Breastfeeding needs a gritty reboot

[RightOrAMeringue]

Currently bf’ing DC2 who’s 11w old. It’s going fine, but it was still nippy/exhausting/difficult/annoying while I was getting into it again. I don’t think it was physically any easier than DC1, just I knew what to expect and didn’t over-analyse things this time. But, inevitably, the old algorithms have thrown up a lot of bf’ing kool aid, telling me (I didn’t ask) about how wonderful it is and how it absolutely is not to blame for sleep problems/PPD/anxiety/exhaustion etc etc. There’s always a footnote just to remind you that IF it is painful/not working/you hate it, it’s defo a you-problem and to “reach out”. To who is always vague, and usually will involve money.

AIBU to suggest we sack all the woo/ crunchy mama content and call it what it is: metal af? None of this “it’s best for your baby”; like, b*tch, we know. Someone not bf’ing their kid is not usually based on total ignorance, and to suggest as much is just internalised misogyny. Bf’ing is hard, it’s messy, it’s visceral, it’s a new skill your body is learning to do when it’s just been put through the wringer….can we just tell people that? So that when they inevitably get to that point where they’re hunched over a tiny crying baby at 3am, drenched in sweat, trying to put a nipple into their mouth even though it feels like 1000 papercuts when they do because they love their baby more than life itself…they can go “oh yeah, I was told about this”. Not “that smug influencer never mentioned this” or “I’m doing it wrong”.

The nhs needs to hire someone who can make some content depicting the reality of breastfeeding (with a good soundtrack, maybe Slipknot/ similar), and trust that women won’t be put off like they’re flaky children. They won’t be. People do hard things all the time - run marathons, physio, academic stuff, growing an actual human being and birthing it, be it squeezing it out your vagina or undergoing major abdominal surgery. They do it KNOWING it’s hard…BECAUSE it’s hard, even?? 🤷🏻‍♀️ Maybe we need to start being more honest about breastfeeding and people will actually engage with the messaging.

The difficulty with cost is that even where bf is cheaper overall, it's also less certain. Formula is a predictable cost over a set period, and you know it will literally do what it says on the tin. Those are easier to plan and budget for. Whereas you don't know in advance whether you're one of the women for whom bf attracts expenses, and if you do they're liable to be greater at the start.

It's common for people on lower incomes to end up spending more overall because they couldn't afford an initial larger outlay to save money later. If one woman spends a tenner on a tub of formula and another spends a fiver on the bus or parking for the bf support clinic, the second woman has spent less, has a chance of saving much more money but has also taken the greater risk. The tube of Lanisoh will last you ages and be cheaper in the long term if it helps you keep bf for longer, but if you still find the soreness too much, that's money that could've fed the baby formula for a few days that's now unavailable.

And I don't think that's something that can be impacted by the way we frame the issue.

Agree, ive BF two babies and by 1yo hated it. We planned on having three but I can't possibly do it again, im completely over sleep deprivation and being touched out.
I desperately tried combi feeding but neither would take a bottle.

Yes. I’m breastfeeding because it’s best. Not to save money. Not because it’s easy.

The literature on bf is outdated. There is no last feed. The lack of sleep is crazy.

The non-stop feeding at the beginning. It’s mad. No one can explain it.

You may be right @NikkiPotnickbut my experience was that breastfeeding cost virtually nothing.

The woman spending £10 on a tub of formula also has to buy bottles. I’d have thought that was a much greater initial outlay.

I totally agree @NikkiPotnick. There can be a lot of hidden costs in BF. I'm sure some people do spend almost nothing but personally I bought nursing bras, a gazillion breast pads, nipple shields (maybe 3 different types), breast pump, vest tops to go under t shirts, expensive freezer bags for milk, lansinoh x several etc. Not essential but I don't think I'd have successfully BF without having the spare money to spend on these things. I can easily imagine that if I was on a severely limited budget, I would not prioritise these things over putting food on the table, and I'd give up BF.

You're right that is a compulsory outlay, though not sure if it outweighs the average bf spend, but it's also a more certain one. Less of an unknown. The benefits as well as the costs are more clear.

The woman who doesn't need any of those things is of course the one who spends least, but we know that isn't going to be everyone.

Formula fed babies feed a lot less frequently though. And dad can get up and do it instead of me waking up every 2 hours for the first 4 months of my baby's life. Statistics show BF babies sleep longer BUT they do wake more frequently, which is a killer.

And sure, easier to go out with the baby. But about without baby? I couldn't leave for more than 2 hours without taking a (very, very expensive) pump with me. And my baby didn't love the bottle, he'd only take small amounts, so realistically I couldn't leave for more than 3 hours as my baby was screaming and starving when I got home by the 3rd hour. He never, ever went more than 2 hours between feeds. He was 8 months when I could reliably leave him for 3-4 hours so I could go out without worrying about bottles and pumping. Not convenient at all.

And there isn't anything convenient about being your baby's sole source of nutrition for 6-7 months.

I'm still breastfeeding my 1 year old, I'm very pro BF, but I know so many women that stopped because they were sold a lie. Tell women from the beginning how hard it is and how hard it continues to be for a long time. Also tell the men so they can appreciate it.

Yeah my baby cluster fed for 12 hours every night for the first 6 days because it took 6 days for my milk to come in. Seriously, feeding for 30-40 minutes, sleeping for 20 minutes, then back to feeding. All at night of course. His latch was fine, he was gaining weight, but poor lad had to work really very hard to get the milk.

I was a broken woman by the end of week 1. I remember my buttocks hurting from sitting so much.

It's been hard and, frankly, expensive too. I did it because it's the best thing for my baby.

There is no should - there is a choice. I chose to only formula feed.

Start the movement OP!

Maybe the breastapo could also lay off women who DO choose to stop because it’s painful, difficult or the baby isn’t able to feed that way easily. Just because your body can go through some painful doesn’t mean you want to.

But if you don't get warned about the difficulties, you'll think something is wrong and stop.

I swear something is wrong with our generation, glamorising and downplaying women's efforts. At least my mum and my aunties all told me how hard BF is. I knew what to expect. If I had taken my midwife's and Instagram's words as gospel, I would have stopped by week 2.

I don't really understand the logic of "let's not tell women it's hard because it will put them off". It doesn't stop us in a lot of other areas. I found that quite a lot of motherhood content is along the lines of "childbirth is THE MOST DIFFICULT THING ANY HUMAN CAN DO AND YOU ARE A CHAMPION MAMA xxx" etc.

I think the blocker is more like well meaning content saying "let's not shame formula feeding mums", and an ad campaign where you say breastfeeding mums are champions doing an incredibly hard job just for the pure love of their children almost comes across like "...unlike those lazy FF mums who couldn't hack it" which makes people feel bad.

I agree. The first few weeks were painful as hell and breastfeeding is soooo time consuming. It felt like all I was doing was feeding. I also completely agree about needing a “supporting cast” to have a good experience. The pressure for mums to do everything on top of breastfeeding means it’s no wonder they can’t or don’t find it magical.

Totally agree with this. I would have found it so bloody hard to keep breastfeeding my second in particular without an amazingly supportive partner looking after our older child, helping me with all parts of the night feeds aside from the actual nursing, my parents and in-laws doing childcare, ironing, housework etc. I have really needed my village.

I agree that there is often an issue if it hurts.
Once my latch was sorted with my first (including a private tongue tie removal) it didnt hurt once. Second child didnt hurt at all. Fed two years with both! And I think a lot of women dont get help and have more issues than they realise.

I often think that any pregnant woman who reads much MN will assume that BF is going to painful and very difficult, so may well not even bother trying.

When I was first pregnant there was no online stuff to put me off. I read sod all about it, and never found it difficult at all. Admittedly I was lucky, but I had mine in the era when 3 or 4 hourly feeds for a newborn were the usual thing, and they mostly worked fine for mine.

I’m not surprised that so many women find it painful and exhausting, when nowadays they are supposed to have their babies plugged into a nipple almost non stop, instead of a really good big feed - after which it’s so often easier to get them off to sleep.

Yes, I’m well aware that this method is now deplored by the BF police, but it worked for many of us.

Do you have any tips for trying to establish breastfeeding with dyspraxia? Trying to establish breastfeeding at the moment but the combination of tongue tie, jaundice and my probable dyspraxia looks like it might be too much for me.

Id 100% get rid of the tongue tie tbh! My poor boy was exhausted trying to feed with one. Get a lactation consultant to do it privately.

The tongue tie has been gone for a few weeks now - the blood blisters on my nipples have healed and the pain has gone but the baby tends to latch on for a minute and then come off again. It's a technique issue at this point I think.

Can I just say that you can still feed your baby solely on your own breast milk and never get bitten at all, the answer is to pump all your milk then feed it through a bottle. You can also see exactly how much they eat that way (which can be illuminating, one side for me only ever produced 3/5 the volume of the other but I’d have assumed the feeds were the same).

I think a big problem is that breast feeding is something that is framed as the mother needing to learn how to do it. In my experience, it gets easier when the baby learns to do it, not the mum. I was doing all the right things all along. By the end, and I breast fed for about 18 months each time, my kids could do hand stands and it didn’t really hurt. All this “aim the nipple at the roof of their mouth” was all well and good, but until my babies learned how to do it properly, it was painful as hell. I don’t think it was me who did anything different, it was them.

I agree OP. I fed my kids for bloody ages and there's nothing soft-focus and tradwife about it, it's nails. I also hated the whole alignment with attachment parenting, never going anywhere and being a slave to mothering- after the first 6 months I found it really flexible, went back to work quite early and started travelling overseas when babies were about 12 months. I didn't pump. My milk would subside a bit for a few days and then come roaring back. I am the furthest thing from woo imaginable, but there's a lot of woo-adjacent stuff in early motherhood.

Of course it's a practical way to feed a kid, it's the normal way to feed a kid. But also, the labour involved isn't acknowledged because of the patriarchy. The Politics Of Breastfeeding is a great book.

I do think the nursing bras were excellent value though, I'm wearing one now and the child it was bought for is 12...!

this struck me in the feels, you are describing me with dd, I was in absolute agony, tears at every feed, but all anyone said to me was that it hurts at first and my nipples needed to toughen up l. I thought that was just how it was and I wasn’t strong enough.

Finally, after 2 weeks of utter hell, someone said to me that it’s not meant to hurt, and I was shocked - but it prompted me to go to a bf support group, who helped me get into a better position, latch her better and turned our journey around, I fed her till natural term in the end. I think I’d have stopped at 3 weeks max if someone hadn’t told me it’s not meant to hurt!

My best tip is don't try and do other stuff at the same time. Binge watch a good box set and settle yourself on the sofa with drinks and snacks. I know lots of people who can breastfeed with their baby in the sling while loading the dishwasher but i could never do that.