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

Giving out certificates for adults is a bit cringey and ridiculous on its own but also not the time or place. Do these people get stickers for going to the dentist too?

Nobody's saying that though. If they want to hand out certificates at breastfeeding group then fine (but still IMO unnecessary and infantilising).

Giving them out in general baby group is similar to handing a certificate to everyone who gave birth vaginally, in a room also containing people who had c-sections. It's not on.

Well, exactly. Especially adults.

I’d wonder why they needed to be publicly acknowledged and celebrated for feeding their child.

Clapping others for feeding their baby wouldn’t be something appealing to me at a baby group.

all that wasnt for me
child pre-teen, forgot even what the fuss all about
she is tall, slim enough with a bit of tummy - perfect by all means

Absolutely this, it's always the 'I'm stigmatised for not bf' which is always then accompanied by posts of 'yeah it's nothing special' 'it's not actually that great' derogatory remarks!

Certificates are weird and cringy.

I do think because of your experience with BF you’re over sensitive. This is the first in a long line of things that you/your child may try and not quite manage for whatever reason. I tend to follow the principle of ‘my best’ not ‘the best’.

I think what I would ask myself is if you were a part of the group and were breastfeeding despite any struggles and got a certificate, Would you be upset about it now?

It was silly to give them out in the wrong group. I personally wouldn't go to a breastfeeding group and I breastfed for years. Who the hell wants to talk about breastfeeding anyway.

There's nothing you can do about it now. Speak to the woman if you want and ask her if she could keep her certificates to her own class in future.

It’s a bit odd and definitely cringey but I wouldn’t call it insensitive or offensive. Someone else’s achievements aren’t about what you haven’t achieved. I don’t get upset when someone get a medal at the end of a marathon I didn’t compete in. Breastfeeding can be hard and it’s can get take a lot of effort, pain and perseverance to get to the point of it being easy. I’d have clapped and been happy for them whilst also thinking how weird the whole thing was as adults don’t generally get certificates 🤷‍♀️

It's very patronising. I would absolutely of hated getting a certificate and a round of applause. I breastfed because it was cheap and easier for me, and good for the baby. Not for accolades.

This would have broken me when DS1 was tiny. I was already wracked with guilt at "failing" to bf him, and I think it's very insensitive to announce it at a general baby group. DS1 is now 14 and I couldn't give a monkeys how I fed him (I bf DS2 until he was a year old, not bothered about that either). But at the time, it would have pushed me further into PND. So no, YANBU.

I would have felt the same way. I had every intention of breastfeeding and I was so upset when it didn't work out. After the "breast is best" line was rammed down my throat throughout my pregnancy, I felt like such a failure. I would have felt ashamed in this scenario.

YANBU. I think the emotive language around breastfeeding is totally and utterly ridiculous - encouraging people to think of it as a huge achievement or a sacrifice if they do it and a terrible failure if they don't. It's insane, and it's part of the modern tendency to fetishise and over-complicate parenting and motherhood.

Giving grown adults certificates for doing what always was and still is just a normal function of being a mammal (but which doesn't always work for some women or some babies) is bonkers.

Quite. And this holier-than-thou message no doubt contributes to PND and general poor MH in new mothers.

I don’t get upset when someone get a medal at the end of a marathon I didn’t compete in

It's not the same as that though @PonkyPonky. It's more like gathering together the people who had done all the training but had to drop out of the marathon mid-way through, and handing out the finish medals in front of them, asking them to clap.

It's not about not acknowledging achievements, it's about not rubbing it in the faces of people who wanted to be able to achieve the same but couldn't.

Thank goodness I never went to any sort of baby group. I’d be asking for my certificate for successfully using formula and producing happy and healthy babies.

I think the concept is cringy but I don't see why celebrating one person's achievements should be avoided because another one didn't/couldn't do it.
Reminds me when I failed an assignment once I was still so happy for my friend who got a first. Her results had nothing to do with mine.

I hate seeing comments like that. Breastfeeding is an amazing thing to do. And yeah certificates are a bit silly but we don't know what their journeys were like.

Same. Does she also hand out nappy milestone certificates? 100 nappies changed, 250 nappies changed etc?

We don’t know what their journeys were like and they don’t know what the ff journeys were like so it seems daft to try and create this division with certificates outside of the bf group? I’ve been chatting to a friend and apparently the women have to ask for the certificate.

"Giving grown adults certificates for doing what always was and still is just a normal function of being a mammal (but which doesn't always work for some women or some babies) is bonkers."

There are areas in the UK where women grow up in communities were breastfeeding beyond the first couple of weeks is vanishingly rare. The middle class women posting on this group assume that all women have roughly the same experience, but I'm telling you that some women have to overcome huge social, cultural and emotional barriers to continue to breastfeed their babies. Now you might not value breastfeeding AT ALL, but I assure you that there are women out there who are incredibly proud of having overcome major challenges and pressures to continue to breastfeed their babies and feel really good about it. Who are you to say to women 'you shouldn't value breastfeeding, it's no big deal'?

Maybe it was no big deal to YOU. But it's a big deal for other people and they're allowed to feel good about it without you feeling the need to shit all over them.

Feeding your baby is a given - how you do it doesn’t make you a better mother or mean your baby will be happier or healthier

The 'division' is in your mind.

Your feelings about your breastfeeding journey are no one else's responsibility but yours. Their feelings about their breastfeeding journey are theirs. Their experience is nothing to do with you. It's not a commentary on your experience.

In a few years you’ll do an internal eye roll to yourself that you posted this, along with caring about a bunch of other milestones that seem important and really aren’t.

From your posts, I think you’ll struggle to let it go.

There are some very insensitive responses on the first page - presumably by mothers who had no problems with breastfeeding.

I really struggled with breastfeeding - I wanted to so badly but my milk didn't really come in. We resorted to formula when baby wasn't gaining weight.

It already made me feel sad to see other mums feeding so easily at baby groups. I would have been very hurt by all the certificate giving. Even if the other mothers struggled they don't need a certificate to pat them on the back - they would be happy in themselves.

I would write to the woman giving out the certificates and point out how insensitive it is.

YANBU, OP. There was no reason she couldn't have waited for the next week and given them out in the breastfeeding group.

I was in hospital with my son for a while when he was a baby: it's incredibly hard to breastfeed in that scenario and I would never have managed if he was my first baby or if I wasn't stupidly stubborn (often to my own detriment). I also think long term pumping is far harder than established breastfeeding. You are doing brilliantly for your baby.