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

DT’s, formula fed slept through from about eight weeks and to make sure it continued we used a sleep consultant at five months. All babies are different.

One of the reasons I formula fed was so I didn’t always have to do the feeds and could get plenty of sleep.

Yes this was also one of my main reasons for wanting for formula feed. I knew it would not guarantee me a better sleeper but it meant that straight from the get go DH could share the burden of the sleepless nights. So even though my child is a terrible sleeper, I have thankfully never reached peak exhaustion as DH and I have got through it together. To be honest I don't often talk about my decision to formula feed as I think how you feed your baby is very personal and I would not want to try and sway anyone to do the same as me, it's just the choice that worked best for our family.

And that’s great. The point of my post however was that when you BF people try and undermine your choice… they tell you that if you did formula fed then x wouldn’t happen, or y would happen. So many people don’t just respect your choice.

No different from some BF mums who tell you that you are selfish and feeding your babies a second rate product.

No, I’m sure it’s not. I’ve never encountered that, thankfully (I bf 2 of mine and ff my 3rd). I was just pointing out, on a thread mainly devoted to how awful and smug BF mothers are, that they also get undermined. Usually by those who haven’t BF.

I agree with this but you aren’t allowed to say it without someone accusing BF mothers of thinking FF mothers are selfish. Which isn’t true.

Oh - I don't know, because they've done something they found hard - that they didn't have to do, that they thought was good for their baby - and that someone's acknowledging their effort? As for what they'd do with it, well who bloody cares? The point is the acknowledgement. They might have chucked it in the bin on the way out. Or they might have tucked it into a file somewhere at home.

"I don’t get why anyone is so hung up by how someone feeds their baby? Looking around you can’t tell who was breastfed v formula. Where’s my certificate for bottle feeding my DC’s!!"

100% of people who choose to bottlefeed get to bottlefeed their babies. But 80% of women who want to breastfeed stop before they planned to stop, because breastfeeding can be super challenging (which is also why some people choose not to do it). So health professionals and breastfeeding supporters sometimes choose to publicly acknowledge the effort and resilience of those women who are trying to maintain breastfeeding - partly because they know these women are raising their babies in a culture where they're surrounded by people like you who for some reason need to frame breastfeeding as a pointless exercise - usually out of jealousy or insecurity about their own parenting choices.

FWIW - your 'you can't tell who was breastfed or formula fed' point - you also can't generally tell whose mothers smoked during pregnancy, but that doesn't mean that remaining smoke free isn't - like breastfeeding - beneficial for babies.

Agree with this. I hate that breastfeeding gets made out its nothing. Just feeding your child. It's more than just that.

partly because they know these women are raising their babies in a culture where they're surrounded by people like you who for some reason need to frame breastfeeding as a pointless exercise - usually out of jealousy or insecurity about their own parenting choices.

Ive never been jealous how someone else fed their baby - I never tried to breast feed. Never wanted to.
Not sure why I would feel insecure about my parenting choices when I positively choose to use formula. As DT’s are now in their mid 20’s I’ve the advantage of seeing that they are happy and healthy so think we made some good decisions. I don’t think either of them have ever asked how they were fed as babies.

"Not sure why I would feel insecure about my parenting choices when I positively choose to use formula.

If you didn't have issues you wouldn't be trying to frame breastfeeding as being without value or being sniffy and mean spirited about people's efforts to keep going with breastfeeding being publicly acknowledged.

No where have I been mean spirited about anyone deciding to bf but still don’t think how anyone feeds their baby warrants a certificate or public acknowledgment.

I breastfed my first two way beyond 2 years and wanted to do the same for my youngest. She was also in nicu & scbu and I understand the stress of it.

She initially latched fantastic then just stopped. We had as much support as possible but it wasn’t to be. Be gentle on yourself, the stress of the scbu alone can be enough to plummet your mental health and impact your supply. Trying to find time to express between visits and home is chaotic, we could express at cot-side but then that impacted those times when baby was allowed out of incubator etc.

My youngest is absolutely thriving on formula and I’m no longer stuck to a pump and stressing over minimal amounts. Sounds like your baby is doing great now to!

I would have hated this so so much. I expressed and combi fed my premature baby for as long as I could. I had a massive haemorrhage and was really ill and he couldn’t latch and was fed by ng tube for aged. I felt totally shit about it and would have felt alienated by this

"but still don’t think how anyone feeds their baby warrants a certificate"

So I've explained to you the rationale for public acknowledgement and celebration of breastfeeding - because 1. it's hard and 2. most women stop breastfeeding before they'd intended to because it's hard.

It's part of breastfeeding promotion.

You're repeating that you don't think this matters because you don't see any value in women overcoming breastfeeding challenges. You repeat that you don't think how a baby is fed makes any difference to them. Public health organisations don't agree with you - they see breastfeeding promotion as a public health issue.

A certificate for breastfeeding is going to make little difference if someone wants to stop breastfeeding.

Exactly! And look at how much money the formula milk companies pour into advertising! When the direct advertisement of infant formula/baby milk was banned, they simply invented ‘follow-on milk’ to get round the ban and in many cases changed the names of their formula milk to create a brand (ie so the branded ‘follow-on milk’ would promote the infant formula of the same brand).

Compared to the millions (billions?) spent by the big players in formula milk, a few certificates is nothing. In addition, there are many people, female and male, parents and non-parents, who find the insidious promotion of formula to be upsetting, and the actions of certain companies in the developing world to be immoral.

You could say that about every single thing any health professional does to encourage or support healthy behaviours. On its own it won't result in a huge change. But individually it's supportive. For example we know that women who manage to get to 6 weeks with breastfeeding are more likely to succeed with breastfeeding their next baby. That longer duration of breastfeeding reduces the incidence of SIDS. Small steps. Incremental change. And we know the majority of women who stop breastfeeding early would have preferred to continue. Sometimes all people need to keep going with something hard is a bit of validation.

As for 'well, why bother when formula companies are spending million persuading women that their product is brilliant' - well, that's still not an argument against any or all breastfeeding promotion.

Surely the focus should be on actual professional support? That is going to make the biggest difference for those who want to breastfeed. Not certificates or a round of applause.

No, but a certificate or a round of applause might just help.

But why does that have to be in a group that isn’t anything to do with the support group organising the certificates?

It doesn’t, I never said it did.

It's not an 'either/or'. Sometimes women just benefit from validation, to be acknowledged or encouraged by their peers.

As for 'well, why bother when formula companies are spending million persuading women that their product is brilliant' - well, that's still not an argument against any or all breastfeeding promotion

I hope that wasn’t aimed at me. If it was, you misread my post. I certainly didn’t say ‘why bother’. My point was the huge marketing of formula milk that’s apparently ok, yet a few certificates might upset some mums. Giving out BF certificates, praise, support groups, a tiny bit of gov money up against the practices of mega-corporations who pour money into the formula market. People should care more about the latter than the former. It’s disgraceful they’re allowed to do so.

@BreatheAndFocus I completely agree. People like to think we all act in a vacuum but the truth is we are not. And the fact is prior generations were convinced by these companies that formula is best so now even midwives know fuck all about breastfeeding and any question (not even major challenges) I've had regarding breastfeeding have been met with "you can just formula feed for an easy life, you know they sleep longer that way and they'll be perfectly healthy". I have found breastfeeding, while heavily promoted by shitty NHS flyers, to be quite undermined in practice.

It's ok for people to criticise me for not letting grandma give a bottle, for letting baby cry in hospital while desperately cluster feeding, for not going out socialising with a 1 month old baby (because you know, I could just give a bottle and go out with my girlfriends), etc etc but God forbid we try to be more encouraging of breastfeeding. Honestly, if my DH hadn't been so supportive of breastfeeding, I wouldn't have managed to exclusively breastfeed, it's like the whole world was against it.

Encouraging women to keep going in this environment is not a criticism of those who couldn't breastfeed. When you're sleep deprived, a bit of a pat on the back can make a difference.

The certificates would have been better given in the breastfeeding group but it's really not that offensive and it's not a bad thing to try and come up with something to be more encouraging.

Completely agree. As evidenced by the numbers, there are so few women who BF and they need more support in this area. Not to be discouraged at every corner. Controversial, I know, and while I feel sorry for women who have tried and couldn’t (and I don’t think they should feel guilty about it) and I don’t judge women who choose to FF for an easy life, I reserve most of my sympathy and support for BF moms as there are so few of them.