To think formula is an amazing invention?

[IsoBordem]

As I was sitting and feeding my beautiful healthy, happy, and thriving baby I was suddenly so thankful for the existence of baby formula. It gets such a bad rap by some people but I would hate to think where she would be now if formula did not exist.

Seeing her in the hospital because she lost too much weight in her first week was heartbreaking. I will always be grateful that we live in an age where baby formula is available!

Gosh such a shame this thread has turned into yet a nothwr tedious breastfeeding formula debate when it was set up to say 'guess what I'm formula feeding and isnt it great?'

This thread is meant to be about how amazing formula is and not about bf. This article is definitely worth a read.

medium.com/@xoxoadrienne/why-choosing-to-formula-feed-was-the-best-decision-i-made-as-a-new-mom-9b220803ea4f

“it suited me best. I got to bond with dd, not feel like a cow who is nothing more than a milk bar. “

The act of breastfeeding actually releases oxytocin, so I’m not sure what you mean by you got to bond because you were bottle feeding instead of breast feeding

I’ve never felt like a cow or a milk bar

Good for you. I felt exactly like a milk cow.

The oxytocin made me feel sick (something the bf lobbyists never tell you) That lasted the whole 3 months I struggled feeding day and night on an almost hourly basis. By the time I gave up I was starting to resent my son.

That is hypothetical and insulting to me

Get over yourself. If that is how a woman feels she has every right to say so. I felt exactly that. I wasn't a person- just a milk producer. It is the only time in my life I hated my body or being a woman.

If you think my experience and my saying that "insults" you that is your problem.

'Get over yourself.'

Well said

[quote shesgonebatshitagain]@SistineScreamer

Quite the fan aren’t we?
I am not invalidating anyone’s experience.

I responded to a women who said she chose to FF from the first 24 hours because she did not want to feel like a cow or a milk bar. That is hypothetical and insulting to me and many other women who breastfeed and don’t feel like this at all. If she’d fed for months and said she stopped because she felt that way well that’s different but she didn’t.

I responded to another woman who said she didn’t get the whole magical thing about breastfeeding and challenged her on her ability to do this because she had never actually breastfed. I have breast and Bottle formula fed so I can compare the two. I wasn’t the only person to state this incidentally.

I then responded to a woman who made contradictory comments about the significance of feeding after saying in the scheme of parenting feeding choices were negligible. I even wrote in that post that I understand and get the benefits of formula feeding but that in my view and experience it’s the opportunities to do something other than breastfeed that bring about the increased bonding not the bottle feeding itself. This is especially true when you consider that millions of women say they love the fact they can give their baby to someone else to feed or share the night feeds, etc etc And that this helped them enjoy being a mother more.

If you find this offensive and insulting as I have before it says more about you than me or my views. I stand by all my comments. If you don’t like them that’s fine but your rantings suggest you haven’t even read them properly.[/quote]
A fan?😂 definitely not, quite the opposite, but what’s the point in me saying you’re doing this, that and the other without showing you? Then I’d be accused of making it up. You’ve belittled many women on this thread and insinuated that it’s fine for breastfeeding advocate to post on w formula thread about how much superior breastfeeding is - the shoe certainly fecking fits.

I didn’t say YOU were demonising anyone. I’ve said there’s people on this thread who have felt demonised and criticised which you’ve suggested are over the top. You’ve invalidated their feelings because YOU haven’t personally seen it.

Oh for the love of -🤦🏼‍♀️ It doesn’t matter if she’d fed for 24 hours or 24 months. She didn’t like and felt however she did. That’s her experience. So it’s okay for you to say how insulting you find that but it’s not okay for her to feel like feel it? Right, okay. All about you then, init?

You didn’t ‘suggest’ squat. You TOLD her what she was feeling wasn’t what was actually happening because she’d mentioned an increase in bonding when bottle feeding. But that can’t happen with bottle feeding in your world, can it? Because it couldn’t have been that she felt a bond while feeding her child. It HAD to be that she was happy about shifting the burden of feeding to someone else.

Your post to her wasn’t about her questioning the magical bond of breastfeeding though. It was about you not understand what she ‘meant’ by having a bond because she bottle fed.

You’ve also ignored the mental health comments and telling others they’re wrong for feeling what they do because you don’t see it that way. I find it funny that you can tell me I haven’t read your comments properly and that it’s all down to a problem with me as to how I see them when other women here have reacted exactly the same way. So no, it says nothing about me and everything about your inability to grasp that others feel differently than you do about something you love and that translate to you ask their experience not happening or being ‘incorrect’.

This is not a bf vs formula debate. this is is about how actually it is great we do have formula and that more importantly the majority of us in the uk have facilities to make it savely. I am as pro breast as they come but formula has a place and I for one are plased it exists.

Just nipping on to ask for a bit of peace and love here. If we have to keep making deletions we'll end up having to pull the thread which we never like to do.

@SistineScreamer

These are my comments
Nowhere have I said a formula or bottle feeding mother doesn’t bond with her baby’s in fact I wrote to say as much would be ridiculous.

Yet these comments below boil your piss to the extent that they seem to, for no other reason than the fact I am describing some of my positive experiences what research suggests around breastfeeding.

That is as another poster told me recently “your problem”

Nobody is saying formula feeding mothers don’t bond with their baby but to say holding a bottle is the same as a baby sucking at a Nipple to trigger let down and a release of oxytocin into the mother’s bloodstream - and to say this when they themselves have never actually breastfed - is curious.

From my own personal experience holding my child and giving them a bottle is not the same as breastfeeding.

This is not to say that I am better I am not
This is not to say you do not have a bond with your children that would be ridiculous.

But one of the advantages of formula feeding is that anyone can hold the baby and the bottle and enjoy the moment with the baby, whereas physically and biologically unless breast milk is expressed only the mother can do this. By virtue of it being a bodily function certain things happen within the body that the mother experienced and feels. It is unique.

New mothers are often encouraged to look at a photo of their baby when expressing milk and I did this when my third baby was unwell in hospital at at two days old. It does work.

The act of breastfeeding actually releases oxytocin, so I’m not sure what you mean by you got to bond because you were bottle feeding instead of breast feeding.

I’ve never felt like a cow or a milk bar. I love breastfeeding it is a very special time for you and your baby or child. I love the fact that breastfeeding is a source of comfort and security for them too. When they have hurt themselves or been unwell breastfeeding has got us through a lot of times like these. It’s just me and them. I would say it is actually quite magical and for you to reduce it to the function of a cow or a milk bar tells me something about it is difficult for you to deal with so you make assertions like this.

Furthermore once most women have got through the first few days and got used to cluster feeding then breastfeeding is very good for the mother

“ I didn't need to ruin myself mentally to try try and try again”

There has been research into breastfeeding and women’s postpartum mental health. There are some interesting articles on the subject. Women who breastfeed were found to be at lower risk of developing PND in the first place than women who do not breastfeed in one study. For women who do have PND, breastfeeding has been linked to fewer depressive symptoms. Regular breastfeeding at three months has also been attributed as one of the factors that can contribute to a greater decline in symptoms of PND.

Your body your choice but when I read comments like this it seems to mean your body your choice = validation through criticism or denigration of the opposite of your choice.

Notice not once have I said anything derogatory formula feeding.

Shouldn’t have to bring something else down if you are secure in what you decide.

You can’t make any statement about how you found breastfeeding in comparison to formula feeding because you have never breastfed.

You can’t make any statement about how you found breastfeeding in comparison to formula feeding because you have never breastfed.

My response to ShivD
Formula is great for all sorts of reasons. It is how a BIG majority feed their babies in the UK so I think lots of people would agree OP?!
Well quite.
I mean the breastfeeding rates in this country are woeful and there are lots of babies being born so the maths isn’t hard it is grin

Plus lots of women combination feed too

I have breastfed and formula fed though the latter to a much smaller degree. My babies didn’t sleep better on formula. My babies weren’t more content on formula. In fact the opposite.
Also I think that choosing to stop doing something you hated doesn’t by dint of that make something else superior as a bonding experience. If you are honest you probably were relieved to get off what you saw as a hamster wheel of breastfeeding and you appreciated the fact that other people could take your place at feeding time, have a meal, get some sleep. These are all benefits and I totally understand that, but these suggest increased independence from a baby rather than an increased level of bonding through switching to a bottle. You found the end result of a different process more appealing not the actual act itself.

These are my actual comments

These threads always go the same way. If you want a thread on how wonderful breastfeeding is it will get derailed by disgruntled formula feeders and visa versa.

It just can't happen. People get offended by the opposite choice that they made or were forced to make.

FYI to the poster who derided my bonding experience with formula. No it wasn’t because I passed them over to somebody else it was because it so much more lovely and enjoyable. They loved it more as did I. We all looked forward to feeding instead of dreading it.

Also breast feeding caused my PND and there was zilch oxytocin during breast feeding, plenty of stress hormones they were consuming and sensing though . Plenty of lovely oxytocin type feelings during formula. It was amazing. I feel cheated we lost so many months of it.

I mix fed my DS for the first few months so I do have the perspective of someone who has done both. I didn't find bf a particularly bonding or joyful experience. You don't, when you're struggling. The members of the online bf groups were far too busy congratulating themselves on getting their 'golden boobies' to be helpful other than saying 'get into bed for a full day and do skin to skin and eat oats' - none of it helped. The midwives and, later, the HV couldn't help with my sons latch. We just weren't a good fit for bf. I don't think the experience was particularly bonding for him either - fighting to get more milk from my breasts. Or me not being able to hold him because I was pumping.

When I eventually decided just to formula feed full time, after the initial feeling of omg I'm feeding my baby poison (fucking bf groups ) it felt AMAZING. I used to bring a bottle upstairs, sit up in bed and snuggle him into me, skin to skin, watch him get all happy and full and milk drunk. So much weight lifted from me. Parenting became a joy and not a constant struggle. We still have an amazing bond, he's 3 and we bedshare. Couldn't be closer. He's smart and strong and healthy and funny. I regret nothing.

Dressingown you have just summed up exactly my feelings and experience of the formula joy after breast feeding misery.

Yes, from what I can tell from threads like these and from talking to women postnatally, breastfeeding is a lovely bonding experience when it is going well, but can be a barrier to bonding when it's going badly.

Fine as a product. Does a job better than pure cows milk for developed countries.
The companies behind it are not fine. It shouldn’t be marketed the way it is, and pushed on poor countries causing deaths. But that’s what you get when companies want to make money!

Breast milk and formula will both sustain a baby perfectly adequately. Well, not quite - breast milk does not supply enough vitamin D, so breast fed babies need supplements, whereas formula is designed to provide optimum levels of every nutrient.
If you look at adults, you can’t tell how they were fed as infants. It makes damn all difference.
So how about accepting each other’s choices, and just agree to differ?
I find it shocking that mothers who are unable to breast feed feel they have failed, or are criticised by breast feeding zealots.
It is the least important aspect of being a mum. Life is too short, and stacked against women, for us to fight amongst ourselves about something so trivial.

Great post Babdoc

@Babdoc, you are wrong to say that breast milk does not supply enough vitamin D. Some women may be vitamin D deficient themselves, and as this deficiency is rarely tested for, they recommend supplements for BF women as a matter of course. Most women will not be deficient.

I think it's interesting to read how strongly people seem to feel one way of the other. When I had DD1, 13 years ago, I was the youngest (at 26) at my (council run - no NCT near me!) ante natal classes and everyone seemed keen to try BFing. Once we had had our babies, 8 out of 10 had managed to start BFing, but after 6 weeks only I and one other had continued. When we met up to celebrate the babies being 6 months old, I was the only one BFing and was made to feel a bit 'odd' for carrying on "so long". Unfortunately, this contributed to me stopping earlier than I would have liked to, but FF did mean I could have some time off and other people could get more involved.

When I had DD2 18 months later, I was more confident in BFing and she took to it quickly. I breezed past the 6 month mark but one day when she was 10 months old and was cruising around, holding on to the furniture, my MIL and SIL started laughing saying "Gosh Betsy, she'll be walking soon - can you imagine seeing a child walk up to her Mother and ask to be BF'd?!?" It wrecked my confidence and I felt so embarrassed. I was ashamed to BF her in their presence after that and stopped soon after.

I won't be having any more children, but if I did, and they (and I) got on well BFing, then I would happily continue until they were 2 (as per WHO recommendations). I am really grateful for FF, without it, millions of women wouldn't have the option in what are sometimes, life or death circumstances.

One of my BFFs tried BFing for 4 weeks with DS1, but was having to top up with FF. She was so upset, she felt ashamed and a failure, but it was simply that she didn't have enough breast tissue. She FF from birth with DS2 and was happier from the start. I agree with PPs that FF should be introduced at ante natal classes as an option and women should be told that problems with BFing can occur, which mean that for some women it simply isn't possible for them to BF, no matter how much they want to.

This thread is titled ‘To think formula is an amazing invention?’ Let’s keep on topic and avoid derogatory comments which run the risk of the thread being pulled.

Formula is amazing - it’s means happy healthy babies and parents. Add in a perfect prep and the microwave sterilisation unit, it helps makes life that bit easier for new parents. Formula should be celebrated not criticised. You cant how anyone of us were fed as babies and there are many more significant decisions to be made throughout a child’s life.

Totally agree @Babdoc

A fantastic post.

Shame others cannot view it so simply