Can anyone help, breastfeeding guilt

[Puzzle500]

Long story short - 6 friends, first children now 5 years old 4 managed to breastfeed 2 of us didn't. My 5 year old is bright happy thriving.

But the 1 other friend who didn't breastfeed has just had her second and is messaging me all day every day telling me how wonderful it is and how it's erased her guilt from first time and how amazing it is if you just try etc

I'm pleased for her but each time she tells me I feel even more rubbish. Spent last night researching and all the long term evidence is its so much better, I should have tried harder etc

I had emergency section and pp haemorrhage and I just could t do it. Why 5 years later do I feel so bad, and what can I do to stop feeling so rubbish.

Sadly the guilt is not a new thing My Mum didn't manage to breast feed in 1972 and 1973 not surprising considering she had had 72 hour labours both times a VBAC both babies as breech. She was told by the midwives to never tell her daughter's as she would project her failure on to them.
Turns out we probably have inherited hypogalactia as my sister and I both had the same issues with low supply. I was fortunate I had an amazing midwife who suggested I talk to my Mum and that's when it all came out.
But now my DD is 16 and I look at this beautiful, confident girl I know I made lots of choices that help to form this girl on the cusp of adulthood, but the way she was fed as an infant was not one of them.

All we can do is give you takes of how well how bottle-fed children have turned and you'll get thousands! I'm sure if you surveyed happy and healthy doctors, solicitors, pilots etc... you'd find many who were bottle-fed from birth.

I mean this kindly, I really really do - But YABU to have any guilt at all. Your child was fed and loved and still is - why you’re sparing a second thought to things that were a) beyond your control and b) don’t matter anyway, I really can’t fathom.

Give yourself a shake and move on. Literally nobody cares but you. I promise you your daughter doesn’t and really, it’s actually about the baby isn’t it?

I breast fed both of mine and am very pro BFing, would always encourage people to try. HOWEVER, when people are made to feel guilty that they haven't breast fed, it makes my blood boil.
I was bottle fed, I've had 5 days max off work sick in the last 35 years, and apart from chickenpox and tonsillectomy I NEVER had a day off school. I was well cared for, loved and nurtured and it matters not one jot that I wasn't breast fed.
Some friends deliberately try to point score on parenting topics, some are just not nice but sometimes it is masking their own lack of confidence.
Please don't beat yourself up over this, enjoy your time with your baby x

If you had breastfeed, you’d probably be giving yourself a hard time about something else.

I breastfed both of mine - doesn’t stop me feeling rubbish at times.

Give yourself a break and stop researching online. Your daughter is bright, happy and thriving. That is the most important thing!