To be annoyed that there is so much conflicting advice about feeding a baby?

[SamJohnsMum]

...BF for 10 mins a side...BF on demand...BF on routine...introduce a bottle early,,,don't introduce a bottle too early...don't wean before 6 months...wean when you want to..let them wean themselves...puree everything you can...babyrice is an ideal first food food...babyrice is wallpaper paste...

Head...about...to...explode...[confused and panicked emoticon]

I feel your pain!
When it all got too much I found it helpful to pretend I was a Stone Age cave mother and do whatever my most primitive instincts suggested...

Don't panic!

Try here:

here

Unicef are rolling out training programmes in evidence based bf support across the NHS to try to reduce the amount of conflicting advice women are being given.

You can download leaflets here on all aspects of feeding.

No! YANBU - just a natural mother who wants the best for thir lo. I'm abit in the same boat just now, even though I'm on my 2nd! The links above look good - thanks gabygirl

YANBU

I like MrsBadger's advice, I suppose that's what I did. But then I did feel the need for a "manual" and so skim-read them in waterstones/the library until I found someone whose philosophy I agreed with.

I suppose on the flip side though, we are lucky to live in an age where we can choose what we think is right from reading the evidence, rather than being forced into one way of feeding (say, your baby taken away from you in hospital and being presented to you every 4 hours for a breastfeed).

YANBU I was thinking exactly this this morning.

That Unicef link is good, there's a pdf leaflet on weaning which is just what I wanted.

It's a minefield isn't it?

Do your research, ask fellow mnetters and after all that follow your instincts and do what you think is best. Only advice I can give

It is very, very, very, very, annoying.

Books can basically say what they want even if its a load of tosh, and health visitors don't necessarily agree with official guidelines.

Throw away your books. Things will become a lot clearer

no do not throw them out

they are v hnady for propping up the head of the cot to ease coughing / snotting coldy baby

People who don't read the books and who don't know about the RANGE of advice are the ones who fall at the first hurdle, when their HV tells them they need to top up with formula because their baby is too big/too small/slightly low blood sugar/they haven't got enough milk/their milk isn't 'rich' enough for their baby/their baby isn't following the curve on the growth charts exactly.......

No - look at the books, but ask yourself - what training, qualifications and experience has the person who wrote this book had in supporting breastfeeding women ? Have they got an axe to grind? Is the advice evidence based?

Once you start asking these questions you realise how many really dodgy bf publications there are - written by women with a) minimal training (eg, Gina Ford) b) an axe to grind (e.g Claire Byam Cook) c) who prefer to ignore the evidence because they want to take a populist stance in the bf/ff debate (e.g Tracy Hogg)

So, once you've thrown all the crap out, you realise that most of the rest are actually towing the same line on breastfeeding!

I went for the cavewoman approach too. I decided that she knows far better than me what she wants and went with her. I put her to the breast when she asked for it and then letting her feed herself solids seemed a natural progression (and was what the professionals in this area recommend).

YANBU - it's too much isn't it?! But it sells books.

I found out through experience that some things like not introducing a bottle, was advice with an agenda, i.e. keep the bottle away until they're sure to refuse it! Nothing wrong with teaching your babe to be adaptable.

You need common sense and a bit of walking the middle line (not easy when your brain is post baby mush), for e.g. on your points I learnt:

-Breast IS best, but don't kill yourself, just do your best trying.

-Bottle early on is a good way to get a break and get dad involved. (Tommee Tippee are great for supporting b/f)

-Routine is a good way to have a life and keep things predictable, you being boss, not baby etc, but if they demand extra let em have it.

-Only wean early on HV advice to be sure the milk is right first (and then keep it a teaspoon or two a day if poss till nearer 6 months)

-Baby rice mixed with puree provides vitamins AND fills them up!

Oh and don't feel guilty about everything!

xx

Oh p.s. and all the experts I spoke to in person and on the phone said let them empty a breast before switching...

gabysgirl

How do you know Claire BC has an axe to grind?

Not asking aggressively, am just curious. I think her book is v anti bfing, despite its title, but why does she have an axe and how is an innocent reader meant to know that? Or for that matter that Tracy Hogg is taking a populist stance? They don't exactly advertise it on the dustjacket!

I think Gabygirl has a point: once you chuck all the books by obviously unqualified people and all the ones that are older than a certain date, then you will find that they say pretty much the same thing.

(And even a lot of health visitors will be saying the same thing too: it is not the case that all health visitors are ancient old crones peddling the same outdated advice. The ones I've met have all been sensible level-headed people, well up on the latest government guidelines and with their own practical experience to add to that)

Of course, there will always be cases where life itself means that you have to arrange things differently. I was a fervent believer in breastfeeding, with milk spurting onto the ceiling every time I moved, and all the support you could imagine from the local hospital and health visitors, all totally committed to breastfeeding - I still ended up feeding dd breast milk from a syringe because she was too weak to suck . It wasn't at all the natural experience I had envisaged.

Still, we got through it and she survived and 11 years later I finally found out that it was because of her disability and nothing at all to do with my being a bad parent. Oh well, better late than never.

Who was it on MN who used her cat as a role model?

Did she get fur balls, Habbibu?

The late Tacy Hogg devoted her life to understanding babies and children and I think her books are wonderful personally.

Unlike the presumptuous "let's boss mum's around like army cadets before actually having any personal experience" Gina Ford types they are mum friendly, and the only books that I felt try to get you to see the baby's point of view from the outsett, without sacrificing yourself...

SamJohn'sMum - I think books are handy reference but not bibles, even old Gina had some use when I was working out roughly when my LO's nap times should be / and change, but then she passes off babies natural rhythm's as her own ideas IMO...
The least opinionated one with good comon sense advice I found, was the What to expect range, in particular, "What to Expect, The First Year."

Now, I found What To Expect so awful I put it in the recycling as I couldn;t bear the thougth of another mother being exposed to the utter tosh therin. I did have a US edition though, which I'm sure didn;t help.

the US edition has got some schmaltzy language! Not too judgmental a book though, with advice not orders?

Goes to show we all need to find the book we need though perhaps, we are all different, and want different stuff from them.

MrsBadger's cavewoman advice is spot on I reckon.

When in doubt I always reverted to asking myself what would happen "in the wild"?

'a) minimal training (eg, Gina Ford'

Well, it may not be kosher to say so on MN but she helped my daughter sleep through the night, happily and healthily, from about six months, with attendant benefit to my physical and psychological state.

I wish I'd read the book when my son was a baby.

I think there's a lot of different advice for two main reasons:

1. All mothers and babies are unique and different things work for different people.

1. There is a very profitable advice industry out there. This includes NHS and private healthcare employees who are paid to give advice, authors, and gurus.

"Bottle early on is a good way to get a break and get dad involved"

Alternatively you could get dad to do the bathing/changing nappies/cuddles and not bottlefeed your newborn - therebye reducing the chance of your baby getting nipple confusion and rejecting the breast altogether (there's a fair amount of evidence which shows that using bottles can and does complicate bf for some women - which is why all properly trained bf counsellors and lactation consultants advise caution when it comes to bottlefeeding a bf newborn). There's also the issue of engorgement and mastitis - more of a risk if you're not empyting your breasts because dad is giving a bottle instead of you feeding your baby yourself. Although I suppose you could express while dad feeds. Personally I'd rather feed my baby than fiddle with a breastpump.

"-Routine is a good way to have a life and keep things predictable, you being boss, not baby etc, but if they demand extra let em have it."

I would have thought that when you're establishing breastfeeding it's probably more sensible initially to concentrate on getting bf established, which means NOT feeding to a schedule but feeding on demand, at least for the first few weeks. The evidence stacks up against scheduled feeds for the first few weeks and for feeding on demand - something every single NHS sponsored leaflet on bf tells you.

"-Only wean early on HV advice to be sure the milk is right first (and then keep it a teaspoon or two a day if poss till nearer 6 months)"

Depends whether your HV is a dinosaur who hasn't updated her knowledge or practice since training in 1979!