To think you're not allowed to be proud of breastfeeding any more....

[TheatreJunkie84]

NOT a breast is best thread.

I've had the journey from hell. Tongue tie, painful feeds, thrush, not gaining weight, shitty latch, literally everything except low supply....but here I am 3 months in still going, on a combination of formula, pumped milk and boob.

I posted on a local baby group today a picture of me feeding, with a caption about how proud I was to still be going at nearly 3 months despite all the crap...thanking my local group and its peer supporters for their role in keeping me going and encouraging others to seek their help as they were so lovely and wonderful.

It started off well...messages of congrats and other stories of the peer supporters helping out new mums. Suddenly out of nowhere I got called arrogant and told I should have some respect for all the mums that choose to formula feed and I shouldn't throw be throwing it down everyones necks. Before I knew it loads of other mums all joined in, basically saying breastfeeding is nothing to be proud of and I should shut up. Things along the lines of 'big whoop you can feed your baby I cant so this makes you better than me? Piss off.'

I quickly deleted it, feeling really ashamed of myself. I'm on the verge tears now every time I think about it. Am I being unreasonable here? I honestly wanted to give up so many times....but the local group kept me going and if posting about my success can encourage other mums to seek their help then that's surely only a good thing?

I don't know.

' I am trying to help other women.'
Oh op give it a rest. First your faux innocent 'I only said I was proud!', now you're only trying to help .

If people want your advice theyll ask for it.

Does no-one else see how messed up this is?

I have noticed similar. There appears to be two camps of mums who FF: ones that never wanted to and ones that struggled. I can’t imagine the ones who never wanted to getting offended (unless they weren’t confident in their decision, not sure). I can see why women who struggled may get upset seeing your post but I’d like to think they’d at least understand why you’d feel proud and see the greater need for support.

But if this was true then it wouldn’t be such a heated topic, so I know I’m missing something.

People are so so sensitive about breastfeeding -
NCT, some midwives / HV and generally terrible pre natal feeding education etc have fuelled such a superiority narrative about breastfeeding in recent years.

The pride is about feeding the way you wanted in the face of adversity (not the fact that you breastfed over formula). Breastfeeding (sometimes feeding full stop) is so so hard and it does feel like an achievement to manage it in the face of everything. Agree it doesn’t make you better / worse than anyone else. I fed through mastitis, an abscess which required surgery and 3 months of my breast being packed thrice weekly. Was I proud at the end of it - yes, because I wanted to keep feeding (in addition to using formula). Friends and family commented on how well I had done to stick to what I wanted in the face of adversity. Did I feel superior to mums who chose, or had to follow a different route - no. For context I combi fed first time following abscess and second time due to low weight.

We need to do something radical to promote the ‘fed is best’ motto and support better pre-natal feeding education. Agree that posting about your pride invites the inevitable bun fight. Not your fault OP, it all gets a bit ridiculous. X

I just think it's depressing that so many are left with so much baggage. Its shit that our system of pressuring mums to breastfeed and not always backing it up with the right support has led to this.

Does no-one else see how messed up this is?

Yep.

Smug, obsessed, have an agenda...people wouldn't say the same for someone posting a photo of them bottle feeding. It's pathetic. There should be more support for women who struggle coming to terms with not BFing (btw there is a great book by Amy Brown on the subject), but that shouldn't be by BFing women being told to not talk about it, or that they are posting about it to hurt others. Horrible and nasty.

But you were just using 'signposting' as an excuse to post a smug photo

@Wolfgirrl gosh...you're just all sorts of mean aren't you?

I haven't read the full thread but just wanted to say well done OP. Breastfeeding isn't easy and it is wonderful that you have gotten such great support, especially during lockdown. Haters will be haters, people get very defensive around this topic.

But surely any feeding plan with a newborn is a "journey"? FF and BF alike? Both have their trials and tribulations and both frankly sound nightmarish to me. By trying to say OP is being wanky or smarmy by calling it a journey is projecting. She didn't say "I'm on a arduous journey. FF is easy, so don't even attempt to compare". It's like twats anonymous up in this bitch.

@Megan2018

YANBU

I’m about to hit the 12 months mark and have fed 100% from breast. It’s been an incredible experience that I am so proud of but you daren’t talk about it with anyone not BF. It’s batshit. It doesn’t do anything to promote BF if we have to keep quiet about it in case we offend the sensitive because they found it hard.

Same as having an easy pregnancy and birth and a good hospital experience- people only want to hear the negative shit.

This

It's like twats anonymous up in this bitch. 😂

Telling breastfeeding women to keep their pride and sense of achievement to themselves so they don’t offend those of us who weren’t able to meet BF goals is ridiculous. It’s tone policing and it’s not fair. Fuck silencing one group of women for the so-called benefit of another - I came off social media for world breastfeeding week because I knew I’d see something that’d upset me, I didn’t demand the mum groups etc I’m in not post about it

Why did you feel the need to post it in the baby group though? If someone needs help I’m sure they can ask in the baby group and then you can sign post.

And yeah. The “offended” is minimising. I was devastated. It contributed massively to my PND that I couldn’t feed DD1.

If you’d even just said if anyone needs help and support with BF these are the people to go to - but you posted a whole thing about how great you were for trying hard enough. Inference. To me. At that time. I didn’t try enough.

As someone else said, it’s about knowing your audience.

Why not post it in a baby group? Breastfeeding is a perfectly normal thing for a mum of a baby to do not some obscure hobby.

But the OP was not talking about breastfeeding in a natural conversation, she started a conversation about herself, it's different

@Davros

I don't like anyone being "proud" of anything. It's patronising

😂🤣😂

Why are one group allowed (rightly) to express a set of feelings about their feeding experience but another group are dismissed and minimised as bitter, offended etc when they talk about theirs? I’d never comment on a post like the OP’s on FB, I’d scroll on by, but why are women who did feel shame around formula feeding just told to shut up and get over it when it’s so obviously a result of the terrible narrative around BF in this country which uses shame as motivation instead of support. It wouldn’t be happening to so many women if it wasn’t a system wide problem.

@dancingcatgif did you read @isadora post?

Congrats on everything you went through to meet your own personal goal in terms of the way you wanted to feed your baby. That's fantastic and you should be really proud. But posting about it on social media isn't a good idea. Whether rightly or wrongly, people will make negative assumptions about your opinion on others' feeding methods i.e. they will assume you think you are better than they are. (Even if they don't know you, and you don't know them.) Far better just to share your pride with trusted close friends/family. Who needs the validation of a bunch of people on the internet, anyway?

People make such a big deal about BF, and at the time it is of course a massive deal to most mothers (whether they BF or not). But parenting is not a competitive sport. It doesn't really matter what anyone else is doing, as long as their parenting style does not raise safeguarding issues e.g. violence or leaving young children home alone for hours.

There will be many, many issues along the road where opinion divides and it can get nasty. Starts with pregnancy/birthing choices, then you have the BF/FF thing, then the weaning debate (when? how?), whether or not (and how) to sleep train, pushchair vs sling, which car seat, etc. It's not worth engaging in it; it'll cause you far more harm than good.

FWIW I breastfeed DD exclusively for six months and then continued to feed her, along with giving food, both day and night for YEARS. Like seriously, longer than anyone would think it's possible/advisable to feed. She never cried herself to sleep alone in a cot (coslept for many years and she still ends up in our bed at some point most nights). Followed full baby-led weaning. Super-safe car seat (rearfacing until six years old, still in a high back booster at almost 10 years old). Slung her for years because she needed to be close; the pushchair was used only by grandparents. Impressive example of a devoted mother, right?

I also essentially managed to wean her onto junk food - she's still scared of vegetables and has a horrible diet. I went back to work before she was ready to part with me and she sobbed Every. Single. Day. at drop off for four years. Her sleeping is a total nightmare, she's permanently exhausted and so am I. Done fuck all school work since they shut in March and won't even read a book. Gets bugger all fresh air and has more screen time than can possibly be good; it keeps her happy while I ignore her all day trying to work from home.

Much less impressive, right? In fact you could argue I'm a fairly awful parent, based on the last paragraph.

We are all wonderful parents in some ways and crap in others. Recognising the things we're good at and bad at is helpful, so we can do more of the good and work on the bad. But there is zero need to publish any of this on Facebook. It helps no-one.

I had lots of friends tell me I was making my life harder by breastfeeding. It wasn't something I went on about either, just fed 'em and got on with it. I just said it was all fine when they offered that opinion. Don't worry too much about the opinions of others, sounds like you've struggled and it's ended up working well for you.

They're probably looking in the mirror and seeing a nasty bully who spends their time trying to upset people behind their keyboards and don't like what they see so are lashing out at you.

I bf my 11mo and bf my first too. When people ask how I feed I automatically feel uncomfortable saying I bf because I get "still?! You're spoiling them" or "right well I tried but I couldn't". It makes me feel guilty when I've nothing to feel guilty about!

Yrs you should be proud. I too struggled in the beginning and I'm now still feeding my 1 year old. It is something to be proud of giving your baby thr best start in life! Others should just not say nothing if they have nothing nice to say, its probably out of guilt or grief that they didn't or couldn't breastfeed their baby

@BikeTyson

Why are one group allowed (rightly) to express a set of feelings about their feeding experience but another group are dismissed and minimised as bitter, offended etc when they talk about theirs? I’d never comment on a post like the OP’s on FB, I’d scroll on by, but why are women who did feel shame around formula feeding just told to shut up and get over it when it’s so obviously a result of the terrible narrative around BF in this country which uses shame as motivation instead of support. It wouldn’t be happening to so many women if it wasn’t a system wide problem.

People should be able to be honest about how they felt about formula feeding whether it's ashamed or feeling they made an empowered choice. No one should be shouted down for expressing how they felt about their own experience.

Some people were given a medal at primary school for coming last and it shows

If people manage to do anything - even something as basic as feeding their child and they are proud they should be able to celebrate. Feel free to celebrate the fact you made up bottles every night and kept the water clean if you like no ones stopping you.

Congrats op, very well done.

I am trying to help other women. How can anyone do this if we are forced to remain silent to appease the wishes of those who are offended by breastfeeding.

It's not about being 'offended' - what a ridiculous way to put it.

It's more being unable to see the need for the jubilant posts about how treacherous the 'journey' has been, how hard they've persevered, how much pain and anguish a mother has been through to successfully breastfeed...
To post that under the guise of 'wanting to support others' is quite disingenuous. You asked 'Is breastfeeding not something to be proud of anymore?'

If you wanted to point people in the right direction towards support it's kind of you to do so, if someone posts to ask.

It's the same as mums taking about a natural, painkiller & intervention free birth.
You're proud of yourself, that's great - but others don't need to be proud for you. And they aren't a worse mother than you for choosing/needing to do something different.