To feel rubbish about this - breastfeeding groups

[Fiftycents]

I go to a local mother and baby group, it’s very casual and usually friendly. Made quite a few friends there.

Before the mother and baby group there is a breastfeeding group, there is a 30 min gap between the two but some mums stay on for the baby group.

Went to baby group as normal yesterday and about halfway through a lady stood up and announced some ‘good news’ and proceeded to hand out certificates for some breastfeeding mums, for 6 weeks and 3 months breastfeeding. We were then all asked to give them a round of applause for all they had achieved.

AIBU to think this is a insensitive to those that wanted to breastfeed but couldn’t? I tried for weeks to bf dd, we saw multiple lactation consultants, had tongue tie cut tried nipple shields etc but as she spent time in SCBU after she was born and was tiny she had always had formula and I ended up switching as she wouldn’t latch at all. I stopped expressing after 2 months as my own mental health was suffering.

YANBU - it was insensitive and they could have just waited for the next week to give out certificates
YABU - get over it

Ffs who wants a certificate for that?! I was lucky I could breast feed although with twins it was an endurance challenge that I stuck to because I felt I was failing them. More of a sign I had pnd rather than I was super mum. It’s patronising, smug behaviour. I bet half of them have McDonald’s before they are 3. Op, there’s so much more to dc health. No dc turns to their dm as an adult and says “I wish you’d breast fed me longer”!

I got massive PND from not being able to breastfeed and ironically enough got free counselling that was held in a room with posters on the wall saying ‘Breast is Best’ it triggered an anxiety attack and the counsellor removed them. In my case I was sick of it being shoved down my throat.

After a c section I didn’t plan and not being to breastfeed I came to the conclusion that I survived and so did baby and that was a ducking miracle - many others aren’t so lucky

Of course there is societal pressure to breastfeed. You only have to look at the endless threads on mumsnet devoted to the subject to see that. If there was no pressure or judgement around the subject then these threads would not exist, people would make there own individual feeding choices and that would be the end of it. Yet here we are again.

These same women will all feed their kids macdonalds and coke before they are three.
And think it's ok for their kids to smoke weed at 13 in the park. And be drinking vodka at 15.

They probably won’t.

I completely agree.

I think you are being a bit touchy, I think, rather than unreasonable. But it is an odd thing to do, and handing out certificates for breastfeeding is simply weird.

But their kids will still consume those things regardless.

It’s a really insensitive, patronising and inappropriate thing to do. I’d speak to the organiser.

In some areas there is a lot of pressure.
In others clearly not.
There was pressure in my area including from other mothers.
One of my friends said do whatever suits you and your family best. Despite her being a complete earth mother. That was the kindest advice.

Some women love it some babies love it.

Some babies, girls especially I think don't love it, they are lazy feeders and sleep a lot. If it's any effort they go to sleep.

If your baby is one of these then get a bottle and get some sleep yourself.

Ignore the certificates.

Concentrate on finding some fabulous mums at the group. And ignore the feeding.

It's hard. But I wish I'd made more mum friends there. For me. Not my kid

You will need them over the coming years.

"One of my friends said do whatever suits you and your family best. Despite her being a complete earth mother. That was the kindest advice."

Does anyone say anything different to other mothers? Ever? 🙄 Nobody is required to breastfeed. 99% of UK babies have formula before the age of 1. Most women in the UK don't breastfeed beyond a few weeks. Most breastfed babies are combination fed.

The only people who are completely uninhibited about telling you what to do or what you should think or feel about feeding are people who are telling you to give your baby formula to resolve whatever problem you're currently experiencing as a breastfeeding mum, and not to care about breastfeeding because it doesn't really matter anyway.

Yup

@izimbra "Does anyone say anything different to other mothers? Ever? " yes, actually they do. I got lots of comments about how I obviously have to do the best thing for baby, how I have to breastfeed and it doesn't matter if it's hard because how i feel doesn't matter, only the baby matters now!! That's an almost direct quote. My own mother, who admitted hating breastfeeding and having horrendous PND with me, also said breastfeeding is obviously the only option!

I even had people tell me I shouldn't have an elective c section because it's not what is best for baby, knowing that a natural birth would have serious consequences for me and leave me in need of further surgery. I even had a waitress at a brunch ask me if I am planning a "normal" birth (I was visibly pegnant), I breezily replied I'm having a c section and asked for more coffee but she wouldn't go as she wanted to know the reason!!!! Fucking cunt.

So if you haven't had opinions like this put to you, you are very lucky!

Of course they do. I’ve been called selfish for choosing not to breastfeed and if you count comments on here, people have plenty to say about those who either didn’t breastfeed at all or stopped breastfeeding after a few weeks.

I was asked why I bothered having DC if I didn’t want to breastfeed them.

My experience was health professionals encouraging breastfeeding and not being very empathetic when I supplemented with formula during the first couple of weeks, when I was absolutely exhausted and baby wouldn't stop cluster feeding.

Then on the other hand women in my family/dh's family discouraging me from breastfeeding and telling me all the reasons why they couldn't. I ended up doing it for 14 months, some people seemed genuinely annoyed I was able to do it because they were convinced breastfeeding is too difficult. And some really didn't like that I did it for so long and questioned when I would be stopping. From about 8 months it was only naptimes and bedtime/in the middle of the night anyway.

So you can't win really.

That’s the thing isn’t it? If you do manage to breastfeed, you get ‘ooh she’d sleep better if she had some formula’ and ‘if you gave her a bottle I could look after her to give you a break’ and ‘isn’t it time you stopped now’ etc, usually from people who didn’t breastfeed themselves for whatever reason.

Yep, had all of those.

It doesn't matter what struggles they had, they weren't in the group that supports that and what about the struggles of women in the group they decided to hijack? It's not at all like being offended by the Olympics which you're not part of and can choose to ignore. This is a specific group that OP is part of and they acted in an inappropriate way, any weird BF certs should have been given out in the group they were apart of or not at all.

“They” didn’t hijack anything. The instructor forgot to give out the certificates in the BF group so gave them out in the baby group where a number of mums will, in fact, be breastfeeding!

I imagine it was a very quick handout with a polite clap afterwards. That doesn’t diminish the OP’s upset because it’s a sensitive topic for her, but that’s not the fault of other mums. When I was having a miscarriage after long infertility, they initially put me on a ward with pregnant ladies and at least one baby. Obviously that was upsetting for me but I didn’t expect everyone else to hide their bumps and babies because I understood it was a ‘me issue’.

Why couldn’t it just have waited until next week?

Because it's unreasonable to expect everyone to organise their lives around avoiding triggering the feelings of adult women who didn't want to breastfeed or stopped breastfeeding early?

But not every breastfeeding mother feels this way. Please don’t tar the rest of us with the same brush as a vocal few when BF moms are already in the minority as it is.

And yes, this

Because it was a small thing; the woman had them with her; there was zero reason not to give them out. BFing mums are everywhere, feeding, talking about feeding - shock, horror - maybe even being proud of how long they’ve fed.

The issue here isn’t the certificates, which are a brief, trivial thing in reality, the issue is OP’s sensitivity. That sensitivity is valid but it doesn’t mean normal things relating to BFing have to stop when she’s in the vicinity any more than pregnant women needed to hide themselves from my sight when I was distraught with my infertility and miscarriage.

@BreatheAndFocus what if when you were on the ward they gave certificates for all the women who were pregnant and made you
do a cheer for them?

I already said I don’t care if people bf around me, plenty of mums do it at these groups

Absolutely bizarre that you all had to clap them 😬 Speaking as someone who just didn't really enjoy breastfeeding so stopped