Is it just me or do mums who don’t breast feed seem happier?

[ChristmasBaby2026]

As my username suggests I’m having a baby in December - my first one!

I’ve been thinking a lot about parenting obviously and how we want to do things and I’ve been starting to feel like I don’t want to rely on breastfeeding which is at odds with everyone around me who seems to be exclusively breast feeding, often at the expense of their own wellbeing.

I’m happy to give it a go but I can’t see myself going to great lengths to make it happen if it isn’t easy. The mums I know who are EBF seem tired, stressed, housebound or chained to their baby and their babies seem a lot more fussy. Lots of worry about latch, sore nipples, engorged breasts and whether their baby is eating enough as well. Basically the whole thing seems like it is making early parenting miserable.

By contrast I had lunch with a friend who is exclusively formula feeding and everything seemed like so much less faff. Baby was chill, didn’t need constant feeding during lunch, husband is really involved and sharing feeds. They seemed so much happier!

OP, you’ll find that this can easily become quite a divisive topic with strong views on either side. It’s all a learning curve, do what feels/works best for you. Your original post was quite combative. I’m sure you seek reassurance, but it comes across as critical of some women’s (understandable) choice to breastfeed. Don’t worry, you’ll find the best way to feed YOUR baby.

I’m not bitter. I wanted to breastfeed, I chose to breastfeed, i exclusively breastfed. No disappointment. It was hard though. I couldn’t lose weight because I was always sleep deprived. I felt quite claustrophobic and oppressed a lot of the time. I did it because I thought it was best for the babies. I kept it up to 13 months both times and then weaned and sleep trained them. Being able to go to bed on my own and sleep through was like getting out of prison. I still relish it now and my kids are teenagers.

I felt very exposed initially but I watched myself do it in the mirror and got over it. Baby covers a lot

I didn’t think combi feeding was a possibility. It was implied that you had to go all in for at least a few weeks or your supply would never get there. Looking back I wonder if that was right and maybe I should have tried it.

Congrats OP on the baby! I had a December baby too but beginning and DC is turning 4 this year. Where did the time go?!

I BF exclusively for 8 months and wish I did a mix. I would’ve shared nighttime feedings with DH. While he was up, it was exhausting for me being the one to hold DC, and do the feed, keeping my boobs out for what felt like all day and night. I could express via pump but our baby wouldn’t latch to a bottle at all. It was only 8 months later at daycare the lovely ladies in nursery helped with this (I sadly didn’t have anyone to help me my mum and MIL didn’t lift a finger to help or support DH and I).

Every feed especially at the start, I struggled so much getting a hold and I remember being in tears at the hospital. Eventually I got into the rhythm but it was never this earth mother, flowery moment it was just, ‘Hope I can put them away for an hour today.’ I got to the point of not worrying too much when DC needed them. I did always try to not be in the centre of a public space but guess what - I had to. I think I preferred when we brought in the formula and it was easy to mix nice warm formula (powder and water), as we had an appliance that kept water at the correct temperature.

As you can imagine that is all now well in the past.

You are fortunate to have mums IRL who can navigate these waters.

Good luck!

There are so many health benefits to your baby to breastfeeding though so the fact you would prioritise ‘cute and expensive outfits’ over giving your baby the best start in life is actually quite shocking!

Just to be clear, I do agree with others that mums shouldn’t tie themselves in knots and persevere with breastfeeding to the detriment of their own physical and mental health. But this reasoning is honestly absurd to me.

Some women find it a lot easier and they cope better than me. I just think they’re better honestly and would have been fine bottle feeding too. Slim energetic positive extrovert women who like having people on them and around them all the time.

I think @Cherrytree86 doesn't realize that the cute baby stage really doesn't last. Good luck wearing cute and expensive outfits once your baby starts walking (in my case, at 10 months!). You'll be wearing playground and park friendly outfits for years.

My midwife specially said that whilst the official advice was to wait 6 weeks, her experience was if you waited 6 weeks it was harder to get them to accept a bottle.

On a FFing and BFing thread, I didn't think it'd be my disinterest in eating out that caused such emotion! It's a little weird.

As I said, I suppose most people don't have a skilled personal chef who is willing and delighted to cook them whatever they might want. So I suppose I can understand why others eat at restaurants.

But I don't see the point in bothering to dress up beyond being as well-groomed and neat as usual, I enjoy shopping with my husband and getting excited about the new things he wants to experiment with (or old favourites), I don't find my home distracting or stressful (I find going out more likely to be that), I love chatting to him while he cooks (and he's a brilliant chef), and cleaning up is no big deal at all when we do it together.

I didn't think I was going to have to justify my dislike of eating at restaurants on this thread! But either way, the point of my original comment was that BFing wasn't restrictive for me at all, because it fit in with my existing lifestyle.

This.

Tbf, while I'm not a designer clothing person, I wore loads of great outfits while BFing. I had babies/toddlers from my early twenties through to my mid-late twenties, and I wore exactly the same thing as most of my child free peers. (Also had a 10 month old walker! They're adorable when they toddle at that age - their heads look too big to be doing it 😄)

Absolutely crazy that you're not willing to "go to great lengths' for the longterm health of your child. The research is blindingly obvious how vital breastfeeding is. What a stupid bloody post.

But this thread isnt about that. It’s about which is easier. Surely it’s allowed to acknowledge that sometimes the better thing is the harder thing. I do resent the “yay win-win” gaslighting actually

This is what I was told at the hospital and by the infant feeding team too but I still chose to combi feed from the start and it really was the best of both worlds! Our son had a bottle in the evening before bed and during the day if eg my husband had to feed him (while I slept usually!) or he was particularly ravenous and wouldn’t settle BF. Otherwise I was breastfeeding and also pumped occasionally. Supply was always “just enough” for the amount of BF I was doing and it was brilliant having the option. Luckily also my baby loved all milk from whatever source so he never refused bottle or breast.

I don’t think combi feeding gets spoken about enough but maybe there is a reason for that and I was just lucky it worked for us.

I’ve heard this too! A lot of people report that the so called nipple confusion is highly exaggerated.

You’d take away a new parent freedom to decide what is best for them and their baby?

It’s not crazy. The mothers I am talking about are those who are finding it extremely hard but persevering with it anyway. It’s making them unhappy and interfering with their marriage and experience of motherhood. I am not anti breastfeeding obviously but I am anti carrying on with something that is detrimental to your overall mental wellbeing and by extension that of your family’s. There are lots of things that are important for a baby to thrive and breastfeeding is only one of them.

Depends on a number of things. I exclusively breastfed both of mine for months and it was a piece of piss, wap the boob out, done. I pumped a lot overnight with my first but needn't have done.

With my second, we switched to formula because she had a dairy allergy and my god what a fucking faff. Sterilise this, boil that, bring this, pack that, wait this long, no that's too long, this teat, that teat, store it like this not like that.

If I was to compare the two experiences, breastfeeding was by a very wide margin better and kept me a lot happier.

Could you share that long term research? My understanding is that the benefits for baby are relatively short term and long term benefits for child small and much less well established. Been a while since I last read up on it though.

I don’t dispute breast has benefits, but think we should be properly educated about size and scale of those benefits for each family so they can make an informed decision.

I think BFing is a skill that can take 4 to 6 weeks to get the hang of, like any new skill, with the first few weeks being a bit rough (sore nipples are pretty common), so I'd recommend giving it a go and sticking at it for long enough if you're interested in trying it, because once you've learnt the skill and your nipples have adjusted, it's often a piece of cake! I found it so easy.

But if a woman just doesn't want to do it from before the birth, or is miserable and stressed over it, then FFing is 100% the way to go! No point in making yourself unhappy when you should just be enjoying being a mum.

You’re talking rubbish OP. What a goady post. FF vs BF has been done to death on here and the outcome is always the same. Do what you want and mind your own fucking business what others choose
to do.

Yours, a mother who breastfed and actually enjoyed it thank you very much 🙄

For medical reasons, I couldnt bf, and I found FF a lot easier than my friend who had a baby 2 months after me and ebf. Her husband is a lazy selfish git who loved that she ebf because it gave him a cast iron excuse to do even less, so maybe that was part of it.

I would've hated bottle feeding because I'm inherently lazy, and loved the ease of just whipping a boob out. Hungry? Boob. Tired? Boob. Upset? Boob. Sick? You guessed it - boob! It was like a panacea.

I am slim (and BFing made me more so), but I'm not very energetic, or positive, and I'm very introverted - but somehow my babies felt more like an extension of myself than like other people demanding attention from me. I think it really just varies so much from woman to woman, and even from baby to baby!

I BF my first. Total breeze, and I loved it. I went into it with no expectations. I was surprised at how much I wanted to BF once baby arrived.

Baby number 2 would not latch. Losing weight. Nightmare. I FF for several weeks and hated it. The faff of bottles, sterilising, boiling, portioning out the formula... I hated it so much that I went to great lengths to see a lactation consultant and eventually got DC2 breastfeeding again.

People shout me down about this all the time on here but, what I will say against BFing is that it seems to mean baby doesn't usually sleep in long stretches for the first year. There's obviously variance, but when you read about young babies sleeping through or just getting 1-2 feeds, they are often FF.