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

It’s a baby group. I’d expect to see mothers breastfeeding, I’d expect to hear mothers talk about breastfeeding including saying they are happy etc to breastfeed but actually celebrating breastfeeding/expecting others to pat them on the back would seem a bit odd to me.

I also formula fed from birth - proud and happy with my decision. However I don’t see the point or need to celebrate how someone else fed their baby. They all got fed - end of story.

And what do you mean by ‘celebrating’ it?
It’s very charitable of you that they are allowed to talk about it, at least. And charitable that you’ll even allow them to be happy about it! But would they be allowed to state that they are proud of themselves? What if one BF friend knew the struggles of another BF friend and wanted to pat them on the back? Is that not allowed either?

That is not the point at all. No one wants to make breastfeeding nights feel bad or diminish what they do. FF mums support BF mums of course.

The issue is very specifically that the certificates were given out in a general mum and baby group, rather than the breastfeeding group. And the general group were asked to applaud. Regardless of the personal guilt that some mothers might be feeling. Those mothers, like the OP, didn't sign up for that.

This isn’t meant to sound harsh but it’s obvious from your posts you haven’t moved past it. These are things you need to explore why.

You tried, you had professional help and nothing worked, so why feel guilty? You did all you could. There’s an evolutionary instinct in some women for sure, but rationally it makes no sense in 2024. The alternative would have been failure to thrive. People subconsciously judge other women or fear being judged as a FF.

Please take it from others, this will be such a non-issue for you soon enough. You might wish you got to experience it, the same as
people whose birth plans didn’t go as they wanted and literally a million other things with babies and children as they grow.

This is so true. This approach to motherhood seems to make PND much worse too. I can’t put my finger on why but it feels as though it has misogynistic undertones, telling women they should be at home and what they should do with their bodies, making them suffer through when formulas a great alternative.

It is a bit cringe but I can see the good intentions of the BF woman wanting to congratulate or acknowledge the other women.

However, I would have felt rubbish in your position as I also struggled to bf my eldest and felt really embarrassed, sad and self conscious about it, especially as it's quite a popular topic of conversation at baby groups in the beginning! It is normal to feel down if breast feeding doesn't work out.
I hope the bad feelings start to go away soon. My kids are a bit older now and I honestly don't really think about how I fed them as babies much at all!

Certificates for breastfeeding? Patronising, insensitive and ridiculous.

And if I could go back to me as a new mum crying about breastfeeding I would tell her in a year you will not give a shit about any of this.

Baby formula is high grade stuff. It’s not powdered McDonalds.

Multiple posters this thread seem to think that not randomly telling onlookers to applaud is the same thing as expecting bf mums to keep it secret. So who knows!

No one is saying this. BF mothers are everywhere, no FF mothers are asking them to keep it to themselves. As mums we should support each other no matter how we feed our babies. I think the OP is saying very specifically that the giving out of certificates and extracting applause from a separate mother and baby group that had at least one mum who couldn't BF even though she wanted to was insensitive. And there could have been others for all we know.

Very strange. Id question the group and I want to be part of it. There lots of amazing groups op. For the record I choose to ff and best decision for dh and me. Not saying best for everyone it just worked for us and dd is healthy happy child.. mostly when not telling us off...pre teen A happy mum means a happy child. Yanbu here, find a more supportive group op who just supports mums no matter what they do..even if today like me forget it was school photos and didn't do dd hair as well as I could....

Very odd and "handmaids tale"vibe.
What are they going to do, frame it?!
It's your own journey, and shouldn't be shoved into peoples faces like at the group that you attend, as it isn't taking into account issues like you have raised. Very insensitive.
I'm all for it being celebrated, but certificates handed out to make others feel inferior is a big no.

Of course. As long as I’m allowed to say how proud I am that my baby slept through the night at 6 weeks despite some in the group suffering sleep deprivation.

Of course you are allowed to say that!
I had pretty awful sleep deprivation at that stage. If you’d said that to me I would have congratulated you!

But BF mums aren't everywhere! - BF rates are very low. BF mums aren't commenting on FF mums, these BF mums weren't 'extracting applause'. Again, why should BF mums consider FF mums in their actions?

You think BF is misogynistic

I go to a lot of baby groups and bf mums are everywhere, I don’t have a problem with them. I have an issue with having to applaud them for something I tried really hard to do and couldn’t, for reasons out of my control, when I’m already feeling awful about it.

The poster who said it’s like csection mums being asked to applaud vaginal birth mums has summed up the feeling in my opinion. (I had a csection too!)

Absolutely fine to be congratulated after struggling to breastfeed, or congratulating a length of time breastfeeding, or anything else. With applause, certificates, medals etc. But if it's done in the group it's meant to be done in. Breastfeeding grief and trauma matter. To do it in a broader group is horrendous. Comparisons to athletes and being fat are strange and unhelpful here.

Not everyone would agree.

Not sure what your point is but ok. You’re saying you’d be ok with one BF mum parting the back of another and I am saying I would be ok with you for feeling proud that your baby was sleeping through at 6 weeks??

Here is another… I agree the applause is too much and probably the certificates as well (not my style anyway!) but you’re saying it’s ok to be congratulated for BF or a length of time doing it or whatever as long as it is done privately in a room with only BF mums in it…

I bf and I agree it would have been better done in the bf group... however... she may have thought better get them out incase those mums don't come back in which case the certificates could have been handed out quietly and directly to the mums who were getting them.

I had a really hard time bf ds and I am really proud of our journey (not because of how long we lasted but because of the effort we put into it). But I also can see how many women experience real grief over not being able to either breastfeed directly through latching or who can't for other reasons.

I do think it might help if we stop quantifying 'success' with bf solely by how long someone feeds for and instead maybe recognising the work and the labour and the mental energy someone puts in. Because it leaves more space for women in OPs position where they have clearly worked incredibly hard and that deserves to be noted and celebrated instead of only being seen as a loss. Similarly I think we need to stop only viewing bf as a baby latched to a breast because it looks SO many different ways.

Op I think you're incredible and I commend you for working so hard and for making the difficult choices you had to in order to keep yourself and your baby safe. You are amazing.

This doesn't make sense.

You rightly point out that most of the bf mums didn't extract any applause. This was imposed on them just as it was imposed on the other mums. They wanted the certificates but didnt ask for a clap..Which means it isn't a question of bf mums being expected to consider anyone.

And nobody in this thread, not one person, has said bf mothers ought to keep it to themselves. That's a strawman. Expecting that one person from the group, who we don't even know to be a currently bf mum anyway, not to extract participation without permission from both bf and ff mums, has nothing to do with secrecy.

No YANBU this is sad. There are also poor bubbas in NICU who are unable
To even have a go at breastfeeding or get that start in life , so yes it's sad and insensitive too

Again no one is talking about expecting anything from BF mums. Please keep on BF, pleasd talking about BF and how it's going, please enjoy BF or not. The OP is talking about the one specific woman handing out certificates and saying she was being insensitive.

When I was in a mum and baby group, 7 out of 10 mums were breastfeeding. I wished it were me too but I didn't feel badly towards them. I would have felt badly if a random from a previous group had decided to walk around handing certificates to the other 7 and asked me to applaud them. I would also have felt badly for the other two mums who couldn't BF - I knew it wasn't by choice either.

Why are you pushing this narrative that FF mums want BF mums to keep it a secret or FF mums want BF mums to consider us? OP is only talking about one person who was being inconsiderate.