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?

They are different things.

Breastfeeding has a permanent impact on a child's development and immune function. It's not just about nutrition but about the fact that breastmilk is living tissue which provides elements tailored specifically to the child that cannot be replicated in food or formula.

A healthy diet is also important but the nutritional building blocks can come from a range of sources. A child can have McDonalds twice a week but still get all the nutrients they need from a diet rich in fruit and veg for the other 19 meals they eat.

If this is from social media, it's much more likely that they are going to take a photo of their child eating a McDonalds after a trip to the cinema than eating cottage pie at the kitchen table after reading a book.

The PP is giving outdated and frankly dangerous misinformation. All babies- including FF babies- should be fed on demand.

I would never feed my kid anything from McDonalds, ever.

Oh bore off I was not giving misinformation or advice, I was stating my experience. I said I routinely fed my child, most babies get into a routine of sorts. I did not leave him to starve nor indeed cry, I’m not saying it was to the minute or that the routine did not change through growth spurts, teething or whatever else. But it was pretty cyclical, enough to get into a routine. Both of mine were 91st percentile, so not starved in the slightest.

I forgot how fucking boring these discussions were, good to see nothing’s changed in the time since I had babies.

One thing that bewilders me is that when studies about breastfed children being healthier in later life are posted, formula-feeding mothers always dismiss them by insisting that that's because breastfeeding mothers are likelier to be middle-class, and therefore feed their children a healthier diet as they get older.

But then you get threads like this, where people claim that breastfeeding mothers "give up on their children's long-term health once weaned".

Which is it?

Wise words. Both my midwife and GP said the same to me years ago.

Breastfeeding or not is far less important than having a decent diet in pregnancy and weaning on to a good diet. My two are 26 and 18 and walking proof of it.

It is far better for everyone if you can encourage your baby into a routine. I followed that advice and it worked well. DS1 was waking at 2.30. HV advised me to try to get him to 4.00 - cuddles, dummy, water, not milk. It took two nights where he fell asleep almost immediately and then woke up at 4. After that he woke at 4. After a week or so I stretched it to 4.30. Then 5. By eight weeks he slept from midnight until 7. As a result I was well rested and enjoying mat leave. DS2 was harder and didn’t sleep through until almost five months, but the posts I read on here about babies of 8, 9, 10 months waking several times a night fill me with horror.

And mine are 26 and 18 and strappingly healthy.

I'm glad it worked out for you. It's in contravention of the science on how babies thrive and also how breastfeeding works. We all do things with our babies which we later learn are inadvisable, either because the science advances or because we didn't know. That's fine, no-one is perfect. We should not be going around telling other mothers that because it worked out OK for us, they should do inadvisable things.

Only 13% of British babies are breastfed to 26 weeks which is what is associated with these outcomes. Around 40% of the UK is middle class… so it can’t account for all the comparisons

That is so low

I didn't starve them :). But I did find they naturally fell into a routine where they were hungry every 3 hours so I built the day and naps around that. I spent a lot of mat leave with bf mothers and I couldn't do what they did ie feeding every time the baby needed comfort whether for teeth, tired etc. Ff just doesn't really work like that, you dont have 50 bottles ready to go. So I developed other ways of comforting them that wasn't food. In my case I think it made weaning easier as they were used to meal times. I wouldn't want healthy veg if I had been sipping delicious milk shake all day. And I know BF mums sometimes say oh its great to have bf because it solves all problems like teetung etc. Well yes, but I did learn to comfort them in other ways. Cuddles mostly. But anyway. Just my experience.

Well it’s up to parents, but I did not see good outcomes in families with exhausted parents. I know of one woman who was in a very dark place due to lack of sleep. Not a chance was I doing that when my very sensible HV told me routines were fine.

It's not a choice between responding your baby's needs and getting adequate sleep. You can do both.

You must know something that lots of other parents don’t! I can’t sleep during the day- and it’s not sensible to try to sleep then if you’ve got to look after a toddler as well, or do the school run.

There are plenty of measurable benefits to Both mother and baby, but I don’t think you really care so I’m not gonna bother listing them here easy for you to find if you can be bothered