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!

I can’t say I agree with that outright. What I would say is a lot of mums put pressure on themselves to continue when it’s really difficult, not going well and are utterly miserable.
i was in the I’ll give it a go but always wanted to combi feed. It just didn’t go well at all but I still felt pressure to continue. Mainly from myself and I actually quite liked the bonding part of it. My milk never actually came in, and it was so painful (which I was not expecting at all). I had to start giving bottle feeds at day 5 as advised by hospital (was still in) and when I got home after 7 days I knew I had to just stop, myself and baby were absolutely miserable and both crying. I gave my second born a few days just to give the colostrum and then went to formula.

I know other mums that put themselves through hell trying to make it work for weeks and some even months before giving up. The mums I do know that breastfed long term found it really easy and not painful at all. I just think everyone’s bodies are different.

I have two mid teens and deeply, deeply regret breastfeeding them. It was breastfeeding that made the template for me as the default parent. That template took years and years to realign. In some ways it never fully realigned. DP should have been an equal carer from the get go.
Probably not helped that my babies were HUGE (top centile huge) and needed so, so much milk.

Not a good choice environmentally though. (I’m aware lots of people don’t give a shit about the planet, but for those who do, this sort of thing will be a factor in making these decisions).

Your DP could have been an equal carer while you breastfed. Mine was.

Pros and cons to both.

I can remember standing in the kitchen at 4am warming up a bottle, screaming baby probably had half the neighbours up, -15 outside (Scottishwinter), house was freezing and I was desperate to pee.

Would have been so much nicer to have ready made food on tap whilst being all cosy in my bed!

I also remember being so exhausted I was starting to hallucinate and the world looked black&white. My parents scooped up DS took him to their home leaving me to indulge in about 14 hours sleep until the colour came back into my vision 😆.

I'm sorry that their father is a dick. BF shouldn't be a get out for fathers and in a decent relationship this doesn't happen.

I hope life is easier for you now xx

Same except 2 dcs. So easy to pop on the boob. And easy to do so discretely. Supposedly good for their immune system too?

Do whatever suits you @ChristmasBaby2026 . Don't be pressured by anyone. You'll get allsorts of advice. Some might be useful. Some out of date. Some ridiculous.

The bottom line is that very often this isn't the clear cut choice you're making it out to be and you will find out which works for you when you get there. You can insist you're going to exclusively BF and then find you've got inadequate supply and it's a choice between FF or end up back in hospital for tube feeding because birth weight has dropped so much, or plan to FF and then find after the birth that actually you want to BF and it goes well so you stick with it.

Plan to feed and figure out the how when you get there.

Fwiw - FF and it really isn't that big a faff, it's easy.

There's only one decision to make and that's what's right for you. You can't make sweeping generalisations because you end up with rhetoric and anecdote. One woman's FF description of "able to see how much they're getting and they sleep well" is another woman's "stuffing them full of milk so they're over full and you're risking lifelong poor understanding of satiety." Likewise, I can say that I made tailor made immunity for my babies through BF while my friend can rightly counter that her bf baby was easily her sickest. Anecdote and rhetoric.

BFing is the biological norm. FF is a perfectly adequate and usually safe alternative for those who can't or don't want to BF. One has more inherent risk in general and objective terms, both have risks in subjective terms.

I think you should just see what works for you. But, as someone who FF, it also has its practical downsides (apart from any ‘what’s best for baby’ arguments):

• going out is much for complicated, you always have to think about where to get boiled water from, mix and then cool down bottles on the go, etc. Definitely a big pain when travelling.
• Sharing night feeds with DH sounds great, but although I only had to get up for one feed per night that way, the task involved getting out of bed and making a bottle, which means I was completely awake and sometimes it took me a while to go back to sleep. On balance, my BF friends were not more tired than me, they had to do 2-3 feeds per night but could just roll over in bed and feed and back to sleep without getting fully awake.

@Waitingfordoggo

I would prioritise making life easier for mothers

You can buy them in much bigger sizes, which doesn’t make them considerably worse than normal food packaging / milk carton waste when they’re a bit older.

My kids never had formula. I did it for them, not me as it was obviously harder than sleeping at night half the days. I don’t know whether it was right or not as we will never know if aiding and abetting exP’s instinctive laziness and lack of empathy for me was what led to our eventual split. Maybe it made no difference as begging him to get up and bottle feed when he didn’t feel like it may have been no better for our relationship than me doing everything and being criticized for being tired and no fun all the time.

That’s really sad, but I’d guess it’s an issue with the relationship/your partner rather than breastfeeding itself. Many of us who breastfed have not ended up as default parent; and conversely there are women who didn’t bf who have ended up as default parent.

I didn't let dh get out of feeding. I expressed or used the gold cartons. Dcs took to it ok.

This should be at the start of every conversation on infant feeding on here. Very well said, in my opinion :-)

Once established, breast feeding can be very easy. If you are the one primarily with the baby anyway it means you can feed laying down at night and no extra chores with cleaning the bottles and much cheaper.

It is very much a personal decision and will depend on your lifestyle and plans. It also depends on your philosophy- I wanted to do everything as nature intended- I had home births and breast fed and all went perfectly for me but it doesn’t mean my choices would work for someone else.

I was very happy with being with my babies full time and breastfeeding. I never made a single bottle with any of my four babies.

If breastfeeding mums seem more tired etc, it’s because they may not getting much help and support with general baby care and house hold stuff. Sometimes family leaves everything to mum because they think that they can’t do anything because they can’t take the baby for a feed.

Overall breastfeeding mums get more sleep as there’s no getting up to make bottles in the night, and breastfeeding releases oxytocin which helps you get back to sleep. Lots of comments here about FF meaning others can feed/bond with baby, but newborns actually need a main carer and a secondary carer, not a whole extended family passing them around like a doll. Newborns need to form secure attachments with their main carers, mums do this mostly by breastfeeding, but the other parent can do this by bathing, changing nappies, cuddling, baby wearing, rocking, singing, contact napping etc.

Statistically speaking postpartum depression is more common in artificially feeding mums, as well as the other health risks to mum and baby that increase when artificial feeding.

You can go to your local breastfeeding support group before your baby is born and talk this through with trained peer supporters and other mums. Learn about proper positioning and attachment and you shouldn’t get sore nipples (unless baby has a tongue tie) and engorgement is worse if you don’t breastfeed because your milk will come in anyway, and until it goes away your breasts will be sore. Feeding will reduce the engorgement.

Sometimes artificially fed babies seem more ‘chill’ but it’s often due to them being very full from overfeeding. Paced bottle feeding is still not universally practiced, so most people encourage baby to finish a whole bottle, then baby is in a food coma and conks out. Babies are not meant to be low maintenance, and hands free. They need lots of interaction and physical contact, the idea of scheduled feeds with baby being fed-burped-changed-put down is very outdated, the NHS now encourages responsive nurture and feeding on demand, even if you’re not breastfeeding.

I’ve been an infant feeding peer support volunteer for 20 years, and can help with all kinds of evidence based information, not just “I did this with my baby and they turned out ok” anecdotes. I hope this helps.

I breastfed both my babies. I found it easy. I wasn’t miserable.

Yeah that's a relationship problem, not a BFing problem. I had big top centile babies and exclusively BF for years rather than months. DH did his fair share and nowadays (adult and nearly adult DC) actually does more than me due to our shift patterns. Feeding the baby is one element of raising them. An equal partner can do all and any of the other care, as well as caring for the mother while she feeds.

Breastfed my 1st for 13 months and currently breastfeeding my 2nd who’s 15 months, in the process of weaning him off the old baps.

The worst part is the early days with the engorgement and cluster feeding, especially with my 1st. It’s something my body has never done before and I was healing from a horrendous pregnancy and birth too.

Once supply is regulated and the newborn period is done, it becomes infinitely easier. I loved the fact I could leave the house without having to worry about bottles, sterilising things and making sure I had enough formula.

Nights were easier as I could just feed them and then pass back out, without needing to get out of bed. Babies went back to sleep faster too, as the moment they woke, they’d be feeding in seconds.

My 1st born took a bottle which meant my husband could do feeds too. My 2nd was a snob and would only feed from the source or he’d willingly starve himself.

There was no worrying about the cost of formula, shortages or contamination.

Cons are most definitely in the newborn phase with perfecting latch, getting used to it all and feeling like a milk dispenser.

It’s one of those things that you won’t know until you try it. If it doesn’t work out or you don’t like it, formula exists. What matters is a happy baby and a happy mum.

Ok. I wouldn’t necessarily; depends on the situation. Obviously the health of the baby and mum are the number one priorities but convenience, not so much.

I bottle fed and found it worked really well for me. It wasn’t a choice initially- tried to breast feed and it didn’t work for us. But I’m not sad about it as I’ve found things smooth sailing. Partner does a lot of the feeds, so do my parents when they visit. They love cuddles and bottle feeding him, and it’s nice for me to have a bit of hands free time whilst they do it. We have a prep machine which is a god send and we don't find sterilising bottles to be onerous. Baby is just over one now and very happy and healthy, and has slept through since 12 weeks old.
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I'd say first few weeks easier with a bottle but a lot easier logistically after the first 2 months compared to bottle feeding when I could pop baby in a baby carrier and drop it down slightly to feed in the sling. Meant I could be out and about during the day with baby in the baby carrier and they only needed taking out for nappies being changed as they could sleep and feed in the sling.

It saved the tedious round of having to feed/change a baby after they wake up so you can just pop to the shops for some milk as I could put them in the sling and crack on. Not something I could have done easily with a bottle fed baby.

This one of those things that seem incredibly important at the time but nobody cares about once the children are past being babies/ toddlers
Mine were bottle fed which was the right decision for me.