AIBU to be fed up of defending my choice to use formula

[Sequinbow]

I just want a bit of a rant, I’m fed up of having to defend formula feeding my little girl. She is 5 months old and thriving 💓 she absolutely loves her bottle and it’s wonderful to feed her she’s happy and content.

but….

I’ve had a stranger tell me (whilst I was feeding my LO) ‘breast is best’ and i should try harder to breast feed. I’ve also had colleagues and other mums pointing out ‘oh you’re not breastfeeding’ when I get her bottle out and asking why im not breast feeding.

There is a lot of chat in the mums WhatsApp group about how they are beside themselves to make the decision to bring in one bottle per day of formula to top up their supply and how they need to come to terms with it etc I find myself wanting to defend formula feeding my baby. And it’s the implication that my little girl is at a disadvantage because of me, her mum.
I wonder what do they think of me if they’re so caught up with adding just one bottle of formula when I exclusively formula fed.

im really fed up of having to defend my choices and having to provide a reason for formula feeding. I feel looked down on for formula feeding my daughter x

A good point, and no question a travesty but not an argument that breast milk has any significant benefit in and of itself. In this instance it would have been better but that's simply mode of delivery, not the magical properties of the milk.

All that matters baby is feeding enough and if formula the right formula

Unfortunately the discussions of support become competitive to a surprising high number of women learn to spot them op you will find the same women wittering on and on about feeding it will move on to sleeping patterns, first words etc are then same at school about their gifted children and then years down the line about a’level predictions and uni places

try and swerve it’s all becomes so competitive and it’s damaging to many

The pressure put on new mums to BF is bonkers. Yes it has its health benefits but it’s not like using formula is going to result in them being crack addicts from a young age. DS was never BF (wouldn’t do it, birth complications etc) and DD was for a couple of weeks. DS has a far stronger immune system than DD so it’s not done him any harm. He was a far healthier baby too.

I didn't want to breastfeed for several reasons.

After 9 months of pregnancy, I wanted my body back
I didn't want to be the only one capable of feeding my baby and I didn't like the idea of expressing
I liked knowing exactly how much milk they were getting without any guess work or paranoia that they weren't getting enough
It was easier to establish a routine
I'm sceptical of how beneficial breastfeeding actually is in a country with access to clean water, yes it is healthier but the outcomes don't seem to be that different such as evidence from the sibling study

I breast fed 4 babies and loved it and would have been upset if it wasn’t possible for me. My daughter chose to bottle feed. Her child was happy, healthy and well fed and she loved it. Different people do different things and there is nothing wrong in bottle feeding if that’s what you want and choose to do. Enjoy your baby.

I think not being the only person who can feed your baby is a good point.

I read a lot of stories on here about babies who refuse bottles. I had to spend a night in a&e via ambulance 5 months postpartum and it was obviously a relief that I didn’t have to worry about breastfeeding.

A friend of mine had to have a hospital stay with appendicitis and her relatives needed to bring her baby in and she had to keep expressing. Quite frankly, bugger that. Sometimes we also have to put ourselves first.

But nobody is interested in your experience or mine. Why do you need to discuss or expect others to want to hear your birth and breast feeding stories.

I hate this analogy of "climbing mountains". As if breastfeeding is most defining part of caring for a new born and who choose not too are just lazy and can't be arsed.

I didn't breastfeed as to be blunt I didn't want to, wanted to share night feeds and didn't want to be the only one responsible for feeding.But my son had severe cmpa and reflux so I had different battles to face. And I had severe pnd so there was certainly other "mountains" I had to climb in early parenthood.

People seem to view breastfeeding in black and white terms, that refusing or not doing it makes you selfish, lazy etc. Parenting is a long game, there will be many decisions and factors that influence the health and wellbeing of a child and certainly as they get older it almost doesn't seem to matter if they were breastfed or not. You would not be able to line up a bunch of teenagers or even primary school children and tell who was breastfed or not. Even by the time they go to nursery, all my friends kids who were breastfed certainly got ill as just as much as mine and didn't seem to shake off the bugs any quicker.

Well, I’d never say it as your SIL did or to any mums out loud but when I was pregnant I cringed and felt a bit sick every time someone mentioned breastfeeding and felt all light headed and panicky every time I thought about my baby breastfeeding from me. I hated being pregnant though and it felt like my body was no longer my own. I just wanted my baby out and my body back. So I decided not to even try breastfeeding.

However, I’m always supportive of my BF mum friends and I genuinely don’t care how other people feed their babies. My main feeling when I see other people breastfeeding is relief that it’s not me.

I also know a lot of breastfeeding ‘advocates’ who go on to feed their kids utter junk. If I was offered a choice between formula feeding plus good diet, or years of breastfeeding alongside a bad diet, I would choose the former.

I am all for women breast feeding or formula feeding or doing whatever combination works for them and their child, but they should be educated about the RISKS of breast feeding.

Fed Is Best was a phrase that came into being because the push to breast feed has become so militant that it's killed and injured babies. The phrase was coined around 2018 by Dr Christie del Castillo-Hegyi, whose perfectly healthy son had a cardiac arrest 12 days after birth due to hypernatremic dehydration; he developed severe brain injury and died at 19 days of age. Both the pediatrician and lactation consultant told her to keep trying to breastfeed her newborn, even though she knew she was producing no milk and her baby was losing a lot of weight. She trusted them, with ghastly consequences.

This was NOT an isolated case. Up to a quarter of babies of first-time mothers develop hypoglycemia that is severe enough to induce brain damage. Most of the 80,000 U.S. neonatal readmissions annually are because of hypernatremia and hypoglycemia. Both can cause brain damage and death as well as a wide range of other physical impairments.

Re. toxins, breast tissue is fatty and accumulates lipophilic toxins such as PCBs, dioxides, heavy metals such as lead, parabens, pesticides, and industrial chemicals. Because breast milk is fatty, the lipophilic toxins in breast fat (and fat elsewhere in the body) enters the breast milk. This is why environmental scientists and public health researchers are so interested in breast milk - because it is an EXCELLENT biomarker of previous and current exposures to pollution and environmental toxins.

The lactavists don't tell you this, or about the unspeakable dangers of militancy about breast-feeding, because they are zealots and/or they are making money/careers from pushing breast feeding. A LOT of babies have died or suffered brain damage because of this.

So Fed Is Best is the way to go.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8491802/
https://fedisbest.org/2016/09/the-scientific-evidence-on-the-effects-on-accidental-starvation-on-the-newborn-brain/

But nobody is interested in your experience or mine. Why do you need to discuss or expect others to want to hear your birth and breast feeding stories.

🤨 you just seem determined to argue with me.

I’ve been in plenty of groups/ places/ discussions where people are discussing those things and want to. People are sharing their experiences on this thread. If you’re not interested in them then you don’t have to be here?

But sometimes Mums want to discuss their experiences. Mums shouldn't be made to feel like they should shut up and get on with it. That is like saying parental support is offensive to those that cannot have DC, Mums should should be greatful and get on with whatever is thrown at them. It is ok to discuss your parenting journey, it is ok to celebrate the bits you are proud of. People shoudn't be making everything about themselves and silencing other Mums.

Tell any strangers that you use formula so you can put protein powder and collagen in it. Give them something to actually get upset about.
As for NCT group people, a curt reply of 'thanks for your opinion, it's irrelevant to me now'.

In the first couple of years after giving birth this felt like such a huge issue; literally the be-all and end-all of parenting. I was so convinced I'd failed because I tried to bf and wasn't given the support I needed so I stopped very soon after birth. I tortured myself about it for two years and let all the breast is best lactivists get in my head.

DD is now 11. Not only can no one tell how kids were fed, they also really do not care. All the things we were told it would be an indicator of - intelligence, health, success - all nonsense.

Hang in there through all the bullshit now, because no one even gives it a thought in a couple of years time.

Massive pressure to BF from the NHS. Absolutely no support though. Make it male sense. 🤔

I think the bigger issue is that so many mums feel they have "failed" or "achieved" in their feeding journeys. When in reality it really doesn't matter how you choose to feed. So much unnecessary angst. Feed how you want, but please don't feel guilty or triumphant in your choices. Relax, enjoy your babies.

There is seemingly less judgement in abortion or birthing decisions than the BF v. FF debate. It's quite bonkers.

I had a tough breastfeeding journey with my eldest. She had undiagnosed tongue tie so the first few weeks were hard. I ended up having to express at times. Whilst I would never outwardly question formula feeding mums I just didn't 'get' it in terms of their reasons to why they were feeding that way. I ended up feeding her until she was 21 months.

However when I had the youngest he was a dream, breastfed like a champ bla bla bla. At three months I weaned him to formula as I needed to have a long overdue MRI. Turned out I had breast cancer and I never breastfed him again. At this point I finally got it and understood so much more clearly why women formula fed. Friends who had done so were incredibly supportive in explaining what the latest advice was with making up bottles etc.

I think it's so easy in the early days of motherhood for women to pick on each others choices and feel they need to justify what they are doing. You see it with weaning and milestones too. It's a very odd surreal world and now mine are 4 & 6 I really don't see motherhood as quite so competitive as those early days.

That is like saying parental support is offensive to those that cannot have DC

No, it's like saying to someone who can't/didn't want to have children how they just didn't put the effort in, and how you're so proud to have just worked so much harder than them to achieve a greater outcome.

Talk about how much you love having kids by all means - but don't make it about how hard you worked, as if it is isn't down to luck and circumstance.

The trouble is that the medical profession are always out of date and dinosaurs. They can take forever to take on new evidence. For example they're still telling us HPV is only transmitted sexually, despite it being prevalent among nuns and despite a significant number of virgins getting it. So it is with formula. It's come a long way since it was first developed, and at that time breast was superior. Now it makes little difference. Having said that, I can't imagine why any mother would choose to bottlefeed - too much work. Sadly many health professionals don't understand breastfeeding and give bad advice, leading to some woman failing to breastfeed when they wanted to and could easily have done so. Neither of my children had even a drop of formula, had nothing but breastmilk until 6 months, were breastfed until 20 months/22 months and I loved every minute. However I don't believe they had advantages denied to the bottlefed lot.

By your rude inappropriate comment you’ve demonstrated OP’s point beautifully

@Fishingboatbobbingnight Actually, I don't think there are loads of physiological reasons for women failing to breastfeed. Occasionally it's not possible, but a lot of the time mothers are simply being let down by poor advice. Things can and do go wrong but not nearly as often as you'd think, listening to some of what's said. We keep hearing things like 'I don't make enough milk.' Yet insufficient milk syndrome is very rare. Often the fragile supply and demand balance has been knocked.

I had no intention of being rude and apologise if it came across that way.

No we don't need to find reasons that BF is better, its the optimal way to feed babies.
Full stop