To think breastfeeding is less important than a healthy diet?

[Chocaholick]

Just a musing really but I follow quite a few ladies on Instagram who are very very passionate about breastfeeding - lots of posts about the health benefits and how amazing breastmilk is and so on.

But once their children start solids, they (and the dads) seem to give them absolute junk - McDonalds twice a week, frozen pizza, Iceland type oven food and loads of unhealthy snacks, slushies.

Of course the ‘ideal’ is both to breastfeed and give healthy food, but AIBU to think a year or two of breastmilk is in the scheme of things less important than 18 years of a reasonably healthy diet? And it’s odd to be so health focussed about your baby’s diet for the first year but ‘anything goes’ thereafter?

I suppose it is strange. I would imagine that yes, having a healthy diet is more important long term.

I would say yes, a healthy diet in childhood is much more important.

I did think that breastfeeding had health benefits for the child beyond a year though?

I think that a healthy diet is important for all humans of all ages. Whether they’re infants toddlers children or adults.
the first commenter is incorrect the benefits of breastfeeding do not stop after one year. The NHS and WHO agree that there are several long term benefits to breastfeeding for mother and child. (I’m a GP and mum of 3)

It’s not which is better that matters, both are beneficial with or without each other

That is good to know. I was about to feel a bit silly for putting so much into bfing for the last 17 months!

Why not do both? No reason why they are mutually exclusive.

Breastfeeding too often leads to women in pain, tears and exhaustion instead of enjoying their babies and calmly bonding with them. I don't think there's a sufficient amount of difference between formula and breast milk to justify that, especially in a developed country like ours.

Yes I agree. But breastfeeding along with unhealthy diet probably gives an advantage over just unhealthy diet. Also breastfed babies tend to have better food habits later on down the line.

I've always believed that a mum who is rested and pain free is more of an advantage than a few additional antibodies in a healthy term neonate.

If breastfeeding was a medical intervention, none of the health benefits claimed would reach the bar in terms of evidence.

Put 100 individuals of any age in a room and test them on any metric, and you would not be able to identify which had been breastfed.

The most ridiculous claim I have seen is that breastfeeding reduces crime, but then again I guess it stops you shoving stolen goods or cocaine down your bra if there's no room and it would get all soggy!

I'm not against breastfeeding and I have done both, but I am against women being pressured to breastfeed to the detriment of their physical and mental health, which is no good for their newborn.

I’ve known some women who were very judgemental about other women who didn’t breastfeed, but then went on to not feed their children very healthy diets once fully weaned. I found that quite strange. It was like breastfeeding became their personality for a couple of years, they were constantly going on about the benefits, calling formula ‘poison’ and processed crap, they would give their breastfeeding benefit stats at any opportunity, yet it all changed after breastfeeding stopped.

I don’t know if we can measure which is most important, but I would think it would be a healthy diet after weaning, as we eat food longer than we have milk.

I didn’t say it’s one or the other. I said ideally both. Just that it’s strange to be somebody so passionate about the health benefits of what we ingest for the first year or two of life, but almost indifferent after that.

Possibly because feeding your child a healthy diet is more of a sustained effort. I know I find it really hard thinking of three healthy meals a day, cooking and cleaning up afterwards, and then it often being rejected and thrown on the floor!

Breastfeeding, on the whole, is pretty effortless after the initial hard bit.

Utter rubbish. Breastfeeding is crucial for infant health and the nhs is very concerned about the current situation of formula feeding. Which is basically a vitamin pill crushed up in water with some fat. Let alone the impact on attachment etc. The list goes on.

It really isn't.

Oh yes I forgot about the UPFs in it.

I was a pretty committed breastfeeder (over 7 years in total) but I am really struggling to see how breastfeeding reduces crime!

I'm pro-breastfeeding and it's benefits but, come on, that is way over the top.

Is there some kind of correlation between breastfeeding and being lax about childhood diets? If there isn't, I really don't see what you're getting at here.
Many mothers are made to feel their infant feeding choices are wrong. Whatever they decide, there's some poke-nosed fucker wanting to have their say. Isn't being a new mum hard enough?

Oh here we go 😂

In my experience the mums who are have breastfed are no more or less likely to feed their kids a really healthy diet. I think that comes down to the personality of the child and mum more imo.
I agree it seems more important to me to feed a healthy diet to a child rather than to bf a child.

I was forumla fed as a baby. I'm happy to report that I'm extremely healthy and robust both in terms of physical and mental health. I am rarely ill, am not a criminal mastermind and have and have always had a close relationship with my mum.

I did have a very healthy diet as a child though.

I’m not saying on a population level people who breastfeed are more likely to feed their kids junk, I’m just saying in a significant handful of cases I’ve seen mums who are very very passionate about health benefits/not using formula ‘UPF’ who then allow their 1 year olds to eat McDonalds, fruit shoots and loads of processed rubbish.

Just to make my own position clear, I breastfed my first for 6 months and my second was EBF for a year.

Then I don't see your point. Some mums will feed their kids shite whether or not they've chosen to breastfeed and I would have thought that would be obvious.

Bfing mums and no bfing mums are the same, surely.