to not beleive that a women not breast feed is selfish and using 'i couldnt' as an excuse?

[aleciawalton]

im a mum of 1 who bf till 15 months, and now pregnant with second and will bf. i also am a breast friend and took training to support mums who are bfeeding. ( learned how milk is produced, history, attachment...)

i just think that too many women use 'i couldnt bf' as an excuse. its only been in the last 50 to 60 years bottles and formula have been around. what happened back then??? did more then 50% of the babys die? no cuase back then 99% women breast fed! why could they do it then and not now???
i just feel it a cop out and the mums are just being selfish.
yes its hard, but so was labour, so raising a kid. however they choise to have the baby. i know it takes time and comittment and not having that all important wine drink. but i personaly think that its for how long??? if i can give my child the best start and yes it can take a year or 2 but is my child not worth it??
if some one said to you while prego you have a choise to either have your baby and make your child as healthy as it can be or just have the baby, what would you want? why do we give the baby vitamine K, if not to help the baby be healthy. would you not get your baby vaccinated?

sorry just makes me mad. when i hear my nipples hurt and thats cant be normal so i stopped. or babys 3 weeks old and wanted feeding all the time so it ment i didnt have enough milk so i stopped. or there's a xmas party i want to go to so im not going to bf. the exuces go one. i really love the one 'bf is not natural, its disusting'. WTF were breast made for then and why does milk come out of them???

WHAT! so blame society, blame the professionals, dont blame the women. SIL was told by a mw that fm was just as good as bm. i was unable to bf ds because of the amount of drugs that were pumped into me and post-op complications. those arent excuses, they are facts. and while we all know that breast is best (hate that term, makes me feel so guilty) its not always possible or practical. so climb down off your high horse please before you get vertigo!

BiB, how is namechanging sticking your head above the parapet?

And why does it need saying?

Breastisbest you may feel it to be true but it doesn't need saying on mn. I stand by my assertion earlier on in the thread that I would bet that no one on mn ff for reasons of lazyness or selfishness.
And in fact, what does it have to do with you anyway, how someone else feeds their child? And I didn't shoot AW down, I have been empathetic towards her. And post under your normal user name you coward.

and also in the West, many don't have the community and family support that they do in other places.

Alecia, stay out of the kitchen if you can't take the heat.

It doesn't need saying in the way you mean, BiB.

What does need saying is that there is a dreadful lack of support for women to breastfeed, a general woeful ignorance about bf within the health service and the UK is a bottlefeeding society, so although most women do want to breastfeed, it is very hard for many of them to do so.

But to say "lots of women bottlefeed because they can't be bothered to breastfeed" in smug, judgemental tones - why on earth does that need saying?!

oh for goodness sake

i wish i had breastfed, i wish , wish , wish i had

i even have dreams now where i am breastfeeding, and my baby is 2!!

had i had the right support, rather than a MW saying, it will be really hard to switch from bottle to breast, she;ll be really unsettled, and trying to latch her on, with a laptop in front of me with BF pictures, and a DH holding a book in front of me, with this poor baby lapping ineffectually at the nipple i would no doubt have been able to breastfeed

had i been given info re NCT, ABM , LLL, breastfeeding cafes, peer support etc.. i could have breastfed

hindsight is a marvellous thing

so call me selfish, but without the right knowledge and tools, i did not have a chance

breastfeeding is not supported adequately

here here lulu!

op
grow up
different experience for many different people

go bask in your superior ways
dont go judgey judgeing
you dont know!!! the reason(s)

I can't wait to your new thread in a few months when you are having difficulty in feeding your dc2 and trying to spend time with you first.

For me, yes i feel guilty for not being able to breastfeed dd1 but after 6 weeks of me being stressed and crying along with dd1 also stressed and crying my DH took made a bottle for her after i had been trying for hours to feed her.

She took the whole 4oz and wanted more. SHe was happy and to us that was the most important thing.

And as for dd2 my milk never came in, so was she supposed to stave.

Breastisbest,

Until you've lived my life you don't know what is and isn't selfish in respect of what I do/don't do for my children.

Unless you feed your children high quality 100% organic food and nothing processed once they are weaned you are giving them second class. Will you sacrifice clothes/that second car/larger house to buy this and pay for a wonderful private school which may suit them better than the local state option ? Will you alwasy ensure that they have natural fibre clothing as synthetics are second best ?

Not everyone is able to take a long maternity leave and get breastfeeding established, not everyone has a a 'helpful' dh or dp to back them up.

Unless you have walked a mile in the other woman's shoes you and those of your ilk have no right to judge.

Aleciawalton - bog off to Canada as soon as possible dear. Oh, and learn to spell, or do you prefer to use the lazy "I can't" excuse rather than putting in the effort trying to learn.

Personally I don't give a sh*t if you believe me or not!

Like Lulu I would have given anything to have done it - even went to BF classes beforehand... but wasn't to be...

and as for your last comment - why does milk come out of them - well it bloody well didn't !!!!!

Alicia, no one is telling you that you should leave. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. It is just that with such a narrow minded view point you were bound to evoke this kind of response.

As a mum who struggled terribly to bf ds but succeeded with dd I can see this from both sides. I cried endlessly for the fact that bf ds was not going to work, despite me struggling on for several weeks. I felt extremely guilty, and the sort of comments you made only make women in that situation feel a thousand times worse. Dd was totally different and I bf her for nearly 7 months when she self weaned. I still felt guilty for stopping with her, but it got to the point where she was refusing to latch on so I went with what she wanted. Should I then be condemned for not bf her for longer? I only hope that bf your next child will be as easy as the first, and that you do not run into any of the difficulties encountered by so many here.

Classic!

'I'm new here, and some of you are selfish gits'

'Oh, I thought this was a supportive place. I'm going to flounce and wait for you all to tell me to stay.'

Parp!

aleciawalton, your post doesn't seem to deserve all the anger directed at you

you were being honest about something you feel strongly about and as with many things, you can't discuss them in rl, so you come onto mn to have a rant and get something off your chest

your being a bit naive I'm sorry to say

there are many things on mn (like rl) you may feel strongly about but wouldn't dare discussing as you'll get so many outraged replies its not worth the bother eg. breastfeeding/mums staying home/food we give our kids etc etc.I could go on.............

don't take all the criticism too strongly, there will be many others who agree with you but would rather not get involved as they know they'll get their heads bitten off too!

hope you don't leave mn for good

its worth staying!

what a mean spirited op - designed to anger ! I tried and tried but couldn't - believe me I wished that I didn't have to make all those bloody bottles up and sterilise etc - but ds was very jaundiced and needed fluids in him quick smart so that we could get out of hospital.
I don't feel bad about it and resent people like op who make those of us who can't feel bad. For what it's worth, ds is bright,intelligent and gorgeous and one of the healthiest children I know - so there.

Alicia, I thought women were allowed freedom of choice these days?

same as hunkermunker

There needs to be more support and telling women they are lazy and selfish is not support in my book.

SSD, you really think the OP was OK, written in such a way that it should've provoked a discussion, not anger?

AW, I'll tell you what annoys me about posts like yours.

You have got people's backs up on here. You have made my life harder - I write reams of stuff supporting women to bf. But there have been and will be again posters who think I feel the same way as you because I have bfed and want to help other women to have better feeding experiences when nothing could be further from the truth.

That's what pisses me off about threads like this. They do nothing but cause anger, upset and hurt. Even the OPs of them get nothing out of it, afaics.

we know you dont feel like that hunker [grovelly emoticon]

Hmmmm maybe if there was more help from the midwifes maybe more women would breastfeed.
After a very hard labour with my dd I was vomiting and shaking ,the MW's more or less insisted she have a bottle I was too knackered to argue.
Of course up on the PN ward I asked a MW to help me get her on the breast she marched past me whilst saying.
"You can't mess her about like that you'll confuse her ,I'll get you a bottle"

This was in 2006

So I am so sorry we can't all be perfect like you

hunkermunker,whether or not I thought the op's post was ok is immaterial

what I think is wrong is the way she had so much anger directed at her and its put her off posting on mn

if I read an op that I disagree with I tend to ignore it otherwise I know I'm going to get sucked in

I'm trying to let the op know there are things here that will cause a major rumpus and she needs to realise what they are, otherwise she'll not get/find the support that mn can offer her and she sounds like she needs

alicia - i don't think you should leave mn as there is lots of support and advice on here. i think you should just be aware of others feelings and points of views on mn. i think by all means start threads like this with your views/beliefs/ feelings but remember that there are thousands of mnetters out there who have ther views and beliefs too which may or may not differ from yours.

we all know that breast is best, we all make our choices how we are going to bring up our children.

my boobs produced nothing what-so-ever - no colostrum, no milk, therefore i physically couldn't breastfeed either of my 2. it took 3 weeks for the last scab to come off my nipples (ouch!) please try to imagine how that made me feel? as a breast friend how would you have supported me?

not looking for applause for any of my posts BTW

I always wonder if people like the OP are that nasty in RL? Bet they're not

oh fgs