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

This. Mountain and molehill.

The breastfeeding mafia strike again!

I don’t have a problem with their certificates even I just feel it was insensitive to give them out not in the bf group and especially then to have to give applause.

It would be weird and cringe for an Olympian at a mother and baby group to be given a certificate for it and everyone told to clap.

How about you 'need' to be more sensitive
You contradict yourself a bit here...you don't know what some struggles mothers who aren't able to breastfeed or don't have the choice go through. Running and the Olympics is a choice. Silly

I was quite shocked tbh but I did applaud obviously so I didn’t look like a dick. I got the impression some others thought it was odd. The lady next to me who was bottle feeding at the time rolled her eyes. My friend who also couldn’t bf also made a comment about it feeling crap.

surely you wait until the next breast feeding class to hand out certificates? On the subject of certificates, I’d cringe like fuck at receiving something like that. It’s too much like star of the week that my p2 gets 😂😂😂

But in your scenario you wouldn't be standing on the podium either. The analogy doesn't work.

I just find it so bizarre. Like the head teacher star of the week at school. Can I get a certificate for drinking more tea than ought to be humanly possible? For getting out of bed every day?

Anyway, I don't think it is insensitive. Once the kids are able to shovel food into their own mouths no one cares how they were given milk. I couldn't begin to tell you which of my kids friends were fed which way. Maybe next week take some good job stickers and hand them out to everyone who attends.

Breastfeeding can also be a choice? Luckily formula exists and is an amazing alternative option ?

Urgh! Sounds like Primary School. If I was a breastfeeding mum, or a member of the mother and baby group I’d be very embarrassed by such puerile nonsense (and I bf my babies).

Probably once I have a perspective over a longer period of motherhood I won’t be so bothered about ff however my dd is only a few months and my disappointment is quite raw. A lot of mums there have babies younger than dd.

Having seen so many posts here from very upset new mothers about breastfeeding not working out and the guilt attached I would think it was very inappropriate. Many mothers are having significant mental struggles about using formula.
As someone who chose to bottle feed I would have politely applauded and thought no more about it but I do agree with your point.

I am probably feeling worse about this because I felt awful about having to use formula right from the start. I know I’m not the only person that feels like this hence why I think it was insensitive!

Exactly ! We know the initial proven benefits only - if there was very long study following those bf / ff throughout their whole lives who knows would we see better outcomes for those ff?

And there could just be no difference at all long term. The only things we know for sure backed by science is the initial benefits

I don't know - I think a simple congratulations seems fine, after all it IS pure blood sweat and tears in terms of the effort needed to make bf a real success. Saying that as someone who is breastfeeding a nearly 2 year old, while heavily pregnant. It's tough.

At the same time, the certificate thing, particularly in front of people (new mums at that) seems quite insensitive to me, for all the reasons you've mentioned. It creates a lot of fanfare that seems to rub it in people's faces who perhaps weren't able to breastfeed or didn't want to. If I were them I'd have waited until the next class, as PP have said, to avoid seeming crass.

Lol wow. No real achievements to celebrate, clearly.

Agreed
There was an article in the BBC a month or so ago about breastfeeding grief. I certainly felt it.

YABU

"I struggle seeing people being celebrated for doing something bloody hard that I couldn't do".

Basically.

If someone had given me a certificate for breastfeeding, I wouldn't have known whether to laugh or sink through the floor. I certainly wouldn't have wanted one, what a strange idea.

To answer your question though, it's hugely insensitive to give them out in the general group.

A random woman came over to me in Costa to congratulate me for breast feeding. Many years later I still think about what a d*ch she was for doing that. I said nothing, but my reality was that a was in fact combination feeding following my daughter being hospitalised with a serious illness.

I bf my three for (cumulatively) over a decade, after a very rough start with hospital doing pretty much everything it could to thwart it, and I'm very much of the view that the 'fed is best' culture/tendency to accuse bf women of being an attention-seeking 'mafia' is damaging, but I do think this scenario is extremely insensitive and unnecessary (as well as cringeworthy). Not everyone who is not bf is doing so by choice. I'm also ambivalent at best towards the use of the term 'achievement' in this context, although I suppose I do think I 'achieved' something by my own bf given the start we had and the sometimes hard work involved in keeping going (very much balanced out by the sheer convenience of it, though). Motherhood is such an emotionally charged and societally judged thing that it's inevitable that something like this will leave non-bf mothers feeling they haven't 'achieved'.