting is getting through it as best you can, imho.

well...I suppose that depends on the individuals view though....doesn't it...and lets hope that people that do have experience are still happy to put themselfs out there to fight for support, etc...

I don't stop caring about an issue just because it no longer effects me.

I may stop caring about an issue when it no longer effects me.

But when you come on here and see the number of women who have shit bad advice about bf and weight gain and all of that, how could I not care that they are going through it.

Thank god that Tiktok and others who are no longer bf'ing continue to help and support people who need help

And I don't judge people who give formula, or who can't or don't want to BF. That is fine. The fact is that there is not, in many cases, the extended family who BF themselves these days for mothers etc to give informed support on BF to their daughters.

I was lucky in that respect

And I have NEVER seen anyone critisised on MN for formula feeding so unless someone can link to that, please could we put that particular myth to rest?

rant over

Niecie, i made light of your remark because it was so ill thought through.

When women feel bullied into any feeding method, that is a bad thing. One of the many reasons that happens is because the woman who is supposed to be 'trained' to give that advice has been improperly done so, and/or does not rank infant feeding as one of her primary pieces of knowledge she should be able to pass on to new mothers. (I say infant feeding because that includes bf and ff). Many times these same women don't realise how little knowledge they have and that knowing just a little can be dangerous thing.

The training she should have should not only be physiological but also emotional as becoming a parent is also a highly emotionally charged event.

The fact that the NHS spend 9 pence, yes 9 pence per child on infant feeding training and the formula companies spend £20 on advertising per child gives me an idea why formula feeding is the NORM in this society.

In addition, I learnt a long time ago in another portion of my life that there are some people that even with the best will in the world, they just don't know how to accept advice irrespective of who is giving it and it has nothing to do with the skill of the advisor. With that thought in mind, I know that some women will feel bullied on this topic and there is nothing i can do about it except to hopefully recognise that is what is happening and to take a step back.

As i say from time to time on here, if something i read on a msg board upsets me, I walk away and ask why is this upsetting me. I invariably find my answer in myself and my 'issues'. Except in rare instances, I don't think anyone truely comes on MN to offend. Sometimes they are expressing their own issues and I would be daft not take that personally.

I view your remark is the sort of inflammatory remarks that turn this topic into a bf vs ff thread.

Wildpatch, you asked why do we need "Big Brother", meaning the government, to tell us what to do. It's an interesting point. When you buy a can of formula you are paying, within the price, for the seller's advertising, public relations, and marketing. Businesses that profit from enterprises that compete with healthier alternatives much prefer that governments do not provide information and support for those healthy alternatives. There's a major branch of public relations called "constituency relations", which involves changing the political climate to favour policies that suit the client. In the case of babymilk, this would involve tactics like getting popular columnists to say rude things about breastfeeding counsellors and organisations, until those ideas became part of the landscape, and get talked about on forums like Mumsnet etc.

I don't think we are reading the same thread Kisidee. It hasn't turned into a bf v ff thread at all. Not unless you want to turn it into one.

The OP said that she is emotionally drained by the whole debate and wanted to take a step back from the debate because her life had moved on and it is not the be all and end all of parenting. 5, 10 or 20 years down the line for most people it will make very little difference. She isn't supporting bf or ff by that remark and neither an I (although we have both bf).

For reason you only quoted a very small part of my statement and have made it sound like I was having a go at the breast feeding lobby. I was saying that there is an enormous pressure from all sides to feed your baby in a particular way. Wildpatch is very glad not to be subject to that pressure and so am I?

As for saying that some people won't take advice . Have you considered that rightly or wrongly they may not agree with you because they have thought about the issues and formed their own opinion based on their own circumstances? There are some women who physically can't breast feed. Would they be wrong in feeling bullied if somebody was making them feel bad about using formula? There are some women who would love to breast feed but feel bullied by healthcare workers who give them no support and who make them feel that they are wasting time by trying.

Not sure what the point is about spending on training and advertising. To make a more reasoned arguments I would want to know the amount spent on advertising breast feeding and the amount spent on training HV and midwives to tell people to use formula. Then we might be comparing like with like. I personally would potentially get a huge amount of information from the 9p of training but nothing from advertising. Advertising formula isn't going to make me use it or not use it - it is advertising and I am intelligent enough to take anything said in an advert with a pinch of salt. Are most women not that intelligent too?

Please don't turn this into a debate into ff v bf - that is exactly why WW made the OP in the first place.

There is so much more to parenting than what feeding choices you make for the first few months of a child's life.

I am going to leave this thread now as I am annoyed with the way this thread is going. I have never said that before and I was going to say it is sad in that we are basically on the same side (pro-bf) but that just reinforces the point that rather than being a choice about how your feed your child, the whole issue is a battleground.

YANBU.

It IS unreasonable to expect others to feel the same as you (not suggesting that you specifically feel that).

I am more bothered than ever about the dire state of b/feeding in this country and I no longer b/feed. I suppose it depends on what you feel you can do about something, and how much you believe in it.

I don't see I'll stop caring about bf support (or the lack of it) for a good while yet, if ever.

I feel it is every woman's right to have a good feeding experience with her baby, because it can be SO deeply traumatic if it doesn't go well, for whatever reason. Women are still affected literally generations later by the way they've been treated and the information and support they've had access to, in the same way that birth experience can affect bonding/parenting.

Birth and breastfeeding are the first things you can "fail" at as a mother. When one comes so hot on the heels of the other and both are bad, it's not a good thing at all.

So I care, because, as you say, being a good parent is much more than the milk you feed your baby in the first months of his or her life, but since the experience women have of breastfeeding often affects how they parent (whether you wanted to or not, I mean how you were treated about your decision), I don't see it as something that's "detachable" from parenting as a whole in quite the way you seem to mean.

"As for saying that some people won't take advice" - yes it is true, a problem which is recognised in some people by trained psychologists.

all i said is 'statements like yours' turn this into a ff vs bf type of issue. I did not say you intended to do that.

but you know, because people have all sorts of 'issues' they can read your comment the 'wrong' way and the thing takes on a life of its own and i pointing that out.

whether or not you believe advertising doesn't affect you on this issue is irrelevant but big business only spend money on moneyspinners so i yhink that on this issue formula companies have put their money where their mouth is.