To still feel so guilty I gave formula 'top ups'?

[Nguilty]

Two years on from my difficulties breastfeeding and with a healthy thriving toddler, I still feel so awful now some of my friends have subsequently had children and breastfed them.

At two weeks old my daughter hadn't regained birthweight and I was told to give over 500mls 'top ups' in 24 hours. She was vomiting this all up (I couldn't even get a third of that down her tbh) and I suspected this wasn't right, stopped the top ups and I paid an independent lactation consultant who gave me advise on positioning and attachment and said she didn't think there were any supply issues- I just needed to carry on BF her.

I really struggled with the new positions and trying to get her in them, especially at night my husband wanted to take the baby out of the room at one point as I was so wound up trying to get her to latch correctly.

The midwives were extremely skeptical and said she would have to be admitted if she didn't put weight on within 72 hours. I was really stressed and tearful.

The feeding specialist from the hospital agreed to see me too and said the new positioning was good and as she had dropped from 75th to 9th centile I could give top ups. The midwife was ringing me and scheduling every other day weigh ins. I was still struggling to latch the baby effectively consistently.

I knew the risk of top ups affecting my supply but I caved and said I'd give her two lots of formula in the night whilst I pumped whilst I got the hang of the new positioning and latching.

I spend all day watching videos of breastfeeding, pumping after feeds, and practicing latch. I pumped in the night but didn't attempt to latch her and gave her expressed milk and formula. When I did latch her in the night she vomited so I was afraid of trying again.
Of course we ended up finding one position we could consistently do- but my supply was destroyed by the night time disruption to feeding and ultimately lost the feeding relationship. It dragged on for many more miserable weeks and months with increasingly fraught efforts to sustain it but she ended up FF by four months. I ended up with severe PPD and nearly committed suicide.

I just can't seem to get over it and feel so guilty and culpable that I made the decisions that ultimately wrecked things.

YABU and I would be seeking professional support.

In your parenting journey you will make far bigger mistakes than this (I don't think it was a mistake btw, I FF both my children) and you need to learn how to move on from them.

You made a choice to suit your daughter’s needs, why feel guilty? Your daughter is now thriving so you made the right choice!

Ive both breast and bottle fed and expressing really did impact me mentally.

Tube, bottle or breast, fed is best. Your daughter won’t remember her early feeding days please don’t beat yourself up!

I had to do this. My son was small for dates and his weight dropped fast (ended up weighing 4lb 10 at ten days old)
I don’t regret this though as he would have died without it.
we did it for almost four months and then only bottle. Best decision we ever made

Hes now a happy healthy pre teen

Oh, you poor thing. Sounds as if you had a rotten time. Of course you shouldn't feel guilty!

FWIW DD had formula top ups, and all the threats about re-admission if she didn't regain her birthweight (she didn't for ages!). It's horrible, and so stressful.

But at the end of the day, your baby was fed. Did you deserve better support? Absolutely! Does that mean you should feel guilty? Absolutely not!

Have you had decent support for the PND?

I'm so sorry you're feeling so low. I can really.empathise with what you went through and the obsessive search for support online. Likewise I second guessed myself and took a couple of years regretting how my bf journey went. But with hindsight (5 years!!) I know that my son had a tongue tie and I regret that he was probably hungry a lot of the time as a newborn.

I had a very healing experience with my second (no tongue tie) which helped. It also helped to try and think objectively what advice you would give a friend- of course you would tell them that fed is best and none of it matters on a grand scale of things. But it is so hard to see the wood for the trees. If you still feel depressed please do seek help.

Why does it bother you so much? It won’t have affected your child at all. Fed is best.

You did your best. You did what you were told. You couldn't have done any better. Baby is now thriving. It's all good.

But the choices you made have led to a happy healthy toddler. And they don’t even really sound like choices.
If you haven’t already, please seek out some help. This obsession is not ‘normal’. You did not ‘wreck’ anything, your child is well and growing.

You poor thing! I struggled badly with breastfeeding and latching and flat nipples (didn't even know that was a thing before) and in the end baby was happier with a bottle of formula. Don't beat yourself up so you do what's best for you and your baby. Please get some help for PND it really is soul destroying.

Gently OP, it sounds like you might still be suffering from PPD?

Your baby had dropped from 75th to 9th centile. Giving top ups was the right thing to do, and it isn’t necessarily what affected your supply. It’s perfectly possible to mix feed successfully - DS was premature and had low blood sugars, and we had to give top ups after every feed for the first month (30mls after each feed, so probably about 300mls a day). We went on to breastfeed for two years.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter now whether your two year old was BF or formula fed - it makes no difference once they are weaned. I enjoyed it, it was a nice thing to do and much less faff than bottles, but it hasn’t benefitted DS beyond that. I have no idea which of his school friends were BF.

You should never have any guilt as to how you fed your baby. I chose to only give DC’s formula 100% of the time - they are perfect - happy and healthy.

I've put that yanbu because your feelings are valid.
I understand why you feel bad that things didn't go well.

However, I definitely don't think you deserve to feel bad or guilty. You didn't do anything wrong, you did your best and with good intentions throughout.

I agree with previous posts that some support to help you work through these feelings would be a good thing.

I voted you’re not being unreasonable for feeling the way you do because it‘s
trauma and related to the PPD. Your child is fine and is totally unaffected, getting four more months breastfeeding through your amazing determination.
I really relate and your story is so close to mine. I couldn’t feed my babies and it turned out later they had tongue ties but i didn’t know. They’re all healthy, happy and doing well.

Oh OP, this level of rumination over a decision that you made totally understandably in the best interests of your daughter and which has done absolutely no harm to anyone is not healthy at all. It makes me worry about you. Have you spoken to a therapist or anyone similar (GP?) about these thoughts as you need to recognise them for what they are- irrational and destructive. Professionals should be able to offer some help on how to get passed them and move on.

What more could you have done OP? Ignored professional advice? Kept trying while your babies weight dropped off the charts? Driven yourself to suicide?

Honestly you literally did everything within your power to make BFing a success, you deserve a flipping medal. You should be proud of just how hard and long you persevered and the huge lengths you went to. Stop being so bloody horrible to yourself - would you dream of judging anyone else so harshly?

Bless you, it sounds as though you had a really tough time. You know what? I am so grateful to the midwife who saw me struggling, and just said to me give up and FF. There is so much pressure to BF, and in the general scheme of things, it makes very little difference. Sometimes we just can't and that's OK. There should be no guilt, no harm has been done. You have a perfect healthy child, you have done well, the best you could. Seek some help in order to believe that.

Hey OP, I had birth trauma after my first baby. I recognise the tone of your post as I beat myself up over and over about the way I gave birth and what happened afterwards, even though lots of it was not even in my control. Have you spoken to your GP about how you are feeling? I took sertraline which really helped. I recommend therapy too, whether talking to someone or some somatic therapy or EMDR. It took me a LOT of therapy after my son was born to move on from what I felt around his birth. Good luck to you xxx

You’re traumatised. You did the right thing and you are good mum. You need some therapy such as CBT to help you process this.

We were admitted to hospital as she lost 14%.of her weight. The breast feeding support was woeful, I had no idea about lactation consultants and I learned more from a, Facebook Group than any healthcare professional. I ended up combi-feeding, and she kept boobing until 3.

Don't feel guilty- breastfeeding is bloody hard. Before formula was invented, these babies would have ended up very sick or worse. Many of us have struggled but there's nothing to feel guilty or shame about.

My 3. 5 year old has since been consistently on the 90th centiles for weight since she was 4/5 months old.

YABU. Your baby was about to be hospitalised they'd lost so much weight, formula top ups was absolutely the right thing for them, no matter how much you wanted to breastfeed, the Midwife prioritised your baby as they should.
I mix fed, breastfeeding and formula for both of my children. They got the best of both.

That sounds like such an awful time for you to go through. I'm sorry. Your daughter is doing so well now and you have nothing to feel guilty over.

I had similar with DS. He was a big baby and they told me to top up with formula. He was ff by 4 months too.
Next time around and DD was jaundiced, so they told me to top up with formula. Which I did, but then a week in I felt so sad to be topping up again, when I really wanted to ebf. A ward nurse said "It's too late now, you've stetched her stomach with formula" But my lovely health visitor told me to spend a few days in bed with baby and just to bf. I did and ended up ebf, after a week of topping up. I bf for 2 years in the end.
Don't beat yourself up. We get so much conflicting advice from the 'professionals' You've got a healthy child now, that's all that matters.

My baby was readmitted - twice - due to losing too much weight and bad jaundice. I wish I hadn’t resisted for so long and had just given her formula top ups as soon as it was going wrong. I wish I hadn’t believed the midwives who told me it “looked fine” when I knew she wasn’t feeding. If I ever have a second I will formula or mix feed from the start, I would never risk exclusively bf again, it is in no way worth it.

So to me it sounds like you made the decision I should have made.

Yes this.
You don't sound in a good place and I would urge you to get some professional help. Midwives worry about children gaining weight at that crucial time for very good reasons..this impacts on their development in the longer term. You had literally no choice but to ff at that time...this was number one priority not breastfeeding. Let go of the guilt. There will be sooo many more things to feel bad about during your parenting experience. Your child is developing well its time to let it go.

You tried so SO hard . You have nothing to feel guilty about. I gave up breastfeeding at 5 days because it hurt too much. Do you think that makes me a bad mum? Of course you don't.

You did your best, that's all we can do, and that's all we have to do.