To feel that breastfeeding is undermined?

[Olive96]

I am currently breastfeeding my son. I can’t help but feel that in an effort to reassure formula feeding families, breastfeeding is totally undermined.

for the record, I think it’s totally fine to feed babies however you want but the truth is that I chose to try extremely hard to breastfeed because of all the benefits. People will say things like ‘formula is so good now there’s basically no difference’ etc. are these statements true or just an attempt to justify (which I don’t think is necessary) FF.

I am proud of persevering with breastfeeding - even saying that I feel like I’ll get flamed, but it’s true - it did take a lot of effort and perseverance, it was hard! and I want to be able to say that and be proud of the achievement without being accused of being up myself or out of order.

I’m starting to feel flat about there being no point to it at all

This thread has taken quite a turn. I genuinely think we all need to grow up a bit and stop reacting so defensively. It's completely valid to feel disappointed if you tried hard to breastfeed and it didn’t work out, that’s a tough experience.

But that doesn’t mean women who are proud of persevering through their own struggles with breastfeeding should be silenced or made to feel guilty for sharing their success.

Breastfeeding can be incredibly difficult, especially the first time or with some babies. With the right support and information, many challenges can be overcome, but that doesn’t mean it will work out for everyone, and that’s okay.

There are valid reasons why formula feeding might be the better or preferred choice for some families. I completely understand the sadness or frustration that can come with not being able to breastfeed as long as hoped.

For context, I had an emergency caesarean after hoping for a natural birth. Many of my friends had straightforward vaginal births and bounced back quickly. I couldn’t drive for weeks and was in pain during recovery. While I’m endlessly grateful for modern medicine, it probably saved my life, I still felt like a failure for a while. But that doesn’t mean I resent women who had smooth, unmedicated births, it just wasn’t my experience.

Similarly, I’m incredibly proud of having pushed through the toughest eight weeks of breastfeeding, it was painful and exhausting. With a supportive partner and some amazing help from our NCT group, we made it through.

Parenting throws so many challenges at us all, some things go as planned, others don’t. But surely we can celebrate each other’s achievements without taking them as personal criticism. Why has it become so difficult to hear someone else’s success story without feeling offended?

You must live somewhere seriously weird if you’re getting this many comments about breastfeeding a 6 month old baby. What a lot of drama over nothing.

Okay yeah just completely dismiss my experience because it’s different to yours I guess? 🤨😂

General comments about FF that might make FF mums feel a bit less shit about their choice doesn't take away from your achievement.

I FF DC1 as BF just wasn't working out. The judgement was unreal but I have a thick skin. I BF DC2 well over 2 years and was put on a pedestal. I got offered a cup of tea and a sit down during a GP appointment for thrush when DC2 started fussing for a feed. In their room. With a waiting room full of people outside.

I just don't get it when people say BF is undermined. My experience was the total opposite.

Surely if it’s friends and family you can discuss freely whereas if it’s strangers you can ignore?

I don’t remember anyone asking me why I was using formula although I can imagine if I was on Mn then, I would be criticised for not trying to bf.

I do understand this and I’m not in the best mental state, I agree. I didn’t mean to make the OP feel bad, this has honestly been one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to deal with and my mental health and my marriage are in pieces over it, and I know I’m not being the best mum because of the guilt and stress.

Sorry to the OP if I’ve derailed this thread a bit. You shouldn’t feel guilty for breastfeeding and you should feel proud that you’ve made it work, I know I would had it worked out for me. I’m sorry you feel you have to defend your choice to others. But please know that you’re doing the best thing for your baby and it’s something that I wish I could give mine

Not unreasonable OP.

Breastfeeding is apparently too hard for vast numbers of people to do.

But also easy enough that it's not an achievement if you have to try really hard to overcome breastfeeding challenges.

Encouragement to breastfeed is seen as 'guilt tripping and pressuring women'.

But also breastfeeding doesn't actually make any difference to a baby, ergo 'fed is best'.

Nothing makes sense. We live in a culture with toxic attitudes towards breastfeeding.

💯

Thank you. I also think you should be proud of hard decisions you’ve made! Doing the best for our babies doesn’t look the same in every family and I personally feel we both have.

I just don’t want to be a monster for talking about my decisions.

I hope you’re getting support and things start to get better for you soon ❤️

I'm sorry you're going through such a tough time. The only advice I can think of is to focus on all the wonderful things you're doing for your baby. You're feeding them, cuddling them, waking up in the middle of the night with them, probably making financial sacrifices as well, the list goes on and on. You should feel proud of all your hard work 💪

Honestly, like I said, this happens in almost any area. People will moan and complain about anything at all that you are successful about unless you simply keep quiet. I have learnt the hard way. Someone asks an honest question? Avoid it, half the time they’re just looking to have a go at you about information they asked you for in the first place.

OP. I just wanted to say that I get it. Solidarity.

As someone who tried very hard to breastfeed and wrecked my mental health in doing so, I find your post incredibly insensitive. Sometimes it’s not just a case of perseverance. YABU.

I’m saying you live somewhere utterly batshit, populated by batshit people if you’re having these kinds of interactions with such frequency.

That, or… maybe you’re reading more into things than is actually there. You might just have that martyr personality type, where other people just get on with life.

I would agree I had so many issues establishing breastfeeding, delays with milk coming in, large weight loss and a tongue tie and was under the infant feeding team at hospital. In the end I carried on combi feeding after I no longer needed to give top ups as the HV persuaded me it would benefit me in the long run he could take a bottle.

The amount of people including family who were so unsupportive saying just give him a bottle now, I'm being selfish and it would be better.

Now he is approaching one and all I have got from the past few months is when are you going to stop, it's weird now. He shouldn't still be waking for a feed if he was on bottles he would sleep through ect.

I trained as a breastfeeding peer supporter with a local breastfeeding charity that helped me. There isn't a lot of support for women and sometimes even just a little tweak with position and latch in the first few days can actually make a huge difference to lots of mums in the early days but midwives/health visitors aren't always great with this.

Please have a read of the whole thread - if you feel able to do so. If you don’t, I’d advise not commenting at this stage.

We all understand that this can be a sensitive topic, but respectfully, this thread isn't about you. If reading posts about breastfeeding feels triggering right now, it might be healthier to take a break from these discussions for a bit.

Sometimes perseverance leads to success, sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes people choose not to persevere for completely valid reasons. All of those experiences are fair enough.

But why has it become so common for people to take personal offense to someone else’s story? Is this just the nature of social media now?

The original poster shared their hard-earned success, and that doesn’t diminish your own effort or experience if things didn’t go as you'd hoped. You should still feel proud for having tried, even if the outcome was different.

You feel flat because somehow rather than seeing BF as simply the right personal choice you have made for you and your baby, and irrelevant to what other mums do; because it has involved sacrifice and effort, you feel you should be praised and seen as superior to mums who FF. You are mistaking a failure to undermine mothers who don't BF with undermining of those who do. Reassuring mums who FF that they are not harming their babies is an entirely different thing to 'undermining BF'.

I mean this is incorrect and suggests you haven’t read the whole thread, so I’m not sure why you’re commenting!

I think this update makes it quite obvious you're getting comments back because of the air of superiority you're presenting when you bring up this subject. I also went to a lot of effort (and huge expense!) researching ways to make it work, to up my non existent supply due to severe dehydration from 9 months of HG. It still didn't work unfortunately and I was devastated when I had to top up with formula to nourish my baby.
Your perseverance worked out, but don't assume everyone else just gave up happily and resorted to formula through lack of effort.

The trouble is that “it’s a lot of effort but I achieved it”, which is lovely, can blur into “therefore anyone who didn’t breastfeed just didn’t put in enough effort”, which is not. I quit after a few weeks due to baby wanting to feed 20 hours a day. I was sobbing and exhausted and touched out. I have to work very hard not to read your putting in effort story and react defensively. I accept you probably have to work equally hard not to react defensively when you hear that formula is just as good.

This.
You are coming across as superior op and all this ‘oh I just don’t know how to react’ guff feels like stealth boasting. A 6 month old baby being bf is a completely normal thing as I’m sure you know. If people genuinely are questioning it then ‘this is what works for us’ is a perfectly reasonable answer.

No one is saying you didn't go through effort and expense. If the OP says she's pleased she personally pushed through and managed to bf, that's just about her. It says nothing about your experience and frankly you're the one making assumptions regarding what OP thinks. No where has she even hinted that "everyone else just gave up happily".

I agree, there is a bit of superiority coming through in your posts op, whether intended or not. That could be why people are getting a bit defensive. It does get FFers back up, which isn't surprising given how they are treated by midwives etc. IME

Sometimes I'll get pulled up on stuff on here and I'll reflect and maybe see the posters have a point, particularly if quite a few postets comment similarly. (I might not admit it on the thread though, depends how much of a dick I've been 😂)

I mean I think they have a point because I don’t disagree with what they are saying at all - FF is fine, it’s disgraceful to be treated badly for doing so.

what I don’t agree with my my experience been denied to make other people feel better!