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!

Eta

Let's recap.

OP is not sure whether to bf or ff.

Some posters on this thread: bf is the healthiest choice, all other things being equal.

PP: So any woman who can't manage this is going to feel she has done her children a disservice.

Me: feelings don't trump reality.

You: Why do posters feel it is their right to criticise other people’s parenting decisions?

So to summarise, I was positive towards bf. The reality is that it is the healthiest choice, all other things being equal. You are interpreting this fact as an attack and don't want people to state the truth because it hurts your feelings.

Sure, no reason to walk up to a random mother and say bf is best (and it might not be in a specific individual situation). But this thread has been started by a soon-to-be mum wondering which to choose so acknowledging the scientific consensus is entirely relevant. No one's hurt feelings should trump reality.

Did EBF with both kids and loved it. There were some stressful situations - in the first few weeks after my first birth my nipples hurt like hell, and when I got pregnant with no. 2 and no. 1 still wanted to breastfeed it gave me Braxton Hicks contractions. But overall it made everything way easier, particularly when needing to calm the baby when out and about. I would just put DD/DS in the baby carrier, stick a nipple in their mouth and they'd go to sleep. There is also IMO nothing like the connection of breastfeeding your own baby. Wouldn't change it for the world.

But an inexcusable amount of waste plastic, surely?

Personally I would have found making bottles and sterilising etc far more stressful than BF.

I mean the first few weeks were stressful getting to grips with it all but that effort paid off. But I think getting to grips with feeding a new baby is always hard. Especially as with my youngest he was 6 weeks premmie.

Also my DC (especially my DD) didn’t get all the illnesses that went round nursery. They have never had D & V. Obviously that might have been luck but I will take that.

I was honestly shocked when I looked at the evidenced benefits of breastfeeding in a little more depth.

But people just aren't ready to hear it I've found.

And I get it, if you've gone to massive efforts to exclusively breast feed, continuing even if it's making you miserable, because someone told you it was going to reduce your child's risk of cancer, obesity, increase their IQ, and all sorts of other bold claims, it would be horrible to find out that none of that is true and it was all for a very minor short term benefit that disappears by the age of one (in a developed country with access to safe drinking water).

We desperately need more science in infant feeding education and less agenda being pushed.

It's also concerning the link between people that promote ebf and people that promote bedsharing.

So much of ebf promotion also promotes bedsharing, which is dangerous. Safe sleep is crucial for reducing the risks of infant strangulation, suffocation, crushing, and SIDS.

You can ebf and sleep your baby safely of course but it's not lost on me that lots of sources promoting ebf also promote bedsharing. Ebf and bedsharing are promoted in the same sentence: it's just so convenient, you don't even need to get out of bed! Just latch your baby and go back to sleep!

I appreciate parents that have chosen to bedshare get very defensive and het up about the evidence around it, and often choose to state that it's perfectly safe if done properly. It's difficult to acknowledge that you did something that put your child at risk.

The La Leche League for example were the originators of the notion of the 'safe sleep seven'. This is a harm reduction approach that essentially says if you're going to bedshare, here's how to reduce the risks as much as possible. But undoubtedly it's sold by them as 'it's safe to bedshare if you do this!' when it isn't.

The Lullaby Trust, whose role it is to promote safe sleep, share the Safe Sleep Seven as a harm reduction approach. Recognising if people are going to push ahead and bedshare, they need to understand how to reduce the risks. But they can't be eliminated, and 'safe' bedsharing is a misnomer, it is always more dangerous than following the ABCs of safe sleep. Yet parents often take it to mean 'look, Lullaby Trust says it's safe! Things have changed clearly, it's safe to bedshare!'.

It's a bit like the public health messaging around drinking while pregnant. A small amount of alcohol isn't evidenced to be dangerous or impactful. But if they promoted this, many people would say oh, if alcohol is safe then more alcohol is probably fine. It's better for the public to receive the message that alcohol shouldn't be drank during pregnancy at all.

Evidence for those who weren't aware:

More than 69% of all sleep-related infant deaths are associated with bed-sharing.

pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/134/2/e406

bmjopen.bmj.com/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=23793691

The most conservative estimate shows that the risk of suffocation is 20X higher when infants sleep in adult beds instead of on cribs.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/14523181/

Even absent all other risk factors and done "safely", bed-sharing nearly TRIPLES the risk of SIDS, plus adds new risks for other types of sleep-related infant death, including suffocation, strangulation, etc. This study used data from 1472 SIDS cases, 4679 controls, 19 studies in U.K., Europe and Australasia

bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/5/e002299.long

(This study specifically separates bed-sharing from couch-sharing and other places, all bed-sharing deaths were in the parents' bed.)

Bed sharing for sleep when the parents do not smoke or take alcohol or drugs increases the risk of SIDS. Risks associated with bed sharing are greatly increased when combined with parental smoking, maternal alcohol consumption and/or drug use. A substantial reduction of SIDS rates could be achieved if parents avoided bed sharing.

bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/5/e002299.long

I think most people on this thread have said that, aside from a learning curve, they found BFing easy and enjoyable, and health benefits weren't even the main reason? Not all, but most. I know I loved it!

Honestly, it being free and easy, and my enjoyment of the closeness aside, it was worth it just to prevent my child getting chicken pox as a baby, thanks to my own immunity! The immunity aspect was a huge benefit just generally.

Although what's your reasoning behind claiming that these benefits aren't evidenced? I looked one up just off the back of this thread, and it seems BFing reduces rates of childhood leukemia?

I'm not sure anyone is promoting bed sharing, exactly, just talking about their own experiences, and what they loved about how they chose to BF, which often does include bed sharing.

Personally I'm not at all bothered by people pointing out the elevated risk - it's entirely true, and something I think everyone is made aware of by the health system, as they should be.

For me though, given I was literally falling asleep while holding my baby in the early weeks, it ended up being safer for me to bed share for most of the night rather than drop them. Much the same as, I imagine, parents decide FF is the best practical choice for them, despite the benefits of BFing. Everyone is different.

I appreciate parents that have chosen to bedshare get very defensive and het up about the evidence around it

Do they? I certainly don’t. I knew there were some risks involved in bed sharing. I chose to do it because I believe the benefits outweighed the risk.

But while you’re at it with the gross generalisation about how apparently all BFing mothers chose to bed share, can we discuss what I have found to be the case with FF mothers? Because nearly all the ones I have known have been extremely quick to rush their baby in to their own room well before the 6 months that’s advised…

If you can generalise so can I.

You are correct. It’s an odd phenomenon that FF mothers are in the vast vast majority (showing just how socially acceptable it is and that nobody bats an eye - the way it should be - I believe it should always be the woman’s choice) and yet on the whole they seem to be the most defensive about their choices. Whereas BF mothers who are in the complete minority tend to be almost apologetic when they talk about it. I often see BF mothers try to explain why they chose to BF and usually either become self deprecating (oh I did it because I am lazy) or they feel the need to add a disclaimer that they are totally in favour of formula etc. now that’s fine to think that, it’s sensible to think that, but why can’t women just say “do you know what, BFing was difficult in the beginning but I actually bloody loved it and I am proud of the fact that I BF my baby” without the caveats or without worrying about offending someone else?!

I mentioned way back in the thread, but I started off reading Crib Sheet book and then went through the sources from there and beyond. It certainly made me conclude that although there are some minor short term benefits to ebf, it's simply not backed up by the science that it has a significant longterm effect on the individual baby. So if you find formula best for your family, go for it. If breastfeeding works best, go for it. There's not much worth agonising over. I'll paste something I wrote a few years back on the topic for a different purpose below, but to summarise the evidence

Regarding benefits for the baby, there is relatively good evidence for:

• Fewer gastrointestinal infections/diarrhoea, particularly during the first year.
• Fewer rashes/eczema in infancy.
• Possibly fewer ear infections, although this evidence is less robust.
• Some other short-term health effects appear possible, but the effects are generally small.

And for the mother, she considers the evidence for lower breast-cancer risk considerably more compelling. Oster describes this as potentially one of the more meaningful long-term benefits of breastfeeding.

Pasting below

When looking at the WHO recommendations, it's important to remember that they are thinking about public health policy for the entire world. Access to clean water changes everything, and in the developed world the benefits of breastfeeding are marginal at best.

‘Breast is best’ is pretty much woo (except for premature babies.) The difference in outcomes for breastfeeding versus formula feeding is trivial to nonexistent once you control for socioeconomic status - the reality is that wealthier and more privileged families are more likely to breastfeed.

Sibling study used to control for socioeconomic status:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4077166/

The real benefits to breastfeeding are a slightly decreased risk of GI illnesses, respiratory illnesses, and a slightly decreased risk of cancer (for the mom, not the baby). But that doesn't make breastfeeding the right choice for everyone, and it doesn't make breastfeeding vastly superior to formula in the way that many say it is.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/everybody-calm-down-about-breastfeeding/

On a population level, when you look at hundreds of thousands of babies, breast milk results in fewer upper respiratory infections and fewer gastrointestinal infections. So, yes, health authorities promote breastfeeding and formula companies are legally responsible for writing "breast milk is better" on their can. In theory, if hundreds of thousands of mothers BF instead of FF that's millions of pounds in saved health care costs. (But note that these proposed health care savings have only ever been modeled and never validated in the real world. Meaning they probably don't happen.)

But on an individual baby level, there's really no appreciable differences (see the sibling study and the probit study).

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2006/03/tales_from_the_nursery.html

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/questioning-the-evidence-for-breastfeeding/

https://expectingscience.com/2015/11/02/breastfeeding-benefits-the-real-the-imagined-and-the-exaggerated/

This is a very long report. You would need to read the whole thing including the issues with the studies used: https://archive.ahrq.gov/downloads/pub/evidence/pdf/brfout/brfout.pdf

And also, these benefits (slight reduction in infections on a population level) are strictly short term. None of the claims about long term impacts of breastfeeding are supported by evidence. There are no proven links between breastfeeding and IQ, obesity, behavior problems, parental attachment, food allergies, ADHD, or any other of the long-term health indicators often put forward as reasons for referring to breast milk as “liquid gold.” Sibling studies have produced “results suggest[ing] that much of the beneficial long-term effects typically attributed to breastfeeding, per se, may primarily be due to selection pressures into infant feeding practices along key demographic characteristics such as race and socioeconomic status.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24698713

At a year old, there is precisely zero difference between a breastfed child and a formula fed child. Breastfeeding is not going to set your child up for a lifetime of success, and formula feeding does not create lifelong issues.

It's also important to keep in mind that infant feeding is not just about which liquid your baby is ingesting (breastmilk or formula). There are also lifestyle impacts that vastly outweigh any factors about the milk itself.

Oh yes, they very much do! That's great that you don't. You're the first bedsharing parent I've met that acknowledges they did it with full knowledge of the risks. The dominant rhetoric tends to be 'it's completely safe! Lullaby Trust says so! Follow the Safe Sleep Seven and it's actually safer than the ABCs of safe sleep!' and so forth. That's really positive that you made a parenting decision based on the evidence. I'm pro that, as you can see :) we all deserve to decide how to raise our babies with the right information and knowledge.

Interesting. I'll have to read through those.

As I said, the immunity alone would've made it well worth it for me, but also it was free, easy, and I loved it. It wasn't actually about health benefits beyond that at all – I think most people understand those are only significant at a population level, and it's not primarily why they BF. Although I did consider the lower risk of breast cancer a bonus.

You seem very defensive, honestly, as though you're determined to cast BFing in a negative light in some attempt to justify FFing? Which I can understand, but as 95+% of comments on here haven't been negative about FF, it seems a little unnecessary.

Ok well then please do forgive my snarky tone in my previous response to you. I agree with you. I like to look at evidence, stress test my decisions, think critically and then make my final choice where I can.

Personally, the ones I've spoken to tend to always acknowledge the risk – they usually admit they bed-shared as though they're confessing a guilty secret, and mention they tried to counter the risks as best as possible, and frequently that it was a last resort, but the cot just wasn't working for them, etc.

I’m the same as you. I said upthread that I had no idea there was such a huge FF vs BF debate when I was pregnant. I just thought it made logical sense that breast milk would be healthier than formula. I even remember thinking that ‘healthier’ may even be only ‘marginally healthier’. I did read up on it, I did realise that perhaps it only made a marginal difference but I still wanted to do it. So I did. I don’t regret it, I loved it. I have some beautiful memories of that time and even if that’s all the difference it made, it was still completely worth it.

I'm just a fan of evidence based, balanced information for parents around infant feeding tbh. I did it all (bf, ff, combo fed, pumped etc.) and through my journey found that there's an enooooormous amount of pressure on new mums to bf at all costs, even if it isn't right for them. I do think it's important to be clear about the actual benefits of each method so people can make an informed choice.

I do think though, as much as scientific studies have their place, you can’t reduce everything down to numbers and research and peer reviewed papers.

There are loads of benefits to different types of feeding that aren’t quantitative. Just like there are non-quantitative benefits to co-sleeping.

I wasn’t pressured to BF as I already knew I wanted to. But when he wouldn’t latch reliably on the first night in hospital after he was born, I was actually pressured in to giving him formula. I was tired, sleep
deprived and they dangled the carrot of ‘we will let you go home today if you choose to formula feed him’ but wouldn’t discharge me if I said I wanted to continue breastfeeding. I didn’t cave and stayed in that second night but my god did I want to go home. So I think pressure comes from different places and we are pressured in to different things. Mum’s choice should always be supported.

I don’t understand why people are so bloody defensive of the choices they make.

Yes, a straight forward vaginal birth is better for baby and mum than a section.

Yes, breastfeeding is generally preferable to formula feeding

Yes, staying home with your children til 3 is generally better than nursery.

I only did one of those things - I actually worked full time from 7 months whilst extended breastfeeding well into toddlerhood, and I’d signed up for a section by my second trimester - but I can also sit back and be secure that they were the right choices for me, but not necessarily the optimal choices in isolation.

You can make “not optimal but still good” choices without pretending that they’re the highest value outcome if viewed in isolation.

Also Emily Oster is the queen of confirmation bias. She picks and chooses her studies to fit her narrative.

Your last sentence is precisely it. Parents should be given evidence based guidance, and their choices and decisions respected. They should be asked 'how do you plan to feed your baby?' and supported from that point onwards. Not told insistently that there is one way that's drastically better and pressured to do that.

I agree on the non tangible benefits too for sure. It never reallllly clicked with me while pregnant that ebf would mean never being able to share feeds or properly share care of the baby for the first six months. When the penny dropped I felt so dumb, but also wondered why that was never highlighted as a downside of ebf. There are a lot of women who would really struggle with that for various reasons. (physical and mental health, other responsibilities etc.) I found the non tangible benefits of bf were spoken about a lot but never the opposite!

You’re focusing on cancer. Scientists can’t pinpoint a causal link between formula feeding and cancer but it’s one variable in its development.

Also breastfeeding prevents ovarian cancer in the mother. Obviously formula does not.

Formula milk does not provide immunity for the baby. Breast milk does via colostrum and when the baby latches to the breast.

Formula milk provides iron in a form that the baby is unable to absorb sufficiently.

Formula feeding allows others to feed the baby. This is not ideal. The mother and maybe the other parent should feed to promote emotional attachment and eye contact. Feeding is not solely about nutrition. It’s about promoting emotional attachment. I’ve never seen any bottle fed baby have skin-to-skin contact with the feeding parent.

Breastmilk is easily digested so the baby needs to feed more regularly. This promotes early development of appetite regulation that lasts beyond childhood.

Also breastfeeding can help with speech development.

Also, there have recently been several scandals linked to contaminated formula. Bf is definitely healthier in those cases!