To regret all the time I spent worrying about breastfeeding?

Feefooo · 2023-05-12T11:08:58+00:00

It's coming up to my DDs 10th birthday so reflecting on my parenting journey so far. One of my regrets is how I felt so guilty about combi feeding. I just couldn't cope with the constant cluster feeding. If I could go back I would comfort myself that you are doing well and it's OK. My DD today is turning into a beautiful kind lady she's doing so well in school work , excellent at art and has good manners. She's tall, healthy weight. I think I did well and I'm so proud of her. I regret spending so much time worrying about it when it didn't really matter as much as people said 10 years later.

Testina · 12/05/2023 12:11

I’m glad she’s doing well, but honestly even if your 10yo turns out to be a pain in the arse and bottom set and - god forbid like my own kids short 😂 - then it still would have been better not to have stressed over feeding. Time to move on.

RoseslnTheHospital · 12/05/2023 12:13

Don't further beat yourself up by regretting something that was a decade ago! Regret is useful if you have a chance to make a similar decision again, so unless you're about to have a newborn and face a choice about feeding methods, then don't worry about it at all.

Give yourself a pat on the back for getting through those early days however you needed to and having a lovely 10 year old daughter!

Sissynova · 12/05/2023 12:17

YANBU because we all have regrets particularly when we look back and the topic is so unimportant! But ultimately all you can do is move on and focus on the present.

I also had an awful time BFing. I just hated it but felt this insane pressure that I had to keep doing it, reinforced by midwives, DH, my social group and anywhere I looked for support, particularly my local feeding hub and lactation consultants. In hindsight I should have switched to combi sooner or even fully FF. As soon as I started properly combi feeding it was light a weight had been lifted off me, I felt so much happier.

Paranoidandroidmarvin · 12/05/2023 12:20

I gave myself a pat on the back just getting through the whole pregnancy and baby thing. And that is coming from someone who raised and looked after hundreds of babies before I even had my own.

I know that breast feeding wasn’t for me. I wanted to be able to have some freedom and hand them over if needed. And I’m still glad now ( so years ago ) that I did that.

now if someone could have told me that teenagers would be hard and there was a way to make myself feel better about that I would be all over it 😂

Backtonormalatlast · 12/05/2023 12:21

We all have regrets about stuff we stressed about when our children were little. Am glad you have a lovely ,healthy girlie ,carry on enjoying being a great Mum.X

HeadNorth · 12/05/2023 12:21

Well I exclusively breastfed to the max and my youngest had terrible asthma and bowel problems (and she is short!). I lamented this at one of our appointments and the consultants response was - it might have been even worse if you hadn't. How lucky you are with your tall healthy daughter - do tell us in what others ways you 'did well' to produce such an outcome.

Tresfren · 12/05/2023 12:22

I'm due in a couple of weeks and will give breast feeding a good try but if it doesn't go to plan I won't martyr myself to it and I gave some formula as vack up. I don't understand why so many women feel so guilty and under pressure to do it perfectly

Whiskeypowers · 12/05/2023 12:26

Motherhood is one long series of episodes where you feel guilty for something

i wouldn’t dwell on this for a second longer and say that as someone who was made to feel like a freak for still breastfeeding my four year old child occasionally 😂

Fiddlerdragon · 12/05/2023 12:29

HeadNorth · 12/05/2023 12:21

Well I exclusively breastfed to the max and my youngest had terrible asthma and bowel problems (and she is short!). I lamented this at one of our appointments and the consultants response was - it might have been even worse if you hadn't. How lucky you are with your tall healthy daughter - do tell us in what others ways you 'did well' to produce such an outcome.

No need to shit all over a parent being proud of her child. She clearly didn’t mean it in that way

Original poster

Feefooo · 12/05/2023 12:31

HeadNorth · 12/05/2023 12:21

Well I exclusively breastfed to the max and my youngest had terrible asthma and bowel problems (and she is short!). I lamented this at one of our appointments and the consultants response was - it might have been even worse if you hadn't. How lucky you are with your tall healthy daughter - do tell us in what others ways you 'did well' to produce such an outcome.

I am saying there's lots of things that scare new mums. Like your child will have a lower IQ, be obese, be sickly if a drop of formula touches their lips. I should have just relaxed about it all a bit more .

OP posts:

RoseslnTheHospital · 12/05/2023 12:32

Virtually no one is relaxed about their first born child!

SparklyBlackKitten · 12/05/2023 12:35

? 🤔
Honest to god I cant believe women still let other women tell them to think that breastfeeding is the only way to properly feed your baby.

Honestly. Who cares. Feeding your baby is Feeding your baby. You arent a better mum for ebf or a bad mum for bottle feeding.

This is ten years ago. You can't go back in time so time to forget about it. Maybe spend your time spreading the "fed is best" motto into the world to prevent other emotionally insecure women from thinking they are failures when they have to supplement their milk (or choose to)

callingeveryone · 12/05/2023 12:36

So much of what we stress out about in the early years turns out not to matter that much. I regret the angst and worry.

Mumtobe2023 · 12/05/2023 12:37

HeadNorth · 12/05/2023 12:21

Well I exclusively breastfed to the max and my youngest had terrible asthma and bowel problems (and she is short!). I lamented this at one of our appointments and the consultants response was - it might have been even worse if you hadn't. How lucky you are with your tall healthy daughter - do tell us in what others ways you 'did well' to produce such an outcome.

Snarky comments like yours is why I hate mumsnet sometimes! She is trying to re assure other mothers who probably worry/ get anxious that it's okay to combine feed! If I was a first time mother and feeling concerns about my child, I would feel better reading this! Regardless of her choices, she feels proud, so do not piss on her parade! If you dont like it, go elsewhere! Happy Friday 👍😃

Original poster

Feefooo · 12/05/2023 12:38

SparklyBlackKitten · 12/05/2023 12:35

? 🤔
Honest to god I cant believe women still let other women tell them to think that breastfeeding is the only way to properly feed your baby.

Honestly. Who cares. Feeding your baby is Feeding your baby. You arent a better mum for ebf or a bad mum for bottle feeding.

This is ten years ago. You can't go back in time so time to forget about it. Maybe spend your time spreading the "fed is best" motto into the world to prevent other emotionally insecure women from thinking they are failures when they have to supplement their milk (or choose to)

I don't spend all my time worrying about it it hardly crosses my mind. I just saw a thread about a newborn and I started to think about those early days especially as its DDs birthday soon. But this is true, we shouldn't let others make us feel guilty most likely everything will turn out fine.

OP posts:

Sissynova · 12/05/2023 12:39

@SparklyBlackKitten Maybe spend your time spreading the "fed is best" motto into the world to prevent other emotionally insecure women from thinking they are failures when they have to supplement their milk (or choose to)

I think this is unnecessarily snarky. Most new mothers are exhausted and trying their best, sometimes people can be really quite brutal about pushing breastfeeding and how awful formula is. They don't need to be emotionally insecure to be upset by it.

trampoline123 · 12/05/2023 12:42

100% I don't regret it because it's what I thought was right at the time, but honestly why do we get so hung up on it?!

I made myself so physically Ill breastfeeding (underlying health issues) for as long as I could and gave in after 4months and honestly, as soon as I did I wish I'd done it sooner.

My friend is a teacher and she said you could look at a class of kids and you'd not know who was breast or formula fed. It really stuck with me and it's so true.

Xenia · 12/05/2023 12:43

I always say the only aim is to get a live baby out of a pregnancy and to ensure they survive with whatever you feed them (I say that despite having breastfed all mine including twins and the fact for me the wonderful hours doing it including in dead of night with a twin on each breast are some of the most magical lovely experiences of my life). Had I not wanted to or not managed to breastfeed - so what? It would probably not have affected the children.

Do what you feel is right. i was lucky to have no friends with children when I had my first so I just did what I wanted to do and my parents were hundreds of miles away and my husband was happy to go along with what I wanted.

However across a whole life things that are important to all of us do change. it is just part of going through life. I remember when our child 2 did not get into child 1's school at age 4 or 5 and she was very upset but they went to different but very different schools through to 18 and it didn't matter at all in hindsight (other than having 2 different school sports days etc for years and years)

Camillasfagwrinkles · 12/05/2023 12:44

There are some health benefits to breastfeeding but it's not going to affect whether you're child is tall or intelligent. Only genetics plus an overall picture of a healthy upbringing with nutritious food will do that. I'm pregnant and pretty unbothered about breastfeeding.

Topseyt123 · 12/05/2023 12:52

Good post, OP.

I gave up breastfeeding after only a few days with DD1. I hated it, she couldn't latch at al and I wanted my body back anyway.

I felt slightly guilty at the time. She was born during National Breastfeeding Week too, which didn't help at all!! However, when I look back now, 28 years later, I see that it hasn't mattered one iota. My only regret now is that I ever allowed myself to be persuaded to give it a try at all, very much against my better judgement.

I didn't make the same mistake again with the next two. They were exclusively formula fed right from the start and we were all so much happier for it. All are now happy and healthy twenty somethings.

Thepeopleversuswork · 12/05/2023 13:04

Totally agree.

I felt awful for years about this (I did manage mix feeding for about two months but I hated it and it didn't work for me or my daughter). I felt for years that there was something defective about me for not having achieved this.

When I look back at the guilt, the arguments with judgy friends who had emailed me some well-meaning article about why "breast is best" (no shit, Sherlock), all the other shit I put myself through over this and how well my 12 year old DD has turned out I feel really quite angry about the propaganda around breast feeding.

halfsiesonapotnoodle · 12/05/2023 13:15

How awful to be short, obese and thick. My Mum breastfed me and I've ended up all of the above. Oh well. I'm sure she had a wonderful 'parenting journey'.

FooFighter99 · 12/05/2023 13:21

DD is 11 and I STILL get upset that I only managed a week of breastfeeding. She just wouldn't latch and I had zero support

She's turning out to be pretty awesome though so the bottle obviously didn't do her any harm

Maray1967 · 12/05/2023 13:22

Sissynova · 12/05/2023 12:17

YANBU because we all have regrets particularly when we look back and the topic is so unimportant! But ultimately all you can do is move on and focus on the present.

I also had an awful time BFing. I just hated it but felt this insane pressure that I had to keep doing it, reinforced by midwives, DH, my social group and anywhere I looked for support, particularly my local feeding hub and lactation consultants. In hindsight I should have switched to combi sooner or even fully FF. As soon as I started properly combi feeding it was light a weight had been lifted off me, I felt so much happier.

This is such an important post. It is absolutely unacceptable for those people to have put pressure on you, Sissynova. BF didn’t work for me - DS just refused to engage … but my mw and HV were great. MW told me very clearly that her middle DC had behaved the same and she had not bf him although she did her other two - and it would be fine.
Now that DS of mine is nearly 23 - absolutely fine and healthy. My honest view is that this pressure to bf is very damaging to many women and needs to be kicked into touch. What is far more important is a healthy diet in pregnancy and how you wean. What happens in the 6 months in between is of least importance in my experience.

finallygotospeaktoSky · 12/05/2023 13:31

My seven dc were all bottle fed, I didn't want to bf, all are now healthy well adjusted adults.
I was berated quite harshly for not bf by various people, who were in turn, told to jog on and mind their own business.
Always do what feels right for you and your baby, it doesn't matter what other people, esp judgy women, say on the matter.