To think breastfeeding is a hassle?

[choolaboola]

Apologies in advanced if this is offensive as I know some BF people feel really passionate about it - BUT - can I please ask, why do people breastfeed?

First time pregnancy here - all I read is "my BF baby won't sleep" "I can't leave them down" "I can't go to XYZ months in because Im exclusively BF" etc.

I'm genuinely wondering is it a much harder path to go down? My friends, sisters, mum and MIL have all formula fed and as far as I can see, the outcome is the same. So I'm just wondering what other people's thoughts are?

That’s what I see as well with breastfeeding mums

Its like your body isn’t ever really your own when you’re breastfeeding and after being pregnant for nearly ten months I really wanted my body back! Don’t think that’s too much to ask tbh

It wasn't harder for me - I breastfed for 9 months but DD took a bottle of expressed milk from DH or other close family members if I went out or overnight and a bit of formula in the last few weeks too. She was a terrible sleeper but an excellent eater. I found expressing really easy too and was glad that for most of the time I didn't have to faff about with sterilizing bottles and preparing formula - when I had a hungry baby and could just slot her on

Everyone is different though - do what's right for you and your baby.

Babies are a huge hassle generally. The means by which you keep them ticking over is never as simple as anyone would like, but it's all child's play compared with getting a toddler ready for a walk in the rain.

Took a week to get the hang of it but I persevered and so glad I did....easiest thing ever compared with the hassle of formula

Very hard at first but then incredibly easy. It's the only milk designed for human babies.

Like with most things in life there are pros and cons

Pros
Free
Less faff in the early days, no warming milk, no sterilising, no preparation before you go out other than nappies, no stressing you've forgotten something on a flight
No getting out of bed in the night, can literally just roll over and nap
Very easy to comfort your baby and get them to sleep - tired, hungry, grumpy all can easily be settled with a breastfeed
Slight statistical correlation between reduced chance of hospital visits when they are little due to gastro infections etc

Cons
Feeling tied to the baby (though a lot of people dont mind this as dont want to leave their baby more than a couple of hours for much of the first year
Can't share night wakes
Issues breastfeeding- there is very little support and information for things like tongue tie which can make the experience really difficult
Inflexible - both mine got a bottle aversion very early on so I couldnt then introduce a bottle
Sleep issues. We had to get a sleep trainer who confirmed that 90pc of her clients are breastfed babies who have a waking and feeding for comfort habit. Saying that, one of mine was a decent sleeper

Overall I'm not sure if I'm glad I did it or not, like i say pros and cons and you just have to go into it with no expectations on whether you can, but with your eyes open to the potential benefits and issues. Just weigh up what's going to work best for you

Formula is designed for human babies- that’s why we give it to our babies and it gives them an excellent start in life.

I bottle fed one, breast fed another and did a bit of both with the last. Breast fed was definitely the easiest and less faffy and they didn't sleep less than the others.
But all babies are different, some go into a breast milk coma and sleep for ages, some snack and wake, snack and wake, some bottle fed babies only take tiny amounts regularly and others will guzzle a whole bottle down and sleep for ages.
Nobody can tell you which variety you will get, keep them fed, warm and relatively clean, cuddle them lots and you won't go far wrong

But breast milk is designed for YOUR baby. It’s unique.

And someone upthread said that formula costs £15 a tin. Why pay huge amounts of money for something that’s inferior to what your body naturally produces for your baby?

@CressidaAndTroilus

because you might want to share the arduous load of day and night baby feeding with your partner

because after nearly ten months of pregnancy you might want your body to yourself again

because you don’t want to be tied to your baby 24/7

because the idea of it makes you feel squeamish

because you’re not comfortable breastfeeding in public

because you just don’t want to

ANY of these reasons are reasons enough not to try breastfeeding. Yeah it’s free, but cost isn’t the most important thing for something like this.

Surely you can understand that?

You don’t cease to not be a human without all the thoughts, feelings and little idiosyncrasies that being human involves just cos you have a baby. No matter how many mummy martyrs might insist that to be the case…

It is hard work but there are numerous health and emotional benefits to both baby and mother

I breastfed all 3 and I didn't want to stop!
Positives were (for me): free. No chance the shops would run out of my brand of formula. It helped me snap back in to shape quickly. Was able to eat more while still losing weight. The wonderful rush of lovely loving hormones that you (and baby) get. Amazing. Selfishly it did make my babies bond to me really strongly above all others and I liked that ducks.

I did it for the health benefits and because I wanted the connection with my baby that breast feeding brings.

As someone that's done both, I can honestly say that both have their challenges.

Bf - no cleaning, boob in mouth and off you go - anywhere, any time, crack on. But, can (for some) cause problems in leaving a child (bottle aversion, feeding to sleep etc)

ff - a daily bloody faff quite frankly - making bottles, cleaning bottles, sterilising bottles, using milk "in time", planning days out etc etc etc.

BF is completely natural. It's free (in a world where prices are rocketing), it's a commitment and can be hard work to get right.
FF is (obviously) more expensive but don't get sucked in by marketing - they're all the same and they're all regulated so don't feel you have to have the most expensive cos it must be better, it really isn't.

Do your reading and decide what's best for you and what will make you a happy mum because the early days are hard enough. It also doesn't have to be a decision you make right now. You could try BF when baby is born and see how you go, if it works out, great, if not, stores are open 24 hours and you can get formula in the blink of an eye.x

I will say as well, during the supermarket crazy of covid I remember thinking how glad I was that DD was still breastfeeding.

I knew I had food for her no matter what. I would have been so stressed out if I couldn't get my son's special formula. It was bad enough when the prescription was just late, never mind not being able to get it at all.

@LuckySantangelo35 this is why we need to work on normalising breastfeeding in public. It is such a shame when a woman who WANTS to do it, doesn't because she's scared to do it in public.

Breast first time found it miserable and isolating . Ended up resenting baby and not bonding - just sat alone crying for weeks .
formula fed the second - got loads of sleep because Dad did his share , really enjoyed baby. Bottle making was a well oiled machine and he wasn’t a crier so the 3 minutes it took weren’t stressful.
liked having my body back to myself I think, I love my kids but hate all the physical side of it if I could have had babies ready made and delivered by Amazon I most certainly would have done . I couldn’t enjoy being pregnant at all there are no photos of me pregnant and I hid away wouldn’t see anyone and just wishing it over with ! breastfeeding felt a bit too close to being pregnant still I think .. Loved them to pieces once they were people though just needed my body back to myself !
my sil is a breast feeder 4 times over and seems good at it and to enjoy it and it’s definitely saved her a few quid and is better for the environment so I commend that too. I don’t think we are homogenous though, we just have to pick what suits us best .

Totally get this
its so hard when your body doesn’t feel like your own

OMG I can't forget another benefit of BF: WAAAAAY less smelly poos!!!

I bottle feed & find it very easy, no hassle at all. Wash the bottles, stick them in the steriliser. Take one out, press a button, add formula, press a second button, done.

I BF my first for 4 months, combo fed with fresh breast from the breast and bottled stored breast milk and formula for about 1 more month and then bottle fed exclusively (supply dwindled fast when returned to work). This baby I am BF as long as I can but have introduced bottled stored milk as will be returning for work at 6mth and have to introduce a bottle early to avoid bottle refusal later (also trying to get baby to use a dummy sometimes but baby not keen).

For me, breastfeeding is best as it is free so I save a lot of money and it is super quick so in a lazy sense it helps to avoid having to actually get up and make bottles and faff about. Even with a perfect prep machine (which I used before and love) there is still a faff of getting up and making bottles and all the prep that goes with it at home plus when out and about I found it difficult to get bottles made up so used pre mixed a lot which cost me.

I also do think that there are some benefits to breast milk and like how it is perfectly tailored. It feels more like a bonding process than when I feed with a bottle. I also feel bottle feeding gave my baby more wind even with anti colic bottles.

I personally didn't find my baby struggled to sleep through or anything like that.

That said I would bottle feed without guilt if BF didn't work for us at any point as I feel when I have in the past my.baby was still happy and fed. I did struggle to establish breastfeeding with my first and she had terrible reflux. My second had posterior tongue tie and eadly breastfeeding was truly awful. I was in a lot of pain trying to feed and even when it was corrected it took a while for my nipples to heal and it to settle. I guess a lot of people wouldve given up so something in me felt BF was worth it and I still preferred it to bottle even having done both- but thats personal choice. I have never judged anyone for bottle feeding.

A formula fed baby is a baby that sleeps
through the night. And a mum that is able to drink a few glasses of red.

breastfeeding equals sleepless nights for at least a year. And saggy boobs...

No thanks.

Absolutely this. I will never forget when I was first feeding my first in public someone came up and gave me a special card you give to breastfeeding mums telling them they're doing a good job. Made me so happy as I was still struggling st the time and it was my first public feed. I cannot remember the name of the place the cards came from - you could order online and be sent them for a small p&p fee. I know because I ordered some to hopefully return the favour but then genuinely never saw anyone else in public randomly feeding which is a shame.

This time round, I just feed wherever and don't care though I cover with a muslin the area around my breast for modesty. I noticed the other day I sat on a bench in the middle of town next to a woman with her baby and I started feeding. She kept staring and I wasn't sure if something was up then she suddenly started feeding hers and I wonder if it was a power in numbers thing. Was quite a nice feeling though that it could've been :)

Exactly this. I get that bottle suits many people more but for me every time I was tempted to stop I thought about the bottle I'd need to make anytime I quickly breastfed in various situations and it was a no brainier.

My botte fed DD had far few colds than her breast fed friends at baby groups. Just saying.