To feed my baby using plastic bottles. Just had a row with DP

[CassandrasCastle]

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/19/bottle-fed-babies-swallow-millions-microplastics-day-study]
I have just been accused of not caring for our baby (formula fed since week 2. My decision, I couldn't take it anymore. I still don't think he completelyunderstands this.) because I'll continue to use plastic Tommee Tippee bottles after reading this Guardian article DP found today. He's usually incredibly wonderful and supportive, and I think I'm probably being a cow.
But we're currently not really speaking despite apologising to each other about outburst on both sides.
If I continue with the plastic bottles for 6 month old DD AIBU?

[DuchenneParent]

I am late for this thread, but... Tell him fine, no problem, you are not fully convinced about the risk but he is welcome to supply bottles he feels comfortable with.
More importantly, tell him that of course you care about your baby, what he said was deliberately nasty and hurtful and to never speak to you like that again.

[Calligraphy572]

Wait. Wait. Why are you to blame for the plastic bottles?

I mean, once you aren't breastfeeding (and fair enough, it's not for everyone), it is equally his job to feed the baby. So HE has allowed his child to go for months drinking out of bottles that he now sees as dangerous?

OP, tell him to come up with and implement a solution if he is worried.

[NewlyGranny]

So neither of you was being 'uncaring' until he spotted the article, and then you both were, presumably? He can hardly blame you for doing something you both thought was fine, can he? Not and come across as a rational human being, anyway.

You have a precious firstborn and you are both totally committed to her. He needs to stop letting his emotions run his brain and do something practical, like go out and buy pyrex bottles that won't break as easily as regular glass.

Job done!

Breast milk isn't all that, you know. My generation (growing up with pesticides in the 50s and 60s) got told that our milk probably drew so many toxic chemicals from our stored fat that it would be condemned as unfit for human consumption if anyone ever decided to test it. The authorities widely never tested because breastfeeding had other perceived advantages. I do sometimes look at my now-adult offspring (all bf until age 2) and wonder how much DDT I gave them. I grew up in a hot climate with mosquitoes, flies and ants galore and somebody was always spraying for something, usually in our bedrooms when we were going to sleep!

Any way you feed your baby that means she is contented and thriving is AOK and your DH needs to pipe down and stop stressing you. In the UK your HV could get on the phone and talk sense to him. 🤷🏼‍♀️

[VeniceQueen2004]

So many issues with this thread!

Firstly OP, your husband was very wrong to say you didn't care about your daughter. And even wronger to keep on sulking now. You love your child, he knows that and it was a bullying thing to say.

However he is not wrong to take on board new evidence and suggest making changes based on it. Any more than the researchers are wrong to investigate and then publicise their research because it might make parents feel bad. I'm sure a lot of parents felt awful when the evidence about the effects on infants of passive smoking came out; doesn't mean people didn't need to know, so they can potentially adapt their behaviour in the light of that knowledge.

I also disagree he has no right to comment. Your breastfeeding choices are entirely your own and he has no right to comment on those; having chosen not to breastfeed, feeding then becomes something that can involve many people and so his view on how it should be done - as with cloth vs disposable, sleep training vs attachment parenting, and myriad parenting decisions - should be taken into account, if not acted on at least considered properly. Not just dismissed because he is the father not the mother.

Second, amazed by all these people saying glass bottles are dangerous because babies will drop them - babies shouldn't be holding their own bottles! If they're old enough to feed themselves they're old enough to use a sippy cup; if they need bottle-feeding, you should be feeding them with the bottle, not leaving them to get on with it.

And saying they might get knocked over - so do you stop using all ceramics and glass for the duration of your child's babyhood? Or do you put things out of the way and practice normal risk management? I know I wasn't drinking my tea out of a bamboo travel cup when my baby was little. Just being safe. Or there's the stainless steel option. Or even the option of changing the way you prepare the bottles to reduce the risk. Many options, some more expensive in money, some in time. But a range of options. And if none of them are possible for you, then of course you have to do the best you can do with what resources are available, no guilt. You can only do what you can do.

People making out that this evidence has been presented purely to exacerbate mum guilt are projecting wildly. People need to know these things so they can make informed choices! There's a traditional Hindu right of passage where a drop of honey is put on the newborn's tongue; should scientists not mention the risk of botulism from honey before 12 mths in case it upsets Hindus who have done this or plan to? Facts are facts, if they're out there you can do what you want with them, if they're concealed to spare people's feelings then nobody benefits from new knowledge.

[TheWernethWife]

OP is getting a hard time from some posters.

If DH is so concerned then he needs to get himself down to the shop/chemist and buy glass bottles, not just throw orders about. Why can't he go and buy them or to paraphrase another poster "is it laziness"

Stop giving yourself a hard time OP.

[VeniceQueen2004]

Breast milk isn't all that, you know. My generation (growing up with pesticides in the 50s and 60s) got told that our milk probably drew so many toxic chemicals from our stored fat that it would be condemned as unfit for human consumption if anyone ever decided to test it

Got told by whom? Formula companies by any chance? Any reason why cows whose milk the formula was derived from were spared the same exposure?

[Bollss]

People making out that this evidence has been presented purely to exacerbate mum guilt are projecting wildly. People need to know these things so they can make informed choices!

But it's not enough info to make an informed decision about is it? Baby consumed X amount of microplastics but what does that actually mean? What risk does that present? Nobody knows.

You could say baby is consuming X amount more of y than adults about absolutely anything but it means nothing if you don't know the consequences of that.

[VeniceQueen2004]

@TrustTheGeneGenie

It's enough to know that babies fed from plastic bottles consume more microplastics than those fed by other means. People can read around the subject of microplastice and decide for themselves if that's something they mind happening or not. It may not be complete information but it's always better to know more than less, surely?

[Bollss]

[quote VeniceQueen2004]@TrustTheGeneGenie

It's enough to know that babies fed from plastic bottles consume more microplastics than those fed by other means. People can read around the subject of microplastice and decide for themselves if that's something they mind happening or not. It may not be complete information but it's always better to know more than less, surely?[/quote]
It's better to know more if you know the consequences of it. I don't see how anyone can make an informed decision about this when even the experts can't tell us whether it matters or not. And her dh didn't do this he came in all guns blazing having a go at her.

[Brefugee]

But I just don't want to do all the extra steps needed to make the plastic 'safe'... DD is healthy - she's had one cold in her 6 months on earth. Sleeps pretty well.

then

how do i feel so hurt and horrible

Frankly, your DP has a point. You don't want to inconvenience yourself a little more to avoid something that is pretty awful.

What was his suggestion? He can go out and replace all the plastic with glass. You can mix in glass and transfer to the plastic bottle. Cold steralisiing etc etc.

But you're just moaning because he said you don't care?

[pickingdaisies]

To be fair brefugee, OP had already made up a bottle, and was getting dinner ready. Dp was reading the guardian online. Bit rich to accuse OP of being lazy because she was a bit busy at that moment.
OP I am a bit worried about the background noise here. Is your dp chipping away at your self-esteem? Maybe not purposely, but even so? It's just that you seem to be doing the running around while DP makes suggestions. Is he expecting a lot of you because he's working?

[AlmostAlwyn]

I think some people are exaggerating how the conversation went. From what the OP said, he didn't come in "all guns blazing having a go at her". He wanted her to read an article that concerned him. She was busy and stressed out and snapped. He snapped back. The end.

Sounds like you both need to look into it a bit more and decide what you want to do. Information is not designed to make anyone feel bad. It's there to inform and you make your own decision based on your circumstances.

I know all the benefits of cloth nappies. I know all the drawbacks of disposable nappies. I use disposables. There's a part of me that feels bad that I don't use cloth, but it doesn't consume me, and if my husband was to bring me an article with some new information about it, I'd consider it (in my own time) and we could perhaps reassess what we do.

It sounds like a subject that is already sensitive for you, and it also sounds like he knows that (from the "don't know how to ask you without you going mad" comment), but I would take a step back and not take this as a personal attack on your feeding choices. Have a look into the research yourself, and if you don't agree, then you can make a reasoned argument for sticking with what you do now.

[SarahAndQuack]

I think you have to be quite innocent, not to say naive, if you don't realise that this research was picked up and publicised because newspapers know that scare stories about feeding babies are popular stories.

It's not like the OP's husband has rigorously trawled through all the peer-reviewed articles in journals that he could lay his hands on, carefully assessing each piece of evidence in context. He's read one piece cherry-picked by a Guardian reporter who knows that making women feel guilty about not breastfeeding is always a worthwhile media strategy.

I think it's totally fair to have an opinion based on reading a piece in the paper - we all do it, life is short, most of us aren't qualified to interpret research hot off the press anyway. But it's not sensible to pretend that those opinions have proper scientific rigour. They can't.

[VinylDetective]

But it's not sensible to pretend that those opinions have proper scientific rigour. They can't.

Why not? I’ve read two reports in two different papers. They both reported facts. Neither of them offered an opinion.

[VeniceQueen2004]

@SarahAndQuack

Why it's picked up by the papers is neither here nor there; there has been some research, and these are the results. What that 'means' is of course open to interpretation, as is much in life; and whatever it 'means', how people respond to it is a choice. But it is not a negative thing that this information, top-level though it is, is available. People overreacting to it is their own issue.

[unmarkedbythat]

I think it's totally fair to have an opinion based on reading a piece in the paper - we all do it, life is short, most of us aren't qualified to interpret research hot off the press anyway. But it's not sensible to pretend that those opinions have proper scientific rigour. They can't.

You make it sound as if there was one newspaper piece based on nothing more than a random's opinion. Most newspapers covered it and the actual article submitted by the researchers can be read here.

I think you have to be quite innocent, not to say naive, if you don't realise that this research was picked up and publicised because newspapers know that scare stories about feeding babies are popular stories.

They are indeed popular stories. That does not mean it is sensible to discount them on the basis that "oh journalists like scaring people". Whatever motivates the journalists who report on it, the research is real and has real implications.

[VeniceQueen2004]

It's the same as when there were reports that breastmilk contains stem cells that reduce the risk of childhood cancers, or when research indicated that breastmilk was optimal for NICU babies to reduce the risk of necrotizing enterocolitis. A bunch of people who could not or chose not to breastfeed throw a shit fit because they don't like to hear in any way shape or form that any method of feeding but the one they use is optimal. This is factual information people have a right to be aware of, regardless of whether they are able to or ultimately choose to breastfeed or not. People are entitled to their feelings, they are not entitled to censor facts to protect them.

[VeniceQueen2004]

If someone reported, for example, that formula feeding had better outcomes for maternal mental health (I have plucked this example totally out of the air, no idea if research supports this but it is often a reason given by those who choose to ff, happy mum happy baby etc) - I wouldn't try to suppress this information just because I chose to breastfeed. It might be useful to someone! I wouldn't take it personally and say 'another article making bf mums feel guilty!' as if it was designed to upset me personally.

[SarahAndQuack]

@VinylDetective

But it's not sensible to pretend that those opinions have proper scientific rigour. They can't.

Why not? I’ve read two reports in two different papers. They both reported facts. Neither of them offered an opinion.

They offer an opinion merely by printing it, don't you see?

It's cherry picked.

That's fine - that's what newspapers do - but you'd look a right idiot if you treated it as scientific 'fact' or 'proof' of anything except the limited point that particular study set out to investigate.

[unmarkedbythat]

I'm struggling to understand your argument, Sarah. Do you feel it shouldn't have been reported on at all?

[SarahAndQuack]

[quote VeniceQueen2004]@SarahAndQuack

Why it's picked up by the papers is neither here nor there; there has been some research, and these are the results. What that 'means' is of course open to interpretation, as is much in life; and whatever it 'means', how people respond to it is a choice. But it is not a negative thing that this information, top-level though it is, is available. People overreacting to it is their own issue.[/quote]
I think this is seriously naive.

Of course it matters why it's picked up, and that it is picked up.

I agree it's not negative that the information exists. But it is sensible to think about why that information has been given the particular prominence it has.

You can't interpret this information in isolation; therefore it matters that it has been presented in isolation.

[VinylDetective]

They offer an opinion merely by printing it, don't you see?

No, I don’t see. That’s basically saying there’s no such thing as neutral news reporting, which is obviously bollocks.

[SarahAndQuack]

@VinylDetective

They offer an opinion merely by printing it, don't you see?

No, I don’t see. That’s basically saying there’s no such thing as neutral news reporting, which is obviously bollocks.

Of course there's no such thing as neutral news reporting!

And if there were, this certainly wouldn't be it. You know there are lots of researchers who publish their studies, right? Can you explain to me why the newspapers picked up this particular study, and how that decision was 'neutral'?

You think they just stick a pin in a journal?

[VinylDetective]

Can you explain to me why the newspapers picked up this particular study, and how that decision was 'neutral'?

Easily, research institutes publish the finding of their research and issue a press release. It was deemed newsworthy because the findings would be of interest to parents of babies who could assess the information and make decisions about baby bottles and sterilisation.

[AlexTheHalloweenCat]

It's hard having a baby and it sounds like you have a lot of your plate with moving countries.

Could you get some cheaper glass bottles and make the formula from the prep machine into them (as I'm guessing the heat from the hot shot would be the problem with the microplastics?), and then feed from the plastic bottles? I know it's a bit of a faff. Or use glass bottles in the day but not if the baby wakes for a feed in the night as everything is more difficult in the night?

Not sure if you are steam sterilising or water sterilising? Steam sterilising is quicker in some ways, but water sterilising means you can make up the sterilising solution every 24 hours in a tub with a lid and drop the bottles in for 15 mins whenever you need to sterilise.

I still use plastic bottles but baby is older and on cow's milk now, so I heat the milk in a mug and transfer to the bottle for feeding. I appreciate this is much easier with cow's milk than with formula!