To think it’s disingenuous to say breastfeeding is free?

[Jerrui]

When pregnant encountered lots and lots of breastfeeding promotion- often it’s cited it being free as a benefit.

I have personally found as soon as you actually have a baby and are feeding it there is absolutely zero support. In my area there is no infant feeding team etc just community midwife who told me to substitute BF with FF at two weeks old when baby failed to regain birth weight.

I have spent hundreds of pounds on lactation consultant, double electric pump, milk storage, trying to keep breastfeeding going.

I have added formula top up and was shocked how cheap it is. We got bottles for free in those Emma’s diary type packs, and Aldi formula costs £2 a week.

I think trying to promote breastfeeding as a more economic option to pregnant women is stupid.
I feel actually public funds would be much better spend on training and recruiting to provide actual support to mothers trying to breastfeed, rather than health promotion with misleading, simplistic and dumbed down messages.
I feel it’s no wonder breastfeeding is mainly the preserve of the middle classes when you have to invest so much money to get any help!

You can say that about anything though. Running is said to be free exercise. But, people usually need to get appropriate footwear and clothes, if you get into it seriously or have difficulty you might need a trainer, if you're a woman you might get murdered while running outside of the gym. Nothing is truly free, breastfeeding saved me a ton of money though compared to formula.

The promotion I hated was that bf mums have so much extra time. I remember having a leaflet that explained I would have so much r&r because I didn't have bottles to wash and prepare. It literally had a picture of bf mum reading a book while ff mum washed bottles. I definitely wasn't reading a book in between cluster feeds. It was a mad dash for loo/shower/washing machine/kettle.

@Butteryflakycrust83

I saw something on twitter this morning that said ' breastfeeding is only free if you think a woman's time, bodies and care work is worthless.

How many women who actually breastfed agree with this? I don't feel like my time was wasted.

I breastfeed and still do my work in person, volunteer, go out. Batch express and freeze, I don't spend my life feeding or pumping at all.

Good if it makes you feel better about your experiences but this is some kind of groundbreaking women's rights quote. I don't feel my time is worthless and enjoy feeding most of the time.

I didn’t think about costs when deciding how to feed. I used formula from day one for convenience - 100% don’t regret the decision. The only outcome you want is healthy baby and happy parents

I’ve also heard: breastfeeding is only free if a woman’s time is worth nothing.

But feeding a child takes time however you do it! Someone has to feed a baby, and although this will be the mother's job when breastfeeding, it would also be true to say that formula feeding is only cheaper if a parent's time is worth nothing. If a father feeds a child formula, does that make their time worthless?

I spend longer preparing food and clearing up after my 10 and 6-year-olds than I did breastfeeding them as babies, and I could work while feeding when they were tiny in a way that I cannot while peeling carrots and slicing beans.

I'd say it can definitely be free. Many women have no need to pump and even if they do there is no need to buy an expensive electrical model.

And surely most people don't hire lactation consultants? I accept that I was lucky in that I found breastfeeding quite easy, at least after the first couple of weeks, but I don't think I was unusually lucky in that respect.

I have two children and in total breastfed for 3.5 years. With the first, because I knew I was going to have to go back to work when she was 5 months old, I bought a manual breast pump. I also bought a few bottles, a microwave steriliser, and a small cool bag plus perhaps one tube of nipple cream and a few packs of pads for the first couple of weeks. I don't know how much they would cost these days, but certainly under £100 I'd think. And I'd have bought the steriliser if I had bottle fed - and probably far more bottles.

As far as clothes are concerned, I bought a couple of nursing bras too but of course I'd have needed to wear a bra of some sort and I carried on wearing mine even after I had stopped breast feeding so I don't count them as extra expense.

I didn't buy anything new for the second child and I spent nothing on formula with either. I'd say a maximum of £100 for 3.5 years of milk is pretty cheap (though to be accurate the £100 was for 18 months and there was 2 years that cost nothing.

My main reason for wanting to breastfeed were the health benefits, but the cost and convenience were also a big attraction.

@jerrue, breastfeeding is totally free for many woman. You have been unlucky as you needed far more help to stimulate your milk than most. My dd breastfed both her boys and never needed any help with either and no breastfeeding consultants or formula top ups needed, she just had plenty of milk. If you are blessed with plenty of milk breastfeeding is totally free, if you need help and formula top ups your body was likely not making enough milk. Your body tends to produce more milk with each pregnancy so just because you could not successfully feed your first child does not mean you may have far more milk in second and subsequent pregnancies.

I breastfed my youngest for about 14 months and had a devil of a job getting rid of my milk after no longer feeding. It took 6 months to fully go.

Why are people being so dismissive? Lots of posters saying that it cost them a lot of money to breastfeed and then people come on and completely dismiss these women’s experiences. I would have assumed better from women, obviously not. Nobody is saying it costs all women money, just that it’s promoted as being free and that isn’t the case for all women. No wonder women feel not listened to…

@Bonnealle

Why are people being so dismissive? Lots of posters saying that it cost them a lot of money to breastfeed and then people come on and completely dismiss these women’s experiences. I would have assumed better from women, obviously not. Nobody is saying it costs all women money, just that it’s promoted as being free and that isn’t the case for all women. No wonder women feel not listened to…

Surely this works but he ways? Why is one persons experience more important than another's? Why be dismissive to those who - for whatever reason - didn't spend anything whilst breastfeeding? That's their experience. Who are you to minimise it?

@Bonnealle

Why are people being so dismissive? Lots of posters saying that it cost them a lot of money to breastfeed and then people come on and completely dismiss these women’s experiences. I would have assumed better from women, obviously not. Nobody is saying it costs all women money, just that it’s promoted as being free and that isn’t the case for all women. No wonder women feel not listened to…

We are allowed to disagree, women even, without casting aspersions on the 'sisterhood'.

This 'not free' business is being made out to be a bigger issue than it actually is in practice from women who do it in practice for a long time. Sure some women find it expensive but making mountains out of molehills is not painting the real picture either.

Among my peers I would say that BF was cheaper than FF.
I don't know anyone in RL who paid for a lactation consultant, though I know plenty who got help from LLL or the ABM.

A lot paid for pumps - mostly hand pumps and the associated kit.

My peers at that time were educated (mostly PhD level) and working in an international environment in academia.

I would say we mostly had very positive experiences.

What it did 'cost' us was our sleep, social lives and 'me time', but most of us regarded that as part and parcel of being a mother to a baby.

I bought a pillow thing that went round my waist and a pump - so £100 I would say.
Over 5 years that's fine.
Maybe I ate more chocolate though

It just depends on experience a bit I think. We had problems getting BF established – DD couldn't latch for about 8 weeks after birth, so I did spend money on a very good pump and a lactation consultant, and some other bits and bobs, so for me it wasn't free. But I'm due DC2 now and probably won't need to spend any of that as even if she has issues latching too, I am way more experienced than I ever wanted to be in dealing with it! So second time round it will probably be free in monetary terms.

In terms of ease and time spent, I think in the first few weeks, FF is probably easier than BF unless you have a very good experience with BF, which some people do. But at a certain point, that position swaps IMO. Once DD was about 12 weeks, it became really easy. I didn't have to take anything with me, plan days out or trips, etc. So I think it balances out a lot over time. Time spent breastfeeding isn't time that you would otherwise have to yourself with a newborn anyway. I can't imagine FF parents spend 20 mins giving a bottle and then don't pick their child up for three hours! The physical contact time from breastfeeding is still time that FF parents spend close to their babies. The difference is that time can be perhaps be split between parents more equally, but even when breastfeeding there was plenty of time for DH to take DD, and mixed feeding is absolutely an option too.

I'm breastfeeding a 10 month old. Beyond buying some reusable breast pads I've not spent anything on breastfeeding this time. I've not expressed milk and haven't needed to access specialist help. It can be free. However, your post raises really valid issues around the lack of breastfeeding support in this country and I'm not surprised you feel the way you do. It can be really hard when your feeding journey doesn't go to plan and when you feel unsupported. My first breastfeeding journey was quite rocky compared to this one so I have some insight here.

I had to do 50/50 BF/FF because of low supply. I did this for first year and found the BFing half cost double the formula feeding half. The BFing cost was also very heavily front-loaded. Within the first fortnight we had to shell out for a breast pump to try and force my milk to come in, nipple cream (£11 a tube!), the bottles and steriliser we'd been told antenatally were unnecessary as 'formula is unnecessary' as all women can EBF. I also ended up buying secondhand clothes for BFing in so kept that cost down but hadn't anticipated quite so much as people said you could just wear existing tops .

The basic calorie cost was slightly higher for BFing - 50% BFing cost about £1 a day extra in food for me, whereas 50% formula feeding cost about £5 a week (half a tub a week).

We didn't need to pay £££ for lactation consultant (available weekly for £1 donation plus parking near local children's centre) or for tongue tie which was cut for free by NHS on day 3. We didn't get sucked into the gimmicky stuff with supplements, pillows, necklaces, tea otherwise the BFing cost would have meant many times the FFing cost. The pump we had was only £120 whereas I've seen other much more expensive ones mentioned in groups since. If EFF cost £10 a week for formula, going on our experience of 50% FFing, then a pump = at least 12 weeks of that cost.

I do have a couple of friends who maintain their EBFing was free but they had good supply, few problems (again, access to the £1 a week support group I went to), had no need for a breast pump, their existing clothing worked ok for it (one didn't wear bras anyway) and had enough of an income level that the calorie cost/shopping bills made no difference.

"breast feeding is free compared to the paraphanalia for bottle feeding

Not free in terms of:

(1) Breastfeeding mothers absolutely have to consume more calories than non breastfeeding mothers, especially protein. I have read studies on this
(2) Breastfeeding automatically makes trying to work (paid £ job) and breastfeed (full time) at the same time extremely challenging - no doubt someone will be along asap saying they were able to pump breast milk and work full time for £££ very easily but I assert that no, for the majority of women, feeding only breast milk (whether direclty or pumped milk via a bottle) is extremely challenging. As well as the challenges you will get from people saying the fact your child is having breast milk via a bottle means it is not "breastfeeding"
So breastfeeding COSTS the family in terms of the breasfeeding mother being at a "disadvantage" in terms of being able to earn £ whilst breastfeeding
(3) As per the above, if the mother does decide to try to pump breastmilk, then breast pumps are very expensive; and
final

(4) yes I agree there are many disingenous midwives/health visitors out there who chastise mothers for their breastfed babies not putting weight on quickly enough whilst also conveying that formula milk is the work of the devil. i.e. the "cost" of that conversation is a cost to the mother not a cost to the midwife/health visitor etc

Personally breastfeeding was cheap. I got given a basic Tommy tippee pump from a friend (didn't use it much though), got given some pregnancy/ nursing bras that lasted both children (would have spent about £50 on these if I wasn't given). I bought some reusable breast pads.

My children are 8 and 4- I wasn't aware lactation consultants existed- I don't know anyone personally who has paid for that (I live in the south west). I can see how it can get very expensive but so could formula feeding (buying perfect prep, different bottles etc).

I didn't mind it taking my time- with my first I felt pressure from what everyone else was doing to pump and get her having expressed milk so I could get a break. With my second I couldn't be arsed with that- too much of a pain to do in the first place and felt much happier just feeding and living around that.

It is free, you dont NEED a breast pump and bottles(surely not having to give bottles is the whole point of breastfeeding). You need to be almost always available, true, but only in the first few months. Once baby is over 6/8 months old he can be left a few hours.
If people choose to buy breast pump bottles etc is their own choice

I also did get a lot of 'free' time while she fed to read. I don't think I've ever read so much as in those early weeks of breastfeeding! So it might tie you to the sofa a bit more but that doesn't mean you have to stare at the ceiling! I armed myself with Kindle and actually kind of enjoyed not having to feel like I should be doing anything else

1) Breastfeeding mothers absolutely have to consume more calories than non breastfeeding mothers, especially protein. I have read studies on this

Doesn't mean it is that expensive to get more calories. I assume you are living in the UK. How much does a batch of lentils cost or even chicken. This is such a non-cost bullshit reason.

@Hugasauras

I also did get a lot of 'free' time while she fed to read. I don't think I've ever read so much as in those early weeks of breastfeeding! So it might tie you to the sofa a bit more but that doesn't mean you have to stare at the ceiling! I armed myself with Kindle and actually kind of enjoyed not having to feel like I should be doing anything else

I would hate so much sitting around

Breastfeeding a child is only free if a woman’s time is worth nothing

You might as well say ‘having a chat with a friend is only free if your time is worth nothing’.

Time can be monetised for any end. But when we spend time with our children, our friends, family or a partner we are doing it because it’s mutually beneficial. We are building relationships, connecting. This is not something that can have a financial value put on it.

Of course it’s free. Maybe some people have or want to buy stuff but generally it’s free. Why do some women have to act as if everything’s such a difficult burden.

Breastfeeding mothers absolutely have to consume more calories than non breastfeeding mothers, especially protein. I have read studies on this

IF they can afford to. This is why I say it's subjective. When I had DD1 I was still at college, she fed round the clock for the first 10 weeks because my supply was crap and my midwife told me to 'eat plenty of biscuits and milk', which didn't cost any more than normal as we always had these things in the house. I certainly couldn't have afforded lactation consultants and god knows what. We eventually got settled into it after 10 fraught weeks. At no extra cost.

If you can afford it, great. But don't minimise the experience of bf'ing mums who just cracked on with it because that was their only option.

@Calist

Breastfeeding a child is only free if a woman’s time is worth nothing

You might as well say ‘having a chat with a friend is only free if your time is worth nothing’.

Time can be monetised for any end. But when we spend time with our children, our friends, family or a partner we are doing it because it’s mutually beneficial. We are building relationships, connecting. This is not something that can have a financial value put on it.

Agree. Time is money. Any time is money. Even the father's time bottle-feeding the baby.

Babies get very quick at bf-ing. It does not take that much time.