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

I was you years ago. I couldn't breastfeed and felt it intensely. Interestingly, it was around 4-5 months that I was asked for a lot of advice from people who had decided to or needed to bottle feed and didn't have a clue.

How hard it can be to bottle feed is usually underestimated as we seem ashamed to talk about it (much as we don't talk about or address the problems people have with breastfeeding enough). If you had intended to breastfeed, and everyone around you is, then there is also the intense grief you may feel for what isn't.. for whatever reason.

There are three things I will say 6 years out:

1. This is one of those topics that raises a lot of emotion, mainly because we all want to think we are doing the right thing for our child. Noone wants to think they are doing thrle wrong thing, but we all have tonnes of variables that no-one else knows about (bodily functions, mental health, relationships etc) that make the decisions very specific. No one feeding way is a religion, and noone should judge others on personal choices.
2. You are approaching the time when people start focusing on other things... Like weaning. The judgement over weaning,whether you do BLW, purees or mixed is something to behold.
3. In the school playground in a few years, you won't know who was breastfed or not, who did BLW or purees, or who was potty trained in which way (unless, of course they aren't. But that is a whole other discussion). Nor will anyone else care.

Pay no attention to the silliness of some new parents.
There's millions of women in the developed world who used formula and raised successful children.

I dont normally get involved in these threads as it is another lifetime when mine was little but why do you feel you need to defend it? You have nothing to defend, ignore the busy bodies who think they have a say in how you feed your child. Granted when mine was a baby BF wasn't pushed as much as it is now but that doesn't make it any less your choice and no one elses. My baby who was formula fed is now a grown man built like a brick out house as they say. Done him no harm at all. I know I was formula fed to and lived to tell the tale.

Don't worry - within a few weeks nearly all of your mum friends will have switched to formula. Most in the UK don't last very long.

After that you will spend a lifetime defending other parenting decisions. It doesn't stop - feeding choice is just the first.

Smile and ignore.

Its something everyone has an opinion on. Just do what you want. But don't ask folk what they think or enter into discussions if you dont want to.

Okay as a mother who breastfed her toddler till two. There is a crap load of guilt you put on yourself when it comes to breastfeeding. Its not logical at all, but it’s mum guilt and it’s real.

None of your mums group are judging you for formula feeding. When my little girl was 4 months old I had to start combo feeding as she was going through the 4 month sleep regression but during the day. I couldn’t feed her as she would fall asleep and I hated pumping. The guilt I felt, I felt like I failed as a mother and I would cry every-time I had to make that bottle for the first few days. Looking back on this now I know that was ridiculous, but you don’t see that during those foggy months.

Don’t be leaving your mums group WhatsApp, just be supportive or wait until they realise they aren’t failure for using as bit of formula. You know it they aren’t they just need to get there on their own.

As for the other people making comments about why you don’t breastfed, they can get fucked. It’s none one’s business how someone chooses to feed their baby.

I would have been gutted if I'd had to introduce formula because that was how I felt about it for myself.
I think this level of drama isn't helpful for people making different choices. A fed baby is a healthy baby. The end.

Nice and judgemental of you.

Yanbu, some people are very 'shamey' about it

I have massive boobs (not a brag, unfortunately) and my dd was being smothered by them, and I just couldnt breast feed her.

She was happy on formula and when she got reflux, I put her on anti reflux formula and she was happy again 🥺

You should be proud that your baby is safe and fed xx

I think you are paying too much attention to what other mums do.

My two were EBF for 14 months each and never had a single bottle. If I had lost my milk supply or something had happened to mean I had to give them formula milk, I would have been absolutely devastated. It was very important to me.

However I have never been remotely interested or invested or passed comment on how any other parent chooses to feed their child. I couldn’t give a shit.

I don’t think these women care what you do.

"You must have known when you decided to formula feed..."
Did you mean to be sounds so superior? For some it is not a choice. It was formula or starve the child.

I breastfed my first but didn't really have a choice with my second due to the medication I am on. I felt like a complete failure at the time but in retrospect it was entirely the right thing to do as coming off the drugs would have made me quite unwell again. I also suffered with off the chart polyhydramnios (people thought I was carrying triplets). The cause was never determined but could well have been the drugs. He was born kicking and screaming and quite well! He is atopic ie he suffers from eczema, hayfever and previously asthma which may have been exacerbated by not breastfeeding but I think having a mother that was fit and well was the priority at the time.

What if you just don't want to breast feed?

I had a very similar experience. Just tell them, “Fed is best” and if they keep on going, a curt “Kindly fuck off” should do it.

I have a real aversion to breast feeding. It was just not something I would ever have considered. So, obviously I bottle fed formula. Well, all I can say is, my babies thrived. I knew exactly how much they were getting and they were sleeping through the night at 6 weeks and 2 weeks respectively. Back when mine were babies, it was a strict feeding regime every 4 hours and it was really frowned upon to demand feed like they do now. I never had any sleepless nights. Seriously, none. They were both very contented babies. Also, other people, including their dad, was able to take part in feeds too. It would not have mattered what anyone had said to me, I would never have breast fed. It really is up to individual preference. No one has the right to infer otherwise.

I hope you told that stranger to fuck themselves with their own ignorance.

One of my friends started breastfeeding and then had to give up after several bouts of mastitis. Could be for any reason.

I couldn’t get enough milk out for DC1 and he never latched. So didn’t even try with DC2.

DC2 is now 2 and literally no one gives a shit about whether she was breastfed or not.

At the occasional appt where i get asked ‘are you breastfeeding’ eg dentist i say ‘fuck no’

Some of the people giving you this unsolicited advice are hyper fixated on being the perfect mom. This results in a lot of stress and mom guilt, which in turn they inadvertently take out on their children, who end up stressed and anxious as a result.

This is counter productive to building a good relationship with a child. Your child is happy and content and that's the most important things. However you arrive at a good bond with your child, keep doing that.

Some of the people giving you this unsolicited advice are hyper fixated on being the perfect mom. This results in a lot of stress and mom guilt, which in turn they inadvertently take out on their children, who end up stressed and anxious as a result.

This is counter productive to building a good relationship with a child. Your child is happy and content and that's the most important things. However you arrive at a good bond with your child, keep doing that.

Omg I have FF two kids and never had any of these comments. Not ONE. I tried with my first and the horror of a pumping schedule and being tied down 24/7 was so awful for my MH that my doctor told me it’s perfectly fine to stop. With my second I went straight to formula and never experienced this.
where do people meet all the BF Mafia type??

People may also not realise that some decisions can be partly down to individual past experience.

I for example was formula fed as a baby because of birth issues my mouth was too sore to latch. And I’m generally very healthy. Ironically the main thing in life to fuck my health has been having kids of my own.

95% of people couldn’t care less what other people do. Them worrying about a bottle of formula doesn’t mean they judge you. They won’t even have thought about you in this. People only care about their own circumstances.

You don’t have to justify any of your parenting decisions. There’s no “high court of parents” and no one cares what you do or don’t do. The people online or on WhatsApp are not the boss of you so just crack on with your own family.

How you feed your child should be no one else's business. It doesn't matter if you're bottle feeding or breastfeeding, I've done both and had endless negative comments from both sides. It's exhausting. We're all just trying our best.

Why is this so intensely important that stopping EBF would have been so devastating? Your kids were fed and by that time they'd have been on real food for ages. And antibodies in huge quantities. With the best will in the world, it does seem a little dramatic.

This isn't really true - if you look at sibling studies there is zero difference between formula and breastfed babies.

I FF one of my daughters and BF the other - there's honestly no difference between them. My FF is the smartest in her class and hit all her milestones first out of our NCT group - she started talking at seven months!!!

I'm adding all that not to boast, but to say it really makes no difference. I've looked into the actual studies and I really couldn't find anything conclusive - all the differences in gut microbiome etc disappeared once the babies started solids, from what I've read.

I am actually interested if anyone has any studies that show a strong difference in breastfeeding, as I haven't been able to find them (that also account for variables like parental wealth etc)

This iz being made into a bigger deal than it needs to be. Don't justify yourself to anyone I formula fed ds and don't remember any one ever commenting on it. Its a good thing to learn early you make decisions for your family others may make different decisions it doesn't make them right or better than you