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.

My goodness op, do you realise that in your child's life as they move on this would not matter a jot. No one knows who was breastfed, delivered by elective CSection, etc. you don't get a medal for BF and neither for FF. I FF my eldest by choice and my child is thriving. My friend who Bf all her 3 kids until 3 has the sickest children I ever know. They are always and forever sick with something. Go figure. Give yourself a break op. In the bigger scheme of life this doesn't matter.

Does sound like seeing a friend breastfeeding triggered this fresh wave of self-criticism and that’s to an extent understandable. I promise you soon you will be at the stage of parenting where no one, literally no one, knows or cares how anyone’s children were fed for the first few weeks or months of their lives. Hopefully then you’ll give yourself a break! If you’re thinking of a second thought definitely worth being very open with the midwifes about this from the get go so they can refer you for the right support. Good luck OP. All will be ok.

OP what I hear is that you are morning that breast feeding didn’t work out for you.

and that’s ok. It’s ok to be sad about that and wish it had gone differently.

while you need to come to terms with what happened and forgive yourself and let go of the idea that it was your fault, it is ok to wish things had been different.

if I can offer up a parallel, the births of my children did not go as I wanted.

yes they are both here and healthy but that is not ‘all’ that matters.

it’s important, it’s not the only thing.

and to suggest ‘healthy baby’ after birth issues or feeding issues is ‘all that matters’ is very silencing of mothers’ experiences as feelings.

@Nguilty we live in a sexist world. That shows up in pregnancy, birth and post birth support services.

we get pressured to do it ‘right’

we DO NOT get well resourced well evidenced personalised support to make things going well the most likely outcome.

having a baby in a structurally sexist and under resourced system means we’re pitched into an uphill battle for all of it - good pregnancy, decent birth, good feeding journey, good newborn phase.

few of us are lucky enough to have all of those/

and when we don’t ITS NOT OUR FAULT

its ok to mourn something important to you. I’ll always wish my births had be different and better for me and my children.

make sure you forgive yourself too though.

big hug

I had a hideous time trying to bf my first, it was never good then I had my first period 28 days after he was born and my milk started to disappear that day. He thrived on formula. Stupidly I then tried to bf my second and had the same hideous time with a much bigger, hungrier baby. If had had any sense at all I would have gone straight to formula with the second and saved us all a lot of misery. There were some days when me, baby and toddler were all in tears by 10am. Nothing is worth that much misery

@Fernsfernsferns that is a really good post!! Really understanding, and great at acknowledging the issue rather than just telling OP it’s not something she should worry about.

I just want to really gently warn you that the same might happen again with a second child.

I was so convinced by the positive stories, the healing BF journeys of a second child for the mother, that I did my second child a disservice by struggling to admit she wasn’t healthy.

I’ve twice been a long way from EBF - both got readmitted due to weight loss, my DD2 twice.

I know now it was nothing I did right or wrong. and all the books/classes/BF groups/lactation consultants/tongue tie releases in the world could not have made my body achieve what I wanted.

please reach out for help with your MH again, and I hope you can reach a place where it’s a neutral memory rather than a source of guilt.

As someone who managed to breastfeed from birth, you did NOTHING wrong. Life isn’t fair. I didn’t do anything special. You did everything you could. You put your baby’s health first. I would have put less effort in than you did! It sounded incredibly stressful.
I used to feel similar about the fact I couldn’t give birth properly 🤷‍♀️ always horrible c sections no matter how hard I tried and I constantly failed.

It makes me sad you feel so badly about this.

I did top ups because my son is on the 9th centile too (born around 50th) and I still do them sometimes even though we started weaning early. I seriously thought about exclusively formula feeding at one point when it became a bit too much (expressing at night etc) but things settled after a while.

It sounds like continuing breastfeeding would have been detrimental to you both. You don’t need that pressure. You’ve done amazing so far.

This is why I hate the zealous ‘breast is best’ propaganda because it does not factor in the mental health consequences for mothers and the subsequent impact on them and their families.

Nor does it factor into the choice we have not to try to bf.

I would have judged you if, when you knew your baby had lost more than 10% and was on their way to being dehydrated which can cause brain damage in a new infant, hadn’t given formula. You saved your child’s life. Yes it had an impact on your breastfeeding relationship long term but it sounds like there were a ton of factors at play there and not that you gave your child essential fluid and nutrients when they needed it.

I didn’t vote YaBU because I feel this has left a huge impact on you and has been wound up into a massive thing that emotionally affects you. I think it’s not something to look at in a black and white way. I do think you would benefit from some therapy to relieve you of these feelings of guilt though as you honestly did nothing wrong and it’s perfectly normal to grieve when plans don’t go how we expect but you shouldn’t be beating yourself up about things years later.

I had a similar experience with dd1. Had the same sort of ‘threat’ about taking her into hospital if she didnt put on weight. I mix fed too.

Like pp my second was easy to breastfeed. I dint know why she just was. But with dd1 I had to find the right position and I could never feed her out of the house.

it sounds like your inquiring your experience to your friends now they are new parents. You did the best for your child. I felt guilty I didn’t start sooner. But also felt guilty for doing so.

The feelings got less as she grew older. Don’t be so hard on yourself. You are doing your best.

You could not have tried any harder, I hope you know that. Such poor advice from the midwives. The lack of breastfeeding education for midwives is a disgrace when you consider that they are the ones we go to for help in the early days.
Professor Amy Brown has written very eloquently about the grief that can be experienced when mothers have to end their breastfeeding journey earlier than they wanted. I hope all these replies do help.

I switched to formula feeding mainly when my little girl was about a week old as she lost 16% of birth weight and found feeding difficult. I pumped but mainly gave formula. I know the most important thing is having a fed baby but if there’s one thing I wish I could have done differently it was that breastfeeding had worked for us. So I feel you OP and just want to say, there is no reason to feel guilty because you responded to your baby’s needs and you made sure they were fed. It is hard to feel like you’ve done the wrong thing but you 100% did not.

Why are you holding on to this guilt? It benefits nobody. Your baby needed feeding. You fed them. what was the alternative, not feed them?

I understand OP and went through similar with my first DD. I had some counselling and realised that it wasn't guilt I was experiencing, it was grief. Grief at not being able to feed my baby the way I had envisaged. This was really helpful as I could label and address how I felt...and I have got to a place where I have come to terms with this grief. I'm not sure if this will be the same for you, but thought helpful to share. X

In the kindest way - yabu. There are so many factors to successfully breastfeeding and not all of them due to the mum. I ff my first in the end because it slightly thicker and I could add thickeners to it to stop the incessant sick after she fed. Not once did I feel guilty as its still food, still best for her. I bf the 2nd and 3rd but the 3rd was very painful until we reached that sweet spot. The 2nd just was so effective at draining me I lost a lot of weight and he was a right chunk! All different experiences.

No 1 bit of advice- if you are worrying about doing the best for your child - you are already smashing it. The best we can do is all we can do. Please don't remove yourself from life because you don't think you're good enough because to your child, you are the best thing ever. Everyone makes a lot of mistakes with their kids - no one is perfect so don't try to be. Strive to be -'enough'.

Thanks so much for your comments- this thread has been a small reassuring comfort tbh.
Before I posted it I genuinely thought I'd be told how unreasonable and stupid I was.

Today my phone threw up some videos of her breastfeeding in the first two weeks befire any top ups at all- the algorithm I guess. Looking at them the latch doesn't look bad tbh- she's chin to chest, mouth wide open and suck- swallowing. The midwives were awful in their attitude and how they made me feel but when they observed a feed at 10 days you could hear her straight away swallowing.

I pre expressed a lot of colostrum before she was born and I attended an antenatal breastfeeding class so I wasn't clueless... And I used a Hakka and expressed from birth to try my best to get supply up before there were any weight problems identified at all- we fed them back to her in a shot glass! Despite all that in her second week of life she was feeding for 12 hours a night- I'm not exaggerating it wasn't every 30 minutes even, it was 5pm-5am from breast to breast with no sleep for her (or me!). With regular feeds every 2-3 hours in the day too. Then the colostrum stores ran out and I had no time to express as she was on the boob constantly.

I think I thought it was all poor latch then top ups but I lost over half a litre of blood during my section and have a (poorly controlled) thyroid disorder- I wonder if it was doomed from the start regardless of my choices and maybe I just physiologically wasn't producing enough. Which still makes me sad but makes me feel less guilty about top ups!

OP
I am sorry for you. You have a wonderful toddler and yes the benefits of BF in our first world societies are overblown. Read Emily Oster about it if you haven't done so already. I really respect her work.

How different do you think your relationship with your child might be had you successfully breastfed?

Were you breastfed? Have you wondered what it might have been for you when you were a baby? How do you think you were looked after?

What I am getting at is that maybe your worry is that you aren't good enough for your child generally and that has crystallised in the issues around BF. This worry (which is obviously completely untrue and delusional) may stem from childhood, something that made you feel like you were not good enough, not loveable enough...

Try to explore this to find solutions. I would recommend getting professional help.

I mean, well I feel quite seen!

In terms of what would be different to wonder if my child would want or need me more? I mean she likes me well enough but isn't much of a cuddly child, she's always been quite independent and confident. She's only very occasionally when teething etc been bothered about being separated from me. I work very part time and spend all of my time not working with her.

I wasn't breastfed past a couple of days no, and I love my mum but had a very difficult relationship with her growing up and she was very critical of me. I was terrified of any academic failure as a child.

My mum was very staunchly against breastfeeding at all but I tried not to let her influence my decisions!

But, but, you DID breastfeed! Not for as long as you wanted and tried to do, but a lot of the benefits are front-loaded.

With my second I stopped around 5 months and he'd been having top ups for quite a while by then. My spd hadn't resolved and also I wanted some bodily autonomy back, so I stopped.

I think of that as pretty successful - and it's only a month of partial bf longer than you managed, in much more difficult circumstances!

I do understand how traumatic all this feels (hence my post above). I had a very difficult time feeding dc1, NICU wouldn't let me, never enough milk, etc etc. Took a good decade for the feelings to fade. But you didn't fail at this in the way you're telling yourself you did. All that colostrum, all those weeks of feeds!

Oh love. You did a lot, and you did your best to care effectively for your baby, and you followed medical advice. You now have a happy, thriving toddler.

This is NOT what failure looks like.

It was a really tough time and you did your absolute best. That is all any of us can do - hope you can let this pain go soon.

I'm so sorry you went through such a difficult time! From your posts, I can only see a loving mother who gave 100% for her baby - I can't see anything to feel guilty about. You did your best.

I was told to give formula top ups to DC by concerned midwives within days of the birth - advice that was contradicted by the HV a month later. DC was vomiting a lot in that month - I had no idea what to do as midwives insisted on top ups. I don't feel bad though- in our desperation to feed our babies, we follow the advice given and we are under a lot of stress!

Just to add, in case you are still concerned about your DC, my mum FF all her children, and we have good jobs, some of us have excelled academically and we have good relationships - being FF is highly unlikely to have a big negative impact on your DC.

I get it, OP. I ended up in a psych ward because I really needed to be on medications, but I wouldn’t stop breastfeeding to take them. Then once I got out, I actually kept breastfeeding and not taking medications for another two months. It was going to be my “super mom” story - I went to the psych ward, but I didn’t let that make me switch to formula! 🙄

EVERYTHING was better once I switched to formula. I could actually be away from home when she needed to eat; it took her less than half the time to eat during each feeding; and I was able to finally spend time with my older daughter again.

No one gets a medal for not using formula. Your child doesn’t care that you switched. You did what you needed to do so the baby would be fed enough, and that’s your job.

You have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about OP

I have twins and one couldn’t feed one due to reflux. She couldn’t latch on and couldn’t hold milk down. I felt guilty but she’s now 23 and is thriving.