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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

IN wanting to set up a Mumsnet No Man's (Mum's) Land between BFers & FFers?

246 replies

Iklboo · 14/12/2007 13:59

We're NEVER going to agree on this subject so I'm setting up a nice quiet bunker somewhere in the middle entitled

"I DID WHAT WAS BEST FOR MY BABY AND I DON'T CARE WHAT ANYONE ELSE SAYS LA LA LA LA LA"

Not being flippant, disrespecful, rude or anything like that. Just neutral.

OP posts:
IorekByrnison · 15/12/2007 00:38

Me too Quattrocento - I happen to be a saggy-boobed selfish old bag. And I don't go anywhere without my magic knickers.

Twinklemegan · 15/12/2007 00:39

Silkcushion - your second paragraph. That was me, exactly. The trouble was that when formula came into the equation it didn't make it any better. Yes, I could do one or two feeds a day that weren't accompanied by tears of pain. Those tears of physical pain were replaced by tears of real sadness and disappointment in myself.

I can now look back in hindsight and realise that it was the right thing to do, and to be fair giving some formula did finally enable me to bond with DS. But at the time it made me feel even worse. And I was in the lucky position that it probably was the right thing to do. Other women have been badly misadvised and they may never be able to accept what happened.

Monkeytrousers · 15/12/2007 00:41

No time, LieselVonGiftwrap, but thanks IorekByrnison!

PrisonerCellBlockAitch · 15/12/2007 00:41

well in a way, niecie, yes, that's exactly my point, that sliding out of bfing would likely be easier on her than just giving up straight. in the time it took my bfing to fail altogether because i was topping up with formula (18 weeks)i did come to see that i was doing my best and the situation was out of my hands, but i just couldn't have had that perspective at three weeks. it still hurt, but it was much less painful emotionally having bfing give me up over time. i think i'd have been at severe risk of PND had i given in to the encouragement to give up when dd was younger.

silkcushion · 15/12/2007 00:41

pmsl @ quattro

I'm not brave Niecie I just can't stand people who are really inflexible/militant/opinionated/intolerant about anything really not just bf.

The problem with internet forums is that you are reading script and put yr own interpretation on the implied tone of what is being said. I may have been wrong last night and got offended too easily. I was fuming btw. Could be the fact I haven't slept for 7 goddamn nights .

PrisonerCellBlockAitch · 15/12/2007 00:43

god, yes, liesel, of course. i've had to put a couple of people straight on that myself, silly fuckers. i know their names, still...

Twinklemegan · 15/12/2007 00:43

Aitch - I can't believe how similar our experiences are! My breastfeeding finally stopped at around 18 weeks too and I totally agree about that gradual process being much better emotionally, albeit still very painful.

silkcushion · 15/12/2007 00:45

Twinkle - i'm sorry you had such a shitty time. My point is why do we feel like this? bf pressure!

Anywy I'm off to bed now cos my baby isn't crying for once!!!

PrisonerCellBlockAitch · 15/12/2007 00:46

i do think that the people who were on that thread don't tend to be militant/inflexible etc, so perhaps you didn't quite read it right. but your post did sound very dismissive, as i recall, and was likely misinterpreted as well, silkcushion.

liesel... i bet i know who said that to you, btw. how's the new bub?

PrisonerCellBlockAitch · 15/12/2007 00:48

no, silkcushion, truly, the pressure i experienced was to GIVE UP bfing, not to keep it going. my desire to bf came from me and me alone.

it's true, twinkle, i remember when you first came on here i saw you and thought 'oh yes, i hear ya'.

Twinklemegan · 15/12/2007 00:48

I don't want to keep you from your bed Silkcushion (and god knows I need mine to) but for me it wasn't breastfeeding pressure, it was my own personal pressure. It was me - someone who took 4 years to conceive, with suspected PCOS, with painful periods that hadn't been regular since my teens, who reacted badly to the Pill, who'd had a horrible birth experience - who desperately wanted something about my womanhood to be straightforward and normal. And I couldn't even get breastfeeding right. That was my personal pressure.

LieselVonGiftwrap · 15/12/2007 00:48

shes a cracker and Im proud to say FFed and contentedly sleeping through the night from 3 weeks... not bragging just adding some encouragement to fellow FFers

Twinklemegan · 15/12/2007 00:50

Oh God, ignore that completely unnecessary last sentence.

LieselVonGiftwrap · 15/12/2007 00:52

Twinkle. are you not just totally dumbfounded by the fact that you carried a healthy embryo for nine months and you will love it for the rest of its life. Women are fricken miracle workers in that respect. I look at my five month old baby and think "I made you and Im fricken proud as punch"

Twinklemegan · 15/12/2007 00:54

Absolutely yes Liesel, now. In the daze of those first few weeks and months I felt like the worst mother in the world, truly.

PrisonerCellBlockAitch · 15/12/2007 00:54

i've got to say that dd also slept well from about 6 weeks, which i did put down to the 'liquid cosh' of formula she got last thing... it's the one advantage i could see.

and yes, twinkle, yet again... i had problems conceiving and pcos etc (although a good, if medical, birth). you just yearn to be normal, don't you? and again that's something that thelady was talking about last night, her body having let her down before. i wonder if neicie and silkcushion stopped reading it halfway, before she was talking about that stuff?

IorekByrnison · 15/12/2007 00:54

Why ignore it? Is it so wrong for liesel's maternal pride to include the way that she's fed her baby?

PrisonerCellBlockAitch · 15/12/2007 00:56

no, for me it was more 'i made you and now i am letting you down at the very first hurdle therefore i will probably continue to be this rubbish forever and you will hate me'. not now, but then.

Twinklemegan · 15/12/2007 00:56

Lol, no! The last sentence of my own post, before Liesel's, where I completely repeated myself and ruined the impact of my carefully crafted words!

IorekByrnison · 15/12/2007 00:56

Sorry I've misunderstood that haven't I - which sentence were we supposed to ignore Twinkle?

PrisonerCellBlockAitch · 15/12/2007 00:57

no, i think twinkle was referring to 'that was my personal pressure', not liesel's pride.

IorekByrnison · 15/12/2007 00:57

Cross posts! sorry!

BeeWiseMen · 15/12/2007 00:57

please can we accept there's a difference between someone who is happy to ff and someone who is unhappy to ff but doing it because they can't get bf to work. I wish I was happy to ff because it would make things a hell of a lot easier but I'm not and telling me it doesn't matter makes me feel worse. (Hysterical as well as a failure???)

On that night when I decided to ff what I wanted was someone to say it was ok to ff but here are all your other options to mixed feed/bf. What I had was a child I could barely rouse to feed, a bf plan I felt was impossible and no idea who to turn to. I needed someone who understood how bf works to sit with me for an afternoon while i tried to feed dd, to work out a bf plan I could stick to and to say it's ok to stop and go to formula.

I think with better support I could have got further with bf than I did and I'm angry I didn't get that help and angry when someone tells me it doesn't matter.

Is there somewhere angry failed bfers can go to say what they needed because now (24 weeks too late) I know what would have helped me.

Twinklemegan · 15/12/2007 00:58

And not to mention, Liesel, that for the first six weeks of DS's life I was fairly indifferent to him really. I didn't feel I loved him, even though I knew I wanted to. His cries meant just one thing to me - yet more agonising pain for the next hour or so.

But like I said, it's all completely different now. I can't believe it's possible to feel so much love.

PrisonerCellBlockAitch · 15/12/2007 00:59

we mostly piss about on these threads waiting for people to tell us that it's not important and to get a grip. or keep an eye out for other mums in our situation and try to help...

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